Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

Things have been stressful and painful lately. My wrist and joints have been horrible, which has meant no stitching has been happening.

I’m always reading something, but I really needed something fun and different. I was standing there looking at our bookshelf and realized I hadn’t read this one yet.

This is a quirky weird book.

Death is cured … our memories are uploaded into clones whenever we die or get ill, and we just keep on going forever or until we’re bored of life and then we can be filed away for a few million years and try again later.

The basic idea of this future is that you don’t have to die, you’ll never starve, and you don’t have to have a job because your reputation pays for everything, no money required.

People are free to do whatever they wish, since the only wealth is respect and since constant internal interface lets all monitor exactly how successful they are at being liked. Jules is a young man barely a century old. He’s lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies…and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.

There’s a handful of things going on; romance, friendship, sabotage and murder, all the usual drama you’d expect in a fun quick read. Most of the story takes place in Disney World – more specifically The Haunted Mansion and The Hall of Presidents attractions – but there is some discussion of traveling around space and the futuristic things you can do out there.

It’s a short book, about 200-ish pages, so it was perfect for all the sitting in waiting rooms that I’ve had to do lately. It didn’t require a lot of brain power on my part, it was just an entertaining light read, which is exactly what I needed. It’s not the best future sci-fi story I’ve ever read, but it’s not terrible either.