Eastern Standard Tribe - by Cory Doctorow (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From Cory Doctorow, a powerful and funny novel about time, tribalism, and a young man's dismaying discoveries about his own life

Scathing, bitter and funny, Eastern Standard Tribe examines the immutable truths of time, and of societies rebuilt in the storm of instant, ubiquitous communication.

Art is an up-and-coming interface designer, working on the management of data flow along the Massachusetts Turnpike. He's doing the best work of his career and can guarantee that the system will be, without a question, the most counterintuitive, user-hostile piece of software ever pushed forth onto the world.

Why? Because Art is an industrial saboteur. He may live in London and work for an EU telecommunications megacorp, but Art's real home is the Eastern Standard Tribe.

Instant wireless communication puts everyone in touch with everyone else, 24 hours a day. But one thing hasn't changed: the need for sleep. The world is slowly splintering into Tribes held together by a common time zone, less than family and more than nations. Art is working to humiliate the Greenwich Mean Tribe to the benefit of his own people. But in a world without boundaries, nothing can be taken for granted-not happiness, not money, and most certainly not love.

Which might explain why Art finds himself stranded on the roof of an insane asylum outside Boston, debating whether to push a pencil into his brain....

From the Back Cover

"I know many science fiction writers engaged in the cyber-world, but Cory Doctorow is a native....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." -Bruce Sterling

A powerful and funny novel about time, tribalism, and a young man's dismaying discoveries about his own life

"Cory Doctorow is the most interesting new SF writer I've come across in years. He starts out at the point where older SF writers' speculations end."
--Rudy Rucker, author of Spaceland

"Cory Doctorow doesn't just write about the future--I think he lives there."
-Kelly Link

"Cory Doctorow rocks! Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is about a world that is visible in its outlines today, if you know where to look, from reputation systems to peer-to-peer ad-hocracies. Doctorow knows where to look."
--Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs

"Nicely understated: meringue laced with caffeine."
-Publishers Weekly on Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

"It's cool, it's hip, and it's fun-but more important, it's about something. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a sleek, tightly written book that, as the best science fiction should, engages with the world."
-Locus

About the Author

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently THE LOST CAUSE, a solarpunk science fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His most recent nonfiction book is THE INTERNET CON: HOW TO SEIZE THE MEANS OF COMPUTATION, a Big Tech disassembly manual. Other recent books include RED TEAM BLUES, a science fiction crime thriller; CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the LITTLE BROTHER series for young adults; IN REAL LIFE, a graphic novel; and the picture book POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.