Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

I've done a lot of reading about Walt Disney World while planning to go there for our honeymoon, and came across a few pieces of fiction that take place there. Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom takes place in a far off future where technology has made immortality possible and some people have chosen to live their extended lives inside the famous theme park.

The main character Julius has died four times, and has been restored to life by means of a backup consciousness being loaded into an accelerated-growth clone. It seems similar to the idea of starting a video game from your last save point. This is also a world in which all money is obsolete because resources are plentiful, so the only form of currency is a type of quantified social media popularity called Whuffie. Julius works as part of an ad-hoc group who are busy refining the attractions in the Magic Kingdom's Liberty Square area, and his specific interest lies with the Haunted Mansion.

This struck a chord with me, as I've been fascinated with the inner workings of the Haunted Mansion ever since I saw a special about Imagineering on the Disney Channel as a kid. Unfortunately, the one time I went to Disney World with my family about ten years ago, the Mansion was closed for refurbishment! Imagine (no pun intended) my disappointment. At least I take comfort in knowing I'll be returning for a visit next year. But I digress.

Julius's fourth death has been a murder taking place in Adventureland, and he suspects the hit was ordered by Debra, who is in charge of the changes being made at the Hall of Presidents. Her revolutionary idea involves broadcasting the personalities and experiences of the Presidents directly into the brains of the guests, as everyone is constantly connected to the future version of the web. Julius himself has been sporadically losing his connection to the mental implants, and finds himself obsessively plotting revenge against Debra and her ad hoc.

In a relatively short book, Doctorow establishes his fictional technology in an understandable way and extrapolates on the new frontiers of theme park wizardry in fascinating ways. However, the through-line of the plot isn't very deep, and Julius is rather petty with his relationships and motivation. He also stays friends with his colleague Dan through way more betrayals than I can see anyone putting up with. This books futuristic concepts will stay with me, but the story could perhaps have used some expanding.

Check out more about Doctorow's books at his website Craphound.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Post-apocalyptic fiction seems to fascinate us as a society, from The Walking Dead to the Fallout games, to the sitcom "The Last Man on Earth". In Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel gives us a future world that is realistic enough that she objects to it being called science fiction, since it doesn't depict any advanced technology.

There has been a pandemic called the Georgia Flu that has wiped out most of the world's population. The novel jumps around in time, showing moments both before and after the fall of civilization, and follows a number of different characters in Toronto, Chicago, and beyond. Despite the changing perspectives, it's always made very clear at what time a chapter is taking place. We first meet Kirsten Raymonde when she's in a production of King Lear, and at eight years old she witnesses the on-stage death of her castmate Arthur Leander. This signals the beginning of the pandemic, and twenty years later she still remembers Arthur and the graphic novel written by Arthur's first wife titled "Station Eleven."

Scattered throughout the book are excerpts from an interview of Kirsten conducted by a librarian in the town of New Petoskey, fifteen years after the flu hit. These give more insight into what she has been up to in the intervening time since the collapse, including her joining the traveling group of musicians known as the Symphony. She barely remembers the conveniences of technology that the world is now without, such as air conditioning and airplanes, and children younger than her never experienced them at all. Kirsten and her friend August end up seeking the Museum of Civilization in the Severn City airport that they've heard rumors about.

On Day One of the pandemic, when Arthur died playing King Lear, entertainment journalist Jeevan Chaudary was there to write a story about the play, and attempted futile CPR on the actor. Jeevan had covered Arthur's film career and personal life for years, and serves as a secondary protagonist in this novel. It's through Jeevan's eyes that we experience what things were like within the first few months of the Georgia Flu.

Station Eleven was an engrossing read. All the transitions between past, present, and future were integrated into the story so they weren't jarring, and the characters experiencing the worldwide disaster felt realistic in their relationships and concerns.

To buy the book or get more information, visit the author's website.

Misery by Stephen King

As I mentioned in my review of Finders Keepers, I knew Stephen King had written about an obsessed literature fan before, but I had only seen the movie version of Misery, and had not read the book. It was also referred to in William Goldman's introduction to The Princess Bride, because while Goldman wrote the screenplay, he got to know King as a colleague. Not to mention there's now a Broadway version of the story. So it felt like a good time to finally read this nearly-three-decade-old novel.

At the same time as being a thrilling story, Misery is just as much a look inside the mind of a writer as King's non-fiction guide On Writing. Protagonist Paul Sheldon is the author of the popular Victorian-set books about a woman named Misery, and in the most recent one she has died during childbirth. This does not sit well with Annie Wilkes, who has coincidentally found Paul near her house after a car accident and put him up in her home. As a former nurse, she has all the painkillers he could need, and forces him to start a new book that brings Misery back to life, appropriately titled Misery's Return.

All of Misery is told from Paul's point of view, and we can nearly feel the pain of his crushed legs and his rage and fear towards his captor. Near the middle of the book, we get to see the progress that Paul has made on Misery's Return, complete with the n's tediously filled in by hand to compensate for the broken key on the typewriter Annie provides. I think this device adds to the verisimilitude of the story, since you can see how Paul's typed words deteriorate along with the typewriter (it soon loses its "t" and "e" keys) and his situation at the mercy of Annie. Cut off from the outside world and with seemingly no chance of getting out of the guest bedroom, his writing is the only way he can "escape".

I can tell why this story has endured, and been adapted as multiple forms of media over the years. It's filled with suspense as Annie reveals further layers of her insanity and Paul gets more desperate to find his way out of the house. And although Stephen King has written many stories starring authors, his examination of what drives one to create and sustain fictional worlds (even when not under duress) remains a fascinating and enduring subject.

Kindle.Amazon.com

One of the things I like to do while reading a book is mark it up. And I think this is much more satisfying in the digital age. In 12th grade we were directed to "annotate" our books to search for motifs, themes, and anything you could insert into a discussion to make you sound clever. In an actual book, there are drawbacks: flipping through the pages to get back to the annotation can be tiresome, what if your pen or highlighter craps out in the middle of it, or what if, when you're done, you want to lend your book to someone who hasn't read it?

This is one of the main reasons I really like ebooks. I can highlight and/or make notes in passages and then read all of them on a single page. I can change my mind and delete or change them as I get further into the book. I can easily reference what I've highlighted so I can remind myself of foreshadowing or world information. And this ties into why I prefer Kindle books: go to Kindle.Amazon.com and you'll see all of the highlights and notes you've made in your Kindle books and, from there, you can publish them. So while there are others, like Moon+ Reader, Kindle is the only one I know of that allows you to publish your annotations.

As a user, you can choose to make a book that you've read, are reading, or are considering reading public or private. You can also decide to make notes and highlights in any of those books public or private. Currently, all books are marked private by default so you have to mark them as public if you want other users to see your activity. Personally I think it should be the other way around or the user should define the default. For me, I mainly use it to access what I've highlighted or noted to write my reviews.

The social aspect of this site is that you can view the notes and highlights of other users. The Shared Notes & Highlights section shows what has been marked "public" by the user. As I mentioned, by default highlights and notes are private, so sometimes there aren't that many. Highlights from books you've read or books you want to read will show up in the Daily Review (which I think is misnamed since it is a Daily Highlight).

If you read a lot of Kindle books, you should definitely check this out!

Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid

I became a fan of comic book writer Mark Waid after reading his recent run on Daredevil and the 1996 graphic novel Kingdom Come. In the latter, Waid creates a future version of the Justice League and with Superman: Birthright he was given the opportunity to rewrite the origin story of the last son of Krypton to make it more relevant to the 21st Century.

Waid doesn't reinvent the wheel, but he does attempt to explain and streamline elements of Superman's personality and costume in ways that hadn't been explored before. The story in Birthright moves quickly; after the baby-containing spaceship is sent from the dying planet, we skip over Clark Kent's childhood and catch up to him as a 25-year-old trying to figure out his place on his adopted world.

There are a few elements of this story that were borrowed for Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, ranging from the aforementioned time-jump, to the distrust that Superman encounters about his motivation, to the idea that the S-shield emblem Supes wears is a Kryptonian symbol for hope. However, Waid is much better at expressing that sense of hope and responsibility than Snyder's careless version of the character. Waid's Superman is compassionate toward the human race and constantly gets to prove that he is not their enemy.

Birthright shares the idea with the "Smallville" TV series that Lex Luthor grew up in the rural Kansas town alongside Clark Kent, which had never been part of Luthor's character in past comics. However, when Superman notices Luthor thriving as a scientist in Metropolis, Luthor denies having any knowledge of Smallville or the Kent family who he spent time with in his youth. Lex has become an astrobiologist and yearns to attain more technological secrets from extraterrestrial worlds. When he discovers a wormhole that shows glimpses of Krypton before its destruction, he carries out a plan to discredit the strange visitor in the red cape while gaining the alien tech for himself.

I enjoyed this book a lot, and although it has been written out of DC comics canon a few times over, I think it stands out as a distinguished, accessible version of Superman's origin story. It certainly does better justice to the character than anything depicted in Man of Steel or Batman v. Superman.

Check out the writer's website at markwaid.com, and if you're in the Washington, DC area June 3-5, he'll be appearing at Awesome Con.