Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (edit title)

• Rated 5 stars

“A must read for every geek!”

• Rated 4 stars

“I had no idea what to expect from it except that Disney would somehow be involved. It did involve Disney but man, no way could I have predicted this story line. Set far in the future where death has been cured, everyone is hooked into the net so you have instant information about everyone and everything available at the blink of an eye, people can download things directly to you, and everything is run on a meritocracy. We follow Jules around as he has come back to DisneyWorld to reinvent himself after dying and being brought back from a back-up copy. This time, he ends up staying at DisneyWorld rather than moving on and we see why that is a huge mistake for him. Trapped in webs of lies and deceptions, murdered but brought back into a flawed copy, trying to save the Haunted Mansion. Definitely a must read for SciFi fans and Disneyfiles alike.”

• Rated 3 stars

“A very different story. Jules is a little over a century old and living at Walt Disney World. This is after the bitchun society has taken over and there is no more death or a need for money. Jules is part of the ad-hoc (volunteers) working in the park. A group has come in to revamp the Hall of Presidents and Jules thinks they will move onto the Haunted Mansion next. After he is murdered (there isn't death he had a backup) he thinks it is the group at the Hall of Presidents that killed him. From there he tries to find a way to save his favorite ride at the park and find out who killed him. An interesting book. I liked how they talked about dying but being able to come back with a new clone. At time some of the words confused me, whuffie, ad hocs, but after I figured out what they meant the story went quickly. ”

• Rated 3 stars

“Meh.”

• Rated 1 stars

“Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has all the landmarks of a short story: few characters, self-contained, tidy story arc, a twist ending, and the vaguest hint of a much larger canvas. It might have work wonderfully in that format, but as a novel, it comes across as a very short novel that still needs to rely heavily on filler.

The SF elements of the story have some merit, despite being greatly understated: in a future where resources are infinite, money is replaced by 'reputation economics', represented by points ("Whuffie") given and taken based on the prestige of one's actions. This is a somewhat intruiguing concept, obviously based on online reputation systems such as Slashdot's karma, and it would have made for an interesting novel if its consequences on a world population were more detailed.

Another interesting SF concept explored by Doctorow's novel is that of a society where death has been overcome. People can clone themselves and restore their memory from backup, making death an unpleasant hazard, or sometimes a downright tourist activity. The implications of this idea are intriguing, but nowhere are theyrealized here as they were in Wil McCarthy's Lost in Transmission, or Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, two incredibly superior stories. The only way to mistake this novel as groundbreaking SF, I'm afraid, is by having avoided the aforementionned novels.

What's left in Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, once these concepts are established, is an uninspired story of Disney engineers fighting over the Magic Mansion ride. I understand Doctorow has a passion for the subject, and perhaps it would have made the novel better if I shared it. As it stands, I found the multiple discussions about the legacy of Disney World, and how to treat it in a land of evolving technologies, to be repetitive and trite. Doctorow seems to have a lot to say about technology and tradition, but the message is garbled by being put in the mouth of his confused narrator.

The novel, despite being so short, stumbles forward, focusing on the unsympathetic fight of the narrator against the clever and innovative business tactics of rival imagineers. The characterization is average, the narrator comes across as a fool and an ass more than once, and the pace is often slowed down by unnecessary flashbacks that sound like padding. The twist ending, and the ensuing resolution, are weak, and actually serve to discredit everything that happened before them.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has enjoyed great popularity, both in print and in electronic format, after Cory Doctorow released the novel under a Creative Commons license, thus causing a stir in the online world. It's a safe bet that this move has given Doctorow a lot of word-of-mouth publicity and helped boost his sales. I'll be the first to admit the subject is what has drawn me to the novel in the first place, although I paid for it because I believe in rewarding good publishing decisions by tipping the publisher. As it turns out, I'm afraid to say, the buzz surrounding the release of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom under the Creative Commons license is serving to give incredible exposure to a novel that deserves a lot less based on its content alone.

In all fairness, Cory Doctorow is a fantastic commentator on hi-tech culture, as evidenced by his posts on Boing Boing, one of my daily web destinations. I hear good things about his short stories too, but Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a disappointing novel, even for a first one. In other words, it's an important novel, just not a good one.”

• Rated 4 stars

“I liked this quite a lot, although much of that may have to do with what a Disney park fan I used to be. Doctorow's writing reminds me of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash or Charles Stross's Halting State: interesting future with pyrotechnic style that sometimes impresses, sometimes shows off a bit too much. The ending is a bit rushed, but all-in-all, a great quick read.”

• Rated 3 stars

“So ... original! I've read a billion Sci-Fi novels and only very rarely can I come across one that strikes me as original. Granted there are a lot of Sci-Fi cliches - the chip, the anti-technology feeling, immortality. However, how many SF stories take place in Disney World!?”

• Rated 4 stars

“Disneyland in the late 21st century: a collection of unassociated meritocratic collectives running the rides, putting on the shows, and living and dying by the virtual public's satisfaction with the quality of their homage to the whole Disney experience. Hilarious.”

• Rated 3 stars

“I really enjoyed reading about the world the author has imagined. He explores some interesting problems, like, “If you didn’t have to die, would you want to live forever?” and, “How important IS what other people think of you?” (In the world he has created, what other people think of you is everything.)

The character development left me a little cold. I was unclear as to why the narrator allowed things to end as they did.

All in all though, good, fun read, and neat world.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Absolutely brilliant send-up of the Disneyfied future. In a world where reputation has replaced money as the main currency (and can skyrocket or crash in an instant), an serially reanimated human tries to figure out why he was murdered at Disneyworld. A perfect novel for the myspace generation.”