Dear Log,
I finished reading Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Not awful, but not so great. It mostly seems to adopt some props from Egan's Permutation City with a bit of Vinge's Marooned in Realtime, but it doesn't do anything clever with those props. The prose is overdetermined. Read Bruce Sterling instead. Or the paper. Or take a nap. Mmmmm nap.
It's not a bad first try tho. At least he remembered to have a real plot -- something which regularly escapes some people (ahem Stephenson, Egan, etc etc).
Thanks for the review. I've been meaning to read this (especially since it's available for free on the web).
If you are as curious as I was, here is an audio interview with Doctorow. He also maintains his own journal.
