Sometimes I read something that makes me remember why I love Science Fiction

[dragojustine]

Overclocked, by Cory Doctorow

Could I pause for a moment to talk about how incredibly awesome Cory Doctorow is? I’ve known about him for quite awhile, read a few short stories and interviews and articles by him and been impressed. He seemed like the kind of SF author that appeals to me- interested in near-future extrapolation, interested in using SF as a vehicle for dissecting and discussing and analyzing current trends and culture, both on a superficial technological level and on a much more fundamental one.

Then at the beginning of this year I found his “In Praise of Fanfic” and basically became a Cory Doctorow fan for life. Some relevant quotes from that one:

Culture is a lot older than art — that is, we have had social storytelling for a lot longer than we've had a notional class of artistes whose creativity is privileged and elevated to the numinous, far above the everyday creativity of a kid who knows that she can paint and draw, tell a story and sing a song. . . It's no failing that we internalize the stories we love, that we rework them to suit our minds better. . . [fanfic is] created to satisfy the deeply human need to play with the stories that constitute our world. There's nothing trivial about telling stories with your friends — even if the stories themselves are trivial. The act of telling stories to one another is practically sacred.

I love people who can speak intelligently about the human motivation toward communal story-telling. I love artists who can draw the distinction between modern western solitary art and the communal participatory culture that has been the real fuel of human development for most of our history. I love people who can admit that there is something about the very act of internalizing, participating in culture, telling a story that is sacred.

All that is neither here nor there. Overclocked is a very good collection. The stories are widely divergent but bound together by careful extrapolation with an eye to social consequences. “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth” especially delights me- it is about far-flung bands of techies strugging to keep worldwide communications open in the aftermath of a biowarfare apocalypse. It says all of the important things. How all our great achievements as a species are built on the foundation of cooperation, culture, institutions that have grown up over centuries. About the crafting of those institutions, that culture, and how it must happen from the local level up to provide the foundation that our worldwide civilization needs. Most importantly, how civilization is a fragile web, a constant fight against entropy. This is why I love apocafic.

There are others. The very near future one about MMRPGs intersecting with the real economy (which says some interesting things about the exploitation of child labor in a surprising context). The incredibly clever “I, Rowboat” about an uplifted rowboat with musings on the nature and value of sentience and consciousness and physical existence, which cracks me up based on the title alone. Others too. All in all, a stunningly successful collection.