Cory Doctorow

“ Not as supple as they had once been, his thumbs — no longer the texture of wet clay on a potter's wheel; more like clay after it had been worked to exhausted crackling and brittleness. He reached into the swirling vortex of the cotton-candy machine with his strong right hand and caught the stainless-steel sweep-arm. The engines whined and he felt them strain against his strong right arm, like a live thing struggling to escape a trap. ”

“ What I'm thinking is, there's no reason that both of you shouldn't have your own son. This is Pleasure Island, after all. No one should be sad on Pleasure Island. You've worked hard and well for us for a long time here. We can take care of you."
George felt an uncomfortable sensation in his stomach, a knot of guilt like rising vomit.
"I thought about having another cabin built in the woods, but that's no good. I think that you and Bill need your own space. So let me bounce my current thought off you: we'll put you up in the new Monster's Arms, that's the hotel we're building for HorrorZone. ”

“ He led George through his door, into an office as big as George's cabin.
Orville paced and talked. "Did I say I was glad you came? I'm glad you came. Now, let's talk about Bill. Bill's happy. He's got what he wants. A son. He doesn't have to take care of Joe. It's good for him."
He paused and looked at George. George nodded.
"OK. There's a problem, though. You want a son, too, only Bill won't allow it."
It didn't need any comment, so George kept quiet.
"My thinking is, Bill's so busy with Tom, he wouldn't really notice if you were there or not. You're an adult, you can take care of yourself. ”

“ I still don't know how it is artists will earn a living in the age of the Internet, but I remain convinced that the way to find out is to do basic science: that is, to do stuff and observe the outcome. That's what I'm doing here. The thing to remember is that the very *worst* thing you can do to me as an artist is to not read my work — to let it languish in obscurity and disappear from posterity. Most of the fiction I grew up on is out-of-print, and this is doubly true for the short stories. ”

“ Then, we'll get the whole family together back at the cabin."
The guilt rose higher, choking George.
"Don't worry about eating, either. I've briefed the house chef on your tastes, and he'll send up three squares every day; everything a growing boy needs." He flashed a grin.
"And forget about Bill. I'll smooth things over with him. He'll see that it's for the best."
Finally, George had something to say. "What about Joe?"
Orville had been almost dancing as he spoke, enchanted with his own words. He pulled up short when George spoke. "What about him?"
"I want to live with him again," George said. ”

“ Bill hardly spoke to George. Their evening meals were given over to watching the son eat. George didn't mind. Talking to the Guests all day wore him out.
When Tom was two months old, Joe came by George's booth.
"Well, it's final. Tomorrow, we shut down the midway. Too old-fashioned — it's only stood this long because some of the older Imagineers had an emotional attachment to it. I told 'em: 'That's your demographic, not the target demographic.' So we're knocking it down. HorrorZone's gonna be huge." He skipped off before George could say anything. ”

“ It was the most important decision one of their kind ever made: a clever son of the left hand, or a strong son of the right. George knew that his son would come from the left hand. In the world his father had put them into, cleverness was far more important than strength. After all, Bill was having the first son. ”

“ George marveled at it before going to work.
Joe stopped by his stand that day. His belly was bigger than ever, and his skin was cracking like their father's had. "Big guy!" he shouted, vaulting the counter into George's stand. "Where's Bill today? He wasn't at his post."
George said, "Bill had a son last night. From his left hand."
Joe rolled his eyes, which had gone the murky yellow of swamp water. "Wonderful, right? Ugh. There are better ways to achieve immortality, bro. I'm designing a crawl-through for HorrorZone: you're an earthworm crawling underneath a graveyard. ”

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1. Definitions
a. "Collective Work" means a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology or encyclopedia, in which the Work in its entirety in unmodified form, along with a number of other contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole. ”

“ Anything they ask for, they get. There won't be any more discipline problems."
Bill said, "Why not?"
Orville grinned without showing his teeth. "Where there's no discipline, there're no discipline problems. He can work whatever hours he wants. He'll have access to anything he needs: budget, staff, an office, whatever. It's his dream job."
Bill said, "I don't like this."
George wondered why not. It sounded pretty good to him.
Orville puffed at his pipe. "Like it or not, I think you'll have a hard time convincing Joe not to do it. He's sold."
Bill went back into the cabin and closed the door. ”

“ It turns out that, as near as anyone can tell, distributing free electronic versions of books is a great way to sell more of the paper editions, while simultaneously getting the book into the hands of readers who would otherwise not be exposed to my work. ”

“ George looked at the inventory and decided that the fudge was getting a little long in the tooth. He'd start pushing fudge-nut dips, and by the end of his shift, the tub would be empty and he'd be able to give it a thorough cleaning and a refill from fresh stock. "Hey guys!" he called to three boys. "Is anybody hungry?" He dipped a floss and held it up, so that it oozed fudge down his wrist. The boys shyly approached his booth. George knew from their manner that they were new to the Island: probably just picked up from a video-arcade or lasertag tent on the mainland that afternoon. ”

“ Stuck at the cabin with Bill and Tom, he sat against an outside wall and tried not to get in the way. He prepared meals in silence, taking a long time in the woods, gathering up choice morsels. Bill and Tom ate on the floor, away from the table. Bill chewed the tougher morsels first, and then put them in Tom's mouth with his crippled left hand. Most of the time, neither of them took any notice of George.
One day, he prepared a whole day's worth of meals and left them on the table, then walked to the utilidor at the other side of the woods. He boarded a tram and rode to the old midway entrance. ”

“ Winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Award, Nebula Award nominee
* Cory Doctorow is one of our best new writers: smart, daring, savvy,
entertaining, ambitious, plugged-in, and as good a guide to the wired world of
the twenty-first century that stretches out before us as you're going to find. ”

“ George beamed his idiot's grin at them as they left, then his face went slack and he went back to wiping down the surfaces. A moment later, a hand reached across the counter and plucked the cloth from his grip. He looked up, startled, into Joe's grinning face. Unlike his brothers', Joe's face was all sharp angles and small teeth. Nobody knew what a child of a tongue was supposed to look like, but George had always suspected that Joe wasn't right, even for a third son.
"Big guy!" Joe shouted. "Workin' hard?" ”

“ You could stay here and play with Tom — it's not every day you get to be a new uncle."
Orville had always taken obvious pleasure in the transformation of boys into donkeys. It was the whole why of Pleasure Island, after all. Orville seemed especially pleased tonight, and George thought that he was as surprised about Bill as George was. ”

“ Orville said, "I can see that that makes you unhappy. No one should be unhappy here. I'll see what I can do. Come down to Ops tomorrow morning, we'll talk more."
When George got back to the cabin, Bill was lying on his back on the floor, laughing while Tom climbed all over him. Tom still babbled, but they were real words now, though nonsensical. With his constant talking, he reminded George of Joe, and that made him even sadder. ”

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“ Two of them tranquilised the boys and the third fitted the donkey out with a halter and bit. The clown slapped the donkey's haunch appreciatively. "He's a healthy one."
The security team disappeared down the utilidor with the Mitchell brothers: two boys and a donkey. Joe smacked George on the back. "Did you see me catch them? Like greased lightning! Bounty, here I come!"
George didn't mind sharing his bounty with Joe, so he just smiled and nodded and went back around to his booth.
#
Bill named his son Tom. Names weren't very important to their people, but the soft ones' world demanded them. ”

“ Each time You distribute or publicly digitally perform the Work or a Collective Work, the Licensor offers to the recipient a license to the Work on the same terms and conditions as the license granted to You under this License. ”

“ Losing a couple bucks to people who would have bought the book save for the availability of the free electronic text is no big deal, at least when compared to the horror that is being irrelevant and unread. ”

“ An nth-generation hybrid of the best of Greg Bear, Rudy Rucker, Bruce Sterling and Groucho Marx, Doctorow composes stories that are as BPM-stuffed as techno music, as idea-rich as the latest issue of NEW SCIENTIST, and as funny as humanity's efforts to improve itself. ”

“ George smiled and knocked the rack of paper cones with his strong right elbow, jostled it so one cone spun high in the air, and he caught it in his quick left hand. "Coming riiiiiight up," he sang, and flipped the cone into the floss-machine. He spun a beehive of pink, then layered it with stripes of blue and green. He reached for the nipple that dispensed the sprinkles, but before he turned its spigot, he said, "Are you sure you don't want a dip, too? Fudge? Butterscotch? Strawberry?"
The boy bounced even higher, so that he was nearly vaulting the counter. "All three! All three!" he said. ”

“ He stopped and waited for George to be impressed.
George knew what the pause was for. "That's very good. You must be doing a good job for your Lead to mention you to him."
"That little prick? He hates my guts. Woodrow's building a special operations unit out of lateral thinkers — he wants new blood, creativity. He says I have a unique perspective."
"Did you talk to Orville?" ”

“ I've released this story, along with five others, under the terms of a Creative Commons license that gives you, the reader, a bunch of rights that copyright normally reserves for me, the creator.
I recently did the same thing with the entire text of my novel, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" (http://craphound.com/down) , and it was an unmitigated success. Hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the book — good news — and thousands of people bought the book — also good news. ”

“ Orville asked.
George said, "I suppose so."
Orville said, "Is everything working out all right for you? Shifts OK?
Co-workers?"
George said, "Everything's fine. Thank you."
Orville tapped his pipe out on the bumper, then got back into the cart. "All right then. Good night, George." ”

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7. ”

“ George gave them some logoed serviettes to wipe up with and ground the fudge into his wrists and forearms with one of his own. He looked at his watch and consulted the laminated timetable taped to the counter. 1300h, which meant that the bulk of the Guests would be migrating towards Actionland and the dinosaur rides, and it was time to push the slightly down-at-the-heels FreakZone, to balance the crowds. "You boys like rollercoasters?" ”