Author Profile: Cory Doctorow

(Image credit - Jonathan Worth)

Author Cory Doctorow is a digital-rights activist, blogger, speaker, father, and has written books across several genres, including the nonfiction “Content” and the young adult “Little Brother” – which we reviewed last year. Doctorow is a writer and contributor for boingboing, a blog about “tech, culture, and liberty.” Many of his books are available as free downloads from his website, where you’ll also find information about Creative Commons licenses (as seen above), as well as interesting news from the tech world. While all of Doctorow’s books have a decidedly techie bent, you don’t need to be a techie to enjoy them – just be prepared for an interesting ride that will make you care about the characters, and never want to put the book down (or turn the computer off!).

Little Brother

Taking its title as a check to the "Big Brother" in George Orwell's classic 1984, Little Brother gives the reader an intense and satisfying modern view of a post-9/11 world that is scary in more ways than one. Watch the suspense as teenage hacker Marcus and his friends try to outwit the government's technology and live their lives normally again.

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Makers

Corporate giants and micro-projects are the focus of this novel about a pair of genius geeks who have more ideas than they know what to do with. They find cures for various conditions and diseases, new ways to run theme parks, and cheap 3D printing. Their ideas can cause them trouble, of course, and we see the effects of technology's rapid changes through booms and busts.

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Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present

A treasure trove of scifi stories is presented here, in several novellas featuring takes on gold farmers (which you'll also find in 2010's For the Win), zombies, robots, and system administrators. Doctorow is aces at exploring the possibilities of technology, so if you enjoy speculative fiction, this is the one for you.

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Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Doctorow's very first novel shows his love for Disney theme parks. In this Locus-award winner, where the technologically immortal intend to take over the Haunted Mansion and the Hall of Presidents at the theme park. Left to stop them is a century-old named Jules, whose boyhood dream was to take up residence at Disney World. Jules' story is a wild ride (and not just when he's riding the rides) through technology and dreams.

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Outside of a Dog, #79

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx.

Last week, the literary world lost a great many prolific writers, maybe most notably J.D. Salinger. Also gone are historian Howard Zinn, mystery author Ralph McInerny, and fantasy writer Kage Baker. Here, we list our favorite books by these gone too soon scribes.


Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A staple of most high school and Advanced Placement summer reading lists, Salinger's first and most famous book has inspired legions of readers to be true to themselves and not the "phony" superficiality of the world. This coming-of-age novel is still used and criticized today for its literary merit.
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Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
Salinger collected his nine stories that had previously appeared in The New Yorker, Harpers, and The World Review here and titled it as exactly what his readers should expect: nine short stories. This includes the very famous "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "Teddy," which is a logical end to Bananafish's beginning.
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Mendoza in Hollywood by Kage Baker
One of Baker's "The Company" series, this time travel science fiction novel follows the botanist Mendoza through her present location and her past stories and lovers. These 24th century novels are tightly plotted, taking a new look at old time travel tropes through the eyes of an enduring 'company' of regular narrators.
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Mother Aegypt and Other Stories by Kage Baker
The title story once again visits with members of "The Company," and the others included here go all over time and the world and other universes with Baker's exquisite prose. Occasionally, the characters are derived or inspired by other classic works of literature, too.
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Her Death of Cold by Ralph McInerny
Author of over 100 books (including the Father Dowling mysteries and some nonfiction), Ralph McInerny was a longstanding staple of many patrons' Must-Read lists. He began with this first Father Dowling mystery in 1977.
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Half Past Nun: A Sister Mary Teresa Mystery by Ralph McInerny
Written under the pen name "Monica Quill," after the success of the Father Dowling mysteries, Sister Mary Teresa is a sleuth not unlike her predecessor. Here, she looks back in time to find the connection between several murder victims, all without leaving the convent. Mystery fans of any stripe will love this crafty tale.
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A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Long thought to be one of the most enlightening books on American history, Zinn's classic nonfiction offering (first printed in 1980) is still used today. Flipping the history most people learned in school on its ear, A People's History looks at history from the eyes of the working class, everyday people, rather than the educated and elite.
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Three Strikes: Stories of American Labor by Howard Zinn
A collection of three essays by three historians, Zinn appears here with an extended look at the Colorado Coal Strike of 1913-1914.
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Author Profile: Tanya Huff

Writing since the early 1980s, Canadian author Tanya Huff experienced a new burst of popularity when Lifetime (the television channel) turned her "Blood Books" into a series for two seasons. She writes for a living, mostly science fiction and urban fantasy, as well as short stories that sometimes aren’t connected to any of her major works. If you like Jim Butcher, who we profiled last month, give Tanya Huff a try!

Blood Price (The Blood Books)
This is the first in the Victory Nelson/Blood Books series (five books total, now released in three two-book omnibus format), which also includes a number of short stories. Vicki “Victory” Nelson is a private detective who used to be a cop; she had to quit the force because of her deteriorating eyesight, and now makes a living trying not to step on the force (or her former partner, Mike Celluci)’s toes. The first time we meet Victory, she’s stumbling upon what appears to be a mass murder case – but she later finds, with the help of 500-year-old vampire Henry Fitzroy, that it’s not just any murderer who’s come calling.
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Smoke and Ashes (The Smoke Trilogy)
If after the Blood Books, you want more Henry Fitzroy, try The Smoke Trilogy. Here, Henry has left Toronto for Vancouver, taking with him Victory Nelson’s one-time informant Tony. Tony, who is discovering he’s more than a vampire’s sometimes-boyfriend, works for the most popular television show in North America, Darkest Night, and happens across all manner of supernatural bad guys while looking like any other lowly production assistant.
(This is the second book in the trilogy. Smoke and Shadows is the first.)
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Summon the Keeper (The Keeper’s Chronicles)
All of Huff’s modern books take place in various places across her home country of Canada, and although many of them are ten and twenty years old, none of the stories seem dated. Here, in the Keeper’s Chronicles, we meet Claire the Keeper, destined to protect the Earth when necessary. In this, the first book, Claire must seal a portal to Hell (which happens to be in the basement of a bed and breakfast) with the help of a talking cat, a very dead ghost, and a cook.
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Heart of Valor (The Confederation)
After Valor’s Choice, and The Better Part of Valor, this third book revisits heroine Torin Kerr, who’s been promoted to Marine Gunnery Sergeant. The Confederation novels explore how many species might live together out on the rims of space, and on space stations.
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Finding Magic (Short Stories)
From a few stories set in the Confederation world (like the really hilarious “I Knew a Guy Once”) to a thrashing retelling of the classic faerie tale “Tam Lin” – here called “He Said, Sidhe Said,” Huff visits new worlds, and tells stories from old favorites. A latest story about Tony is found here, too. There are three other short story collections by Tanya Huff, as well, all with ‘Magic’ somewhere in the title.
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Outside of a Dog, #48

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx.

Sir Thomas More, once Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII, coined the word “utopia” to describe a perfect world he wrote about in his book of the same name. While there are few other authors who have written about ideal societies, the library is not at all short on the opposite books. Called “dystopian,” meaning the opposite of a perfect world, here are a few, new and old:

Feed – M.T. Anderson

In a future where you can vacation on the moon, over 70% of Americans, young and old, have a constant, instant feed of the Internet (including banner ads!) implanted into their brains. What happens when a teenage girl decides to fight the feed?

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The Time Machine – H.G. Wells

A classic from the prolific author, in which the unnamed Time Traveller builds a time machine and visits the end of the world while only being gone for three hours. He discovers the Eloi and Morlocks, and their distinct dystopian, and frightening, society.

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Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand

Considered both classic and anachronistic, Rand’s novel is about a dystopian future when the people don’t ask questions because they know there are no answers to be had. The government controls all commerce, and Rand’s theory of Objectivism is explained.

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Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

One of the most popular and well-known of all dystopian novels is this classic from scifi author Bradbury. In a world where books are banned – and even burned – what happens when a “firefighter,” one of the men employed to burn books and houses containing them, tries to rebel and question why?

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Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

From the author of “The Remains of the Day,” this novel views a future, different Britain, where clones are raised only for their organs, then must be convinced to give up their lives and die.

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Outside of a Dog, #47

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx.

Hard science fiction is a subgenre in science fiction where the author places emphasis on the science part of the genre. Details are given as to how the science and physics of the story works, and the story falls into place amongst the details of the futuristic computer systems, robots, and technology.

World War Z – Max Brooks

Zombies as science? Believe it or not, in this journalistic account of how zombies are made – through a disease spread through saliva (which accounts for the reason why zombies are often portrayed as biting other people) – tells a compelling story of how the world would react were this really the case.

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Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes

A science fiction classic wherein Charlie Gordon, a mentally retarded man, volunteers for an experiment that turns him into a genius – but only temporarily. This novel, when it was released, brought about a lot of questions about what makes a person, and has been retold in many ways, including a Futurama episode (“Parasites Lost”).

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Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson

Ninjas, the mafia, and pizza delivery guys don’t exactly scream “Science Fiction,” but in Stephenson’s remarkable first novel, he (and the hero, called Hiro) will make you believe that man and machine can work together to stop civilization from being taken over. Stephenson is regarded as a cyberpunk master, and has continued with great novels of hard science fiction, such as 2008’s “Anathem.”

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Neuromancer – William Gibson

Another pioneer in the field of cyberpunk, Gibson’s 1984 novel explores artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and genetic engineering, as seen through the eyes of a damaged hacker. This novel was groundbreaking at the time, giving rise the phrase “cyberspace” and eventually leading to the creation of the roleplaying game “Shadowrun.”

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The Minority Report – Philip K. Dick

One of the best known and best loved authors of science fiction, Philip K. Dick is responsible for making generations of readers rethink the concept of free will. This is a collection of his short stories, including the title story, which was made into a movie in 2002.

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You'll want to Host this book!

Today's Book: The Host, by Stephenie Meyer


The Plot: In this new science fiction offering, the Earth has been invaded by beings from another planet. To the invaders, it appears as though they have been successful. They have taken a chaotic planet filled with emotional and often violent inhabitants, and created a peaceful, organized community. And this isn't the first time! They've conquered other planets with the same satisfying results. In order to achieve success, the invaders surgically introduce "souls" into people and take over their bodies. Usually the soul of the human is overcome and eventually disappears. But Melanie Stryder doesn't allow the invading soul called Wanderer to take over her body. She fights to regain control and the peace-loving and gentle Wanderer must learn to fight back. But Wanderer becomes so overwhelmed by Melanie's memories of her love for her family and for Jared, a fellow resistor, that she yields to Melanie's wishes to find her family and friends. Then the excitement really begins!

Why You'll Love It: Two people living in the same body - weird! Invaders that are peace-loving, kind, friendly, and only come to improve our chaotic, emotional, and sometimes violent ways - hey the invaders sound like good guys! A huge, many-roomed dark cave with tiny natural skylights enhanced with mirrors to create light inside - cool and inventive. People wrestling with fascinating questions about what makes a person who they are (is the greater good always preference to what is good for an individual? Can altruism ever be evil?) -- Interesting!

Who Should Read It: Science fiction fans, fiction readers, and young adult readers will love this book. (Stephenie Meyer also writes the Twilight series, so if you like her style of writing - and you're waiting eagerly for Midnight Sun to be published! - try this book.)

The Host, by Stephenie Meyer
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Thanks to KF for this review!