March 30, 2004
Unsolicited Whuffie
Congratulations to Cory Doctorow on making the Preliminary Ballot for the 2004 Nebula Awards. I'm on a Doctorow kick right now, currently reading both Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Science Fiction. Cory's voice is casual and fun to read. I kept putting down Kavalier and Clay for Down and Out, which is why I didn't have it done in time for my book club meeting.
I pitched Down and Out to the club (accentuating the "freely available online" angle) but I got a "Scifi, ew!" reaction, as if I had dumped a handful of pillbugs on the table. They want to read "clah-sic" literature. I hoped that in the post-Matrix world we'd get past the genre divisions and live as one big happy novel-reading family. Or that at least the wedgies in gym class would stop.