Lose yourself in the visionary fiction of Cory Doctorow, the celebrated author and digital rights activist known for his masterful explorations of the intersection of tech and society. And help support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with your purchase.

  • PeachMan@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Wow, Humble has really gone downhill after being acquired. Make sure you change the default split, they’ve made it harder to find! There’s an “Adjust Donation” button where you can choose to put more of your money to charity, rather than Humble and the book publisher.

    By default, they’re only giving the EFF ninety cents of your $18 purchase. That’s insulting. And they still have the gall to put up a “leaderboard” for people that paid extra, but probably only 5% of their money went to charity if they didn’t think to change the split. What assholes.

    • hardcoreufo@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      They really pissed me off with their Terry Prachet bundle a few months ago. Only in the small text did it state the books had kobo DRM. I’ve been buying bundles for a decade and never had to worry about DRM before so I didn’t even think to look for it.

      • PeachMan@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Wowwww that’s especially insulting considering that everything from Humble used to be DRM-free. I have HUNDREDS of games in my Humble library from the golden years. But most of their stuff doesn’t interest me nowadays.

    • uzay
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      9 months ago

      There’s also a minimum amount that goes to Humble itself, and they manipulate the scale to make it look like it’s less. E.g. at 25€ the minimum that goes to Humble is 7.50€, but it looks like ~4€ compared to the publisher and charity bars.

  • IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Do yourself a favor and read Walkaway. My favorite book. The structure is a bit of a departure from Doctorow’s other books. More like Kim Stanley Robinson in that there is a group of characters but the real main character is the birth of a post scarcity society.

    • Nix@merv.news
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      9 months ago

      Little Brother is amazing. Its a novel that takes place in California after a terrorist attack and Homeland Security uses the attack as an excuse to go full fascist and start tracking and arresting people on terrorism charges with no trial.

      It includes mention and use of a ton of real technologies (tor, torrents, linux, pgp key signing parties, etc) and the main characters are teens that use a jailbroken gaming console to create a p2p network/community of hackers to fight back against fascism. It shows how communities can organize and share files and information, how communities can be infiltrated, how people can avoid surveillance using technology and even simple things like placing a pebble in your shoe to avoid gait recognition (which the cameras in their schools use to track each student).

      I highly recommend it! Homeland is the sequel and it looks like theres a new book as part of the story. I haven’t read any of the other books other than parts of Walkaway which I want to finish when I have time. Walkaway is a story about people who essentially leave society to build an open source society/commune

    • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
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      9 months ago

      I haven’t read any of his book yet, but I agree with a lot of his philosophy toward tech. For example, you can read here why he did not publish his recent book on enshittification on Audible, Amazon’s audio book service, because he is against the DRM that Amazon requires: https://scribe.rip/@doctorow/kickstarting-a-book-to-end-enshittification-because-amazon-will-not-carry-it-7585250dabaf . He’s willing to put his money where his mouth is, excluding himself from potential sales out of principle, and I respect that.

      I also try put my money where my mouth is and support DRM-free media when possible, e.g. on gog.com and the DRM-free section of ebooks.com.

    • LOLjoeWTF@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I’ve read about a dozen of his works, and probably more if you count short stories. I really enjoy his writing style. I started with the Homeland series and have gone backwards and forwards. His latest work reads similar to Neil Gaiman’s in a sense that I’m hooked and drawn into a new universe. Homeland was EXCELLENT. His earlier stuff is really creative and very detailed. The way he breaks down and describes how tech works is accurate and detailed. He’s got 4 short stories that make up a works called Radicalized that really well describe the awful experience some people get fiscally locked into in tech.

      TLDR: yes.

    • TotallyNotSpez@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Cory Doctorow’s book Little Brother is available for free online in case you want to check out his writing style.

    • Tolstoshev@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is his masterpiece. If you only read one book from the bundle I recommend that one.

    • originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      They’re pretty good. He has a very clear, very technically detailed style. Good solid mystery writing. Kind of like a poor man’s William Gibson. After reading a two page segment of red team blues where Doctorow explains keypair encryption I described him to my wife as “Tom Clancy level detail for computers and the internet” not that Clancy is good, but his stuff is that detailed.

        • ominouslemon@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          I can’t tell you if you should read William Gibson instead, but I can definitely tell you that you should read William Gibson

          • Andy@slrpnk.net
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            9 months ago

            I would advise anyone who likes sci-fi to read both of these authors.

        • IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          William Gibson wrote Neuromancer, and it had an incredible cultural impact. But everything else he wrote hasn’t come close. I’ve read the Bigend trilogy. Can’t really remember anything that happened in those books.

          On the other hand, Cory Doctorow is the writer I wish I was. He does high tech thrillers the way they’re supposed to be. Attack Surface is excellent, a master class in a flawed but sympathetic main character. Just read Red Team Blues. Doctorow reveals how interesting forensic accounting really is.

          • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            His “Burning chrome” short story collection is great too. It has “Johnny Mnemonic” in it, an amazing short story turned into a terrible movie. Just having more Molly is worth the ride.

          • Andy@slrpnk.net
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            9 months ago

            Cory Doctorow is the writer I wish I was

            You know, I’m a developer on an open-source tabletop RPG that is meant to be to solarpunk what D&D is to fantasy. We’re nearly done, but if you like writing stories in this kind of genre, I think it might interest you, either as a player or contributor to the game modules.

  • uzay
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    9 months ago

    That bundle was an instant buy for me. My only hesitation was that I already own a few of the books, but for that price you can’t go wrong. Lost Cause and Red Team Blues are fantastic!

      • uzay
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        9 months ago

        If you loved Red Team Blues, also check out The Bezzle. It’s not in this bundle, but it’s the recently released prequel to Red Team Blues.