A Place So Foreign and Eight More Stories [Paperback]

Cory Doctrow continues to display his orientation skills at the intersection of humanity and technology with the collection of short stories A Place So Foreign and 8 More. In the collection's titular tale, "A Place So Foreign", a 19th-century boy travels with his father, the Ambassador to 1975. But when Pa meets with an accident, young James becomes a living anachronism in 1898. Doctrow twists the time-travel tale into a parable of data mining, as mysterious forces work to plunder the past for corporate gain. In one of several stories about a mysterious alien race who offers to give Earthers a hand up, he documents the adolescent rage of those left behind when the "mothaship" takes the anointed few into the brave new world. Finally, in "0wnz0red", Doctrow explores the dark side of Silicon Valley's connection to the military industrial complex by asking what happens when hackers learn to hack the human body.

Doctrow is a new breed in an increasingly literate and valid subgenre of science fiction. He uses the traditional allegories of the form to explore more human and fragile connections. As the 21st century rockets ahead, he examines the consequences of our frenzy to embrace technology and predicts outcomes that are both charmingly optimistic and bleakly hollow. --Jeremy Pugh, Amazon.com

"As a political activist, gizmo freak, junk collector, programmer, entrepreneur and all around Renaissance geek, Cory Doctorow is a science fiction writer who can really drill down....We should all hope and trust that our culture has the guts and moxie to follow this guy. He's got a lot to tell us."

Considered one of the most promising science fiction writers, Cory Doctorow's name is already mentioned with such SF greats as J. G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. He was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer at the 2000 Hugo Awards. Cory's singular tales push the boundaries of the genre, exploring pop culture, trash, nerd pride, and the nexus of technology and social change. His work is a roadmap to the possible futures that may arise in our lifetimes. Additional stories include "Craphound", "All Day Sucker", "Shadow of the Mothaship", "The Superman and the Bugout", "Home Again, Home Again", and "Return to the Pleasure Island".