Cory Doctorow - Return to Pleasure Island

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Cory%20Doctorow%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt

Return to Pleasure Island

Cory Doctorow

From "A Place So Foreign and Eight More," a short story collection published in

September, 2003 by Four Walls Eight Windows Press (ISBN 1568582862). See

http://craphound.com/place for more.

Originally Published in Realms of Fantasy August 1999

"By design or default, something about this story (and I can't describe exactly

what because I don't know) disturbed me a great deal, though it's a well-written

and unique take on an old tale. Others may find it more palatable. If Doctorow's

intent was to unsettle, he succeeded..."

- J. G. Stinson,

Tangent Online

http://www.tangentonline.com/reviews/magazine.php3?review=153

--

Blurbs and quotes:

* Cory Doctorow straps on his miner's helmet and takes you deep into the

caverns and underground rivers of Pop Culture, here filtered through SF-coloured

glasses. Enjoy.

- Neil Gaiman

Author of American Gods and Sandman

* Few writers boggle my sense of reality as much as Cory Doctorow. His vision

is so far out there, you'll need your GPS to find your way back.

- David Marusek

Winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Award, Nebula Award nominee

* Cory Doctorow is one of our best new writers: smart, daring, savvy,

entertaining, ambitious, plugged-in, and as good a guide to the wired world of

the twenty-first century that stretches out before us as you're going to find.

- Gardner Dozois

Editor, Asimov's SF

* He sparkles! He fizzes! He does backflips and breaks the furniture! Science

fiction needs Cory Doctorow!

- Bruce Sterling

Author of The Hacker Crackdown and Distraction

* Cory Doctorow strafes the senses with a geekspeedfreak explosion of gomi kings

with heart, weirdass shapeshifters from Pleasure Island and jumping automotive

jazz joints. If this is Canadian science fiction, give me more.

- Nalo Hopkinson

Author of Midnight Robber and Brown Girl in the Ring

* Cory Doctorow is the future of science fiction. An nth-generation hybrid of

the best of Greg Bear, Rudy Rucker, Bruce Sterling and Groucho Marx, Doctorow

composes stories that are as BPM-stuffed as techno music, as idea-rich as the

latest issue of NEW SCIENTIST, and as funny as humanity's efforts to improve

itself. Utopian, insightful, somehow simultaneously ironic and heartfelt, these

nine tales will upgrade your basal metabolism, overwrite your cortex with new

and efficient subroutines and generally improve your life to the point where

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-...row%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt (1 of 22) [1/3/2005 12:31:30 AM]

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Cory%20Doctorow%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt

you'll wonder how you ever got along with them. Really, you should need a

prescription to ingest this book. Out of all the glittering crap life and our

society hands us, craphound supreme Doctorow has managed to fashion some

industrial-grade art."

- Paul Di Filippo

Author of The Steampunk Trilogy

* As scary as the future, and twice as funny. In this eclectic and electric

collection Doctorow strikes sparks off today to illuminate tomorrow, which is

what SF is supposed to do. And nobody does it better.

- Terry Bisson

Author of Bears Discover Fire

--

A note about this story

This story is from my collection, "A Place So Foreign and Eight More," published

by Four Walls Eight Windows Press in September, 2003, ISBN 1568582862. I've

released this story, along with five others, under the terms of a Creative

Commons license that gives you, the reader, a bunch of rights that copyright

normally reserves for me, the creator.

I recently did the same thing with the entire text of my novel, "Down and Out in

the Magic Kingdom" (http://craphound.com/down), and it was an unmitigated

success. Hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the book -- good news -- and

thousands of people bought the book -- also good news. It turns out that, as

near as anyone can tell, distributing free electronic versions of books is a

great way to sell more of the paper editions, while simultaneously getting the

book into the hands of readers who would otherwise not be exposed to my work.

I still don't know how it is artists will earn a living in the age of the

Internet, but I remain convinced that the way to find out is to do basic

science: that is, to do stuff and observe the outcome. That's what I'm doing

here. The thing to remember is that the very *worst* thing you can do to me as

an artist is to not read my work -- to let it languish in obscurity and

disappear from posterity. Most of the fiction I grew up on is out-of-print, and

this is doubly true for the short stories. Losing a couple bucks to people who

would have bought the book save for the availability of the free electronic text

is no big deal, at least when compared to the horror that is being irrelevant

and unread. And luckily for me, it appears that giving away the text for free

gets me more paying customers than it loses me.

You can find the canonical version of this file at

http://craphound.com/place/download.php

If you'd like to convert this file to some other format and distribute it, you

have my permission, provided that:

* You don't charge money for the distribution

* You keep the entire text intact, including this notice, the license below, and

the metadata at the end of the file

* You don't use a file-format that has "DRM" or "copy-protection" or any other

form of use-restriction turned on

If you'd like, you can advertise the existence of your edition by posting a link

to it at http://craphound.com/place/000014.php

--

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-...row%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt (2 of 22) [1/3/2005 12:31:30 AM]

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Cory%20Doctorow%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt

Here's a summary of the license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0

Attribution. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute,

display, and perform the work. In return, licensees must give the

original author credit.

No Derivative Works. The licensor permits others to copy,

distribute, display and perform only unaltered copies of the work

-- not derivative works based on it.

Noncommercial. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute,

display, and perform the work. In return, licensees may not use

the work for commercial purposes -- unless they get the

licensor's permission.

And here's the license itself:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0-legalcode

THE WORK (AS DEFINED BELOW) IS PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS

CREATIVE COMMONS PUBLIC LICENSE ("CCPL" OR "LICENSE"). THE WORK

IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT AND/OR OTHER APPLICABLE LAW. ANY USE OF

THE WORK OTHER THAN AS AUTHORIZED UNDER THIS LICENSE IS

PROHIBITED.

BY EXERCISING ANY RIGHTS TO THE WORK PROVIDED HERE, YOU ACCEPT

AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. THE LICENSOR

GRANTS YOU THE RIGHTS CONTAINED HERE IN CONSIDERATION OF YOUR

ACCEPTANCE OF SUCH TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

1. Definitions

a. "Collective Work" means a work, such as a periodical issue,

anthology or encyclopedia, in which the Work in its entirety in

unmodified form, along with a number of other contributions,

constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are

assembled into a collective whole. A work that constitutes a

Collective Work will not be considered a Derivative Work (as

defined below) for the purposes of this License.

b. "Derivative Work" means a work based upon the Work or upon the

Work and other pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical

arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture

version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment,

condensation, or any other form in which the Work may be recast,

transformed, or adapted, except that a work that constitutes a

Collective Work will not be considered a Derivative Work for the

purpose of this License.

c. "Licensor" means the individual or entity that offers the Work

under the terms of this License.

d. "Original Author" means the individual or entity who created

the Work.

e. "Work" means the copyrightable work of authorship offered

under the terms of this License.

f. "You" means an individual or entity exercising rights under

this License who has not previously violated the terms of this

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-...row%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt (3 of 22) [1/3/2005 12:31:30 AM]

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Cory%20Doctorow%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt

License with respect to the Work, or who has received express

permission from the Licensor to exercise rights under this

License despite a previous violation.

2. Fair Use Rights. Nothing in this license is intended to

reduce, limit, or restrict any rights arising from fair use,

first sale or other limitations on the exclusive rights of the

copyright owner under copyright law or other applicable laws.

3. License Grant. Subject to the terms and conditions of this

License, Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free,

non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable

copyright) license to exercise the rights in the Work as stated

below:

a. to reproduce the Work, to incorporate the Work into one or

more Collective Works, and to reproduce the Work as incorporated

in the Collective Works;

b. to distribute copies or phonorecords of, display publicly,

perform publicly, and perform publicly by means of a digital

audio transmission the Work including as incorporated in

Collective Works;

The above rights may be exercised in all media and formats

whether now known or hereafter devised. The above rights include

the right to make such modifications as are technically necessary

to exercise the rights in other media and formats. All rights not

expressly granted by Licensor are hereby reserved.

4. Restrictions. The license granted in Section 3 above is

expressly made subject to and limited by the following

restrictions:

a. You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or

publicly digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this

License, and You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource

Identifier for, this License with every copy or phonorecord of

the Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or

publicly digitally perform. You may not offer or impose any terms

on the Work that alter or restrict the terms of this License or

the recipients' exercise of the rights granted hereunder. You may

not sublicense the Work. You must keep intact all notices that

refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties. You

may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or

publicly digitally perform the Work with any technological

measures that control access or use of the Work in a manner

inconsistent with the terms of this License Agreement. The above

applies to the Work as incorporated in a Collective Work, but

this does not require the Collective Work apart from the Work

itself to be made subject to the terms of this License. If You

create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must,

to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective Work any

reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as requested.

b. You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in

Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or

directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary

compensation. The exchange of the Work for other copyrighted

works by means of digital file-sharing or otherwise shall not be

considered to be intended for or directed toward commercial

advantage or private monetary compensation, provided there is no

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-...row%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt (4 of 22) [1/3/2005 12:31:30 AM]

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Cory%20Doctorow%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt

payment of any monetary compensation in connection with the

exchange of copyrighted works.

c. If you distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or

publicly digitally perform the Work or any Collective Works, You

must keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and give the

Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You are

utilizing by conveying the name (or pseudonym if applicable) of

the Original Author if supplied; the title of the Work if

supplied. Such credit may be implemented in any reasonable

manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Collective Work,

at a minimum such credit will appear where any other comparable

authorship credit appears and in a manner at least as prominent

as such other comparable authorship credit.

5. Representations, Warranties and Disclaimer

a. By offering the Work for public release under this License,

Licensor represents and warrants that, to the best of Licensor's

knowledge after reasonable inquiry:

i. Licensor has secured all rights in the Work necessary to grant

the license rights hereunder and to permit the lawful exercise of

the rights granted hereunder without You having any obligation to

pay any royalties, compulsory license fees, residuals or any

other payments;

ii. The Work does not infringe the copyright, trademark,

publicity rights, common law rights or any other right of any

third party or constitute defamation, invasion of privacy or

other tortious injury to any third party.

b. EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY STATED IN THIS LICENSE OR OTHERWISE AGREED

IN WRITING OR REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE WORK IS LICENSED ON

AN "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS

OR IMPLIED INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES

REGARDING THE CONTENTS OR ACCURACY OF THE WORK.

6. Limitation on Liability. EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT REQUIRED BY

APPLICABLE LAW, AND EXCEPT FOR DAMAGES ARISING FROM LIABILITY TO

A THIRD PARTY RESULTING FROM BREACH OF THE WARRANTIES IN SECTION

5, IN NO EVENT WILL LICENSOR BE LIABLE TO YOU ON ANY LEGAL THEORY

FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR EXEMPLARY

DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THIS LICENSE OR THE USE OF THE WORK, EVEN

IF LICENSOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

7. Termination

a. This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate

automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of this

License. Individuals or entities who have received Collective

Works from You under this License, however, will not have their

licenses terminated provided such individuals or entities remain

in full compliance with those licenses. Sections 1, 2, 5, 6, 7,

and 8 will survive any termination of this License.

b. Subject to the above terms and conditions, the license granted

here is perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright

in the Work). Notwithstanding the above, Licensor reserves the

right to release the Work under different license terms or to

stop distributing the Work at any time; provided, however that

any such election will not serve to withdraw this License (or any

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-...row%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt (5 of 22) [1/3/2005 12:31:30 AM]

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Cory%20Doctorow%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt

other license that has been, or is required to be, granted under

the terms of this License), and this License will continue in

full force and effect unless terminated as stated above.

8. Miscellaneous

a. Each time You distribute or publicly digitally perform the

Work or a Collective Work, the Licensor offers to the recipient a

license to the Work on the same terms and conditions as the

license granted to You under this License.

b. If any provision of this License is invalid or unenforceable

under applicable law, it shall not affect the validity or

enforceability of the remainder of the terms of this License, and

without further action by the parties to this agreement, such

provision shall be reformed to the minimum extent necessary to

make such provision valid and enforceable.

c. No term or provision of this License shall be deemed waived

and no breach consented to unless such waiver or consent shall be

in writing and signed by the party to be charged with such waiver

or consent.

d. This License constitutes the entire agreement between the

parties with respect to the Work licensed here. There are no

understandings, agreements or representations with respect to the

Work not specified here. Licensor shall not be bound by any

additional provisions that may appear in any communication from

You. This License may not be modified without the mutual written

agreement of the Licensor and You.

###

Return to Pleasure Island

=========================

George twiddled his thumbs in his booth and watched how the brown, clayey

knuckles danced overtop of one another. Not as supple as they had once been, his

thumbs -- no longer the texture of wet clay on a potter's wheel; more like clay

after it had been worked to exhausted crackling and brittleness. He reached into

the swirling vortex of the cotton-candy machine with his strong right hand and

caught the stainless-steel sweep-arm. The engines whined and he felt them strain

against his strong right arm, like a live thing struggling to escape a trap.

Still strong, he thought, still strong, and he released the sweep-arm to go back

to spinning sugar into floss.

A pack of boys sauntered down the midway, laughing and calling, bouncing high on

sugar and g-stresses. One of them peeled off from the group and ran to his

booth, still laughing at some cruelty. He put his palms on George's counter and

pushed against it, using them to lever his little body in a high-speed pogo.

"Hey, mister," he said, "how about some three-color swirl, with sprinkles?"

George smiled and knocked the rack of paper cones with his strong right elbow,

jostled it so one cone spun high in the air, and he caught it in his quick left

hand. "Coming _riiiiiight_ up," he sang, and flipped the cone into the

floss-machine. He spun a beehive of pink, then layered it with stripes of blue

and green. He reached for the nipple that dispensed the sprinkles, but before he

turned its spigot, he said, "Are you sure you don't want a dip, too? Fudge?

Butterscotch? Strawberry?"

The boy bounced even higher, so that he was nearly vaulting the counter. "All

three! All three!" he said.

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-...row%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt (6 of 22) [1/3/2005 12:31:30 AM]

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Cory%20Doctorow%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt

George expertly spiraled the floss through the dips, then applied a thick crust

of sprinkles. "Open your mouth, kid!" he shouted, with realistic glee.

The boy opened his mouth wide, so that the twinkling lights of the midway

reflected off his back molars and the pool of saliva on his tongue. George's

quick, clever left hand dipped a long-handled spoon into the hot fudge, then

flipped the sticky gob on a high arc that terminated perfectly in the boy's open

mouth. The boy swallowed and laughed gooely. George handed over the dripping

confection in his strong right hand, and the boy plunged his face into it. When

he whirled and ran to rejoin his friends, George saw that his ears were already

getting longer, and his delighted laugh had sounded a little like a bray. A job

well done, he thought, and watched the rain spatter the spongy rubber cobbles of

the midway.

#

George was supposed to go off-shift at midnight. He always showed up promptly at

noon, but he rarely left as punctually. The soft one who had the midnight-to-six

shift was lazy and late, and generally staggered in at twelve thirty, grumbling

about his tiredness. George knew how to deal with the soft ones, though -- his

father had brought him up surrounded by them, so that he spoke without his

father's thick accent, so that he never inadvertently crushed their soft hands

when he shook with them, so that he smiled good-naturedly and gave up a

realistic facsimile of sympathy when they griped their perennial gripes.

His father! How wise the old man had been, and how proud, and how _stupid_.

George shucked his uniform backstage and tossed it into a laundry hamper, noting

with dismay how brown the insides were, how much of himself had eroded away

during his shift. He looked at his clever left thumb and his strong right thumb,

and tasted their good, earthy tastes, and then put them away. He dressed himself

in the earth-coloured dungarees and workshirt that his own father had stolen

from a laundry line when he left the ancestral home of George's people for the

society of the soft ones.

He boarded a Cast Member tram that ran through the ultidors underneath Pleasure

Island's midway, and stared aimlessly at nothing as the soft ones on the tram

gabbled away, as the tram sped away to the Cast housing, and then it was just

him and the conductor, all the way to the end of the line, to the cottage he

shared with his two brothers, Bill and Joe. The conductor wished him a good

night when he debarked, and he shambled home.

Bill was already home, napping in the pile of blankets that all three brothers

shared in the back room of the cottage. Joe wasn't home yet, even though his

shift finished earlier than theirs. He never came straight home; instead, he

wandered backstage, watching the midway through the peepholes. Joe's Lead had

spoken to George about it, and George had spoken to Joe, but you couldn't tell

Joe anything. George thought of how proud his father had been, having three sons

-- three! George, the son of his strong right thumb, and Bill, the son of his

clever left thumb, and Joe. Joe, the son of his tongue, an old man's folly, that

left him wordless for the remainder of his days. He hadn't needed words, though:

his cracked and rheumy eyes had shone with pride every time they lit on Joe, and

the boy could do no wrong by him.

George busied himself with supper for his brothers. In the little wooded area

behind the cottage, he found good, clean earth with juicy roots in it. In the

freezer, he had a jar of elephant-dung sauce, spiced with the wrung-out sweat of

the big top acrobats' leotards, which, even after reheating, still carried the

tang of vitality. Preparing a good meal for his kind meant a balance of earthy

things and living things, things to keep the hands supple and things to make

them strong, and so he brought in a chicken from the brothers' henhouse and

covered it in the sloppy green-brown sauce, feathers and all. Bill, being the

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-...row%20-%20Return%20to%20Pleasure%20Island.txt (7 of 22) [1/3/2005 12:31:30 AM]

Cory Doctorow - Return to Pleasure Island

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: