In the introduction to one story Cory Doctorow mentions that he is, at most, very distantly related to E.L. Doctorow. He certainly bears very little similarity as a writer...and that's fortunate. I have twice gotten no more than five pages into one of old E.L.'s books.
Cory's 2003 collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More, comprises the much of his shorter work. His unique slant provides frequent surprises, and his skills make the stories a pleasure to read, even though he has his generation's penchant for casual vulgarity. These nine stories are about as mixed a bag as I've seen:
- Craphound: An alien who's really into kitsch, which turns out to be humanity's test for galactic citizenship. The story introduces the "bugouts", aliens the author will use again.
- A Place So Foreign: A coming of age story, in an era of time travel. Set in and near Salt Lake City of the 1890s and 1970s.
- All Day Sucker: A satisfying riff on the notion that, once you've duplicated the expertise of a real expert, how do you find out what you might have forgotten to capture?
- To Market, to Market: The Rebranding of Billy Bailey: Coming of age, Madison Avenue style. More would spoil...
- Return to Pleasure Island: I don't remember earth sprites in the Pinocchio-on-Pleasure-Island story; one such is the protagonist here.
- Shadow of the Mothaship: A combination of Haight-Asbury hippiedom and Harlan Ellison's Jester of "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman". Return of the bugouts, as are the next two.
- Home Again, Home Again: The bugouts have a unique method of dealing with insanity, which is both good and bad news for the normal son of an inmate.
- The Super Man and the Bugout: Super Man's secret identity is a Toronto Jew, he's retired, and he encounters problems with his pension. He also encounters the bugouts, with amusing results.
- 0wnz0red: I reviewed this story here (and another by this author here), and ranted about one premise of the story here. Hacking humanity...what can I say?
I need to poke around and see what he's done since June.
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