Date: 2008-11-02 11:52:02 Created: null
Like someone wrote on that very website; nothing like a Slashdot post to promote your works, if your server can take it. I would never have got hold of this book if it wasn't for the Slashdot post, that's for sure.
On to the book itself, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a novel (or perhaps closer to a short story) set a not too specified distance into the future. This world is, to me at least, the real centerpiece of the book. It's not a dysotopic dark future, quite the opposite in fact, and I find that refreshing. Mankind is doing well for a change and there are plenty of ideas in the book that I haven't seen in other sci-fi books (admittedly, I've read quite few recently). It really feels like a book written here and now by someone into today's technology and its uses.
Yes, there is a story too, but it doesn't feel too interesting or creative. Finding out about the world is much more exciting, and it's hard to get involved in a fight where you don't really feel anything's at stake. Then again, that can be seen as a point in itself. There isn't much to fight for in a world like that, and life can seem a bit dull, just like the characters note at one point in the beginning.
Another thing worth pointing out is that the book is free to download and distribute as you like. Not bad, eh? I got the Palm version and read it that way, and the book felt very suited for that. It works well in short doses, paragraphs are nice and short so there's always a good place to stop if you need to do soemthing else (like work ...).