Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
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| Written by: | Cory Doctorow |
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| First published: | February 1, 2003 |
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a novel by Cory Doctorow, set in the future of the Bitchun Society, which has abolished conventional money (replace by Whuffie, a complex reputation-based system), scarcity (with cheap renewable energy and nano-assemblers), death (replaced by brain uploads and subsequent downloads to fast-grown clones), and government (with entirely ad-hoc structures).
The story chronicles one of a group of adhocrats running The Haunted Mansion at Disney World, trying to solve his own murder after he is killed prior to the hostile takeover of said attraction by another ad-hoc committee.
Available for free (CC-SA-NC) from the author's website.
- Cloning Blues
- Disney Theme Parks: Primarily set in them, particularly a future Magic Kingdom.
- Drugs Are Bad: Averted, since addiction is easily cured and health consequences don't mean much to immortals, there are casual in-passing references to the main character's girlfriend smoking crack.
- Emotional Maturity Is Physical Maturity: No one so much as bats an eyelash at the Mayfly-December Romance anymore, since physically nearly everyone has a twenty-something body.
- Subverted in that the age difference between the protagonist and his girlfriend does cause some problems. The first chapter opens:
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My girlfriend was 15 percent of my age, and I was old-fashioned enough that it bugged me. |
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- Human Popsicle: "Deadheading" and Keep-A-Movin' Dan's decision to deadhead until the heat-death of the universe. A different technical implementation of the trope, since the bodies aren't actually on ice, the minds are just sitting in backup to be restored at some future date (as opposed to ASAP). The same issues apply, though (in particular, would-be deadheaders wonder whether crowded future generations won't just decide to leave them in storage indefinitely).
- Immortal Life Is Cheap: Taken to extremes, since people in the Bitchun society will evidently deal with a cold by backing up their minds, offing themselves, and resurrecting into a clone. Plus, the main character is murdered by someone who just wants him out of the way temporarily, since they know that killing him will just be an inconvenience.
- Mobstacle Course
- No-Paper Future
- No Fame, No Wealth, No Service: The reputation economic basically behaves like this if your Whuffie is low enough.
- Nothing Left to Do But Die: Keep-A-Movin' Dan.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: Partially averted, there are some downsides to the Bitchun Revolution. Depending on your philosophical views, immortality by backup might be more Nightmare Fuel than not, but everyone in the book's society who felt that way has simply died off, out-competed by the immortals. The reputation-based currency also stifles some sorts of innovation, as going against the crowd is a sure-fire way to end up impoverished.
- The book also mentions a transitional phase in Bitchun when a group of students declared an adhocratic coup against their university professor over the way the class was run, turning the class into a nonfunctional anarchy.
- Shout-Out: Chapter 6 includes the "Snow Crash Spectacular Parade" along with Sushi-K reenacting the journey of Hiro Protagonist.
- Staying Alive: Immortality by backup.
- Suicide Is Painless: And, in the book's world, often very temporary.