I finish reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom this morning while I was rebooting a slow lab PC. This was the 5th novel I read in eBook format, the second one from Cory Doctorow. I downloaded Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom from Cory’s website, as he is giving it for free under the Creative Commons license.

I really enjoyed reading Down and Out. The story is set in Walt Disney Land, in a far future where technology garranty food, water, shelter and energy for every single human being. In this utopia where you can get backed-up and restored to a new clone and therefore live thousands or years, money is no longer an issue. People now care about their Whuffie score which is a little bit like a social barometer. Implants give you access to augmented reality, a connection to the Net 24/7 and an ability to view everybody’s Whuffie score on demand.

This book really is about what an utopian society might work. Yes, the story is interesting, but the social and psychological implications of living forever, of using augmented reality and Whuffie instead of money are really what is at the core of this book. Can I dead-head until we get there?

In this high-tech utopia, Julius, the main character working at the Haunted Mansion in Disney Land, befriend and make enemies from the other people who live there. You follow him as his Whuffie score goes up and down, as he is killed (to be restored to a new clone) and as he fights to keep control over the Mansion.

The main character on Down and Out reminded me of the main character of Eastern Standard Tribe. They are both a bit on the paranoiac side and you never know (until the end of both book) if the setup they are seing is real or comming straight from their imagination.

Now, I just want to start a little web site based on the concept of Whuffie. (More about this later… if I ever get things started.)

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Lectures by Alexandre Lemieux