Pour one out for all the stories you'll never find again, that you barely remember in totality, but that left an impression on you that you'll never forget.
The short stories from standardized tests that you only had a few minutes to read, but those minutes will last a lifetime.
The books on the library display shelf you used to occupy time until your mom could come pick you up from school.
The graphic novel you picked up when you were first getting into comics and could never find again.
The single lines or themes from stories you otherwise don't remember, save for the one thing that you saw and internalized as a new part of your personality.
Let's pour one out for the books that built us, even if we never could find them again, and couldn't if we wanted to.
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Come see me on tour!
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour
My next novel is The Bezzle, a high-tech ice-cold revenge thriller starring Marty Hench, a two-fisted forensic accountant, as he takes on the sleaziest scams of the first two decades of the 2000s, from hamburger-themed Ponzis to the unbelievably sleazy and evil prison-tech industry:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle
I'm taking Marty on the road! I'll be visiting eighteen cities between now and June, and I hope you'll come out and say hello, visit a beloved local bookseller, and maybe get a book (or two)!
21 Feb: Weller Bookworks, Salt Lake City, 1830h:
https://www.wellerbookworks.com/event/store-cory-doctorow-feb-21-630-pm
22 Feb: Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego, 19h:
https://www.mystgalaxy.com/22224Doctorow
24 Feb: Vroman's, Pasadena, 17h, with Adam Conover (!!)
https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Cory-Doctorow-discusses-The-Bezzle
26 Feb: Third Place Books, Seattle, 19h, with Neal Stephenson (!!!)
https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow
27 Feb: Powell's, Portland, 19h:
https://www.powells.com/book/the-bezzle-martin-hench-2-9781250865878/1-2
29 Feb: Changing Hands, Phoenix, 1830h:
https://www.changinghands.com/event/february2024/cory-doctorow
9-10 Mar: Tucson Festival of the Book:
https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?action=display_author&id=15669
13 Mar: San Francisco Public Library:
https://sfpl.org/events/2024/03/13/author-cory-doctrow-bezzle
22 Mar: Toronto: Wendy Michener Memorial Lecture:
https://events.yorku.ca/events/wendy-michener-memorial-lecture2024/
24 Mar: NYC: Word Books (with Laura Poitras):
https://shop.wordbookstores.com/event/word-presents-cory-doctorow
29-31 Mar: Wondercon Anaheim:
https://www.comic-con.org/wc/
11 Apr: Harvard Berkman-Klein Center (with Randall Munroe)
https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/enshittification
12 Apr: RISD Debates in AI, Providence, details coming soon!
17 Apr: Anderson's Books, Chicago, 19h:
https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/event/cory-doctorow-1
19-21 Apr: Torino Biennale Tecnologia
https://www.turismotorino.org/en/experiences/events/biennale-tecnologia
2 May, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Winnipeg
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-tickets-798820071337
5-11 May: Tartu Prima Vista Literary Festival
https://tartu2024.ee/en/kirjandusfestival/
6-9 Jun: Media Ecology Association keynote, Amherst, NY
https://media-ecology.org/convention
Calgary and Vancouver – details coming soon!
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So, I have thought about something funny regarding my lil phoenix king Vlad au.
Is that he genuinely, just doesn't want to king.
He did at first, but after being the king of phoenixes for a prolonged time he, well. He hates it to be frank. They're stuck in their old way, old ways that make quite hard for Vlad to do frankly anything really, and they keep snubbing him for doing human things when he's something as glorious as a phoenix.
And they kept inviting themselves in unannounced at the most terrible of times to take with him, which has left Vlad a lacking of sleeping as well.
So Vlad uh, well.
He ran.
He just decided that he deserved a break from all of this, so he shrunk down to bird size (still relatively large for a bird), carefully contained his magical aura and then flew to what he was sure would be a great idea.
Daniel Fenton.
The boy himself did not seem all that amused by his appearance, amused at his reasoning but not all that when he was asked to hide him for an undetermined amount of time.
Dan? Currently still getting his feet under him after being turned into a Raiju (And nobody decided to inform him that the clone he was going to liquidize was the current vessel of a world destroying fusion of him and Daniel until he found out himself).
Danielle? Currently somewhere out in the goddamn sea and, well. Fire elemental, water elemental, mass amounts of water?
You can already see how that would go down.
And what about that man he caught Vlad in bed with a few months ago? They already knew about him, and he's currently indisposed at the moment with some magical shenanigan or scamming someone probably.
Point is, Danny has to hide Vlad from the phoenix council and their very terrible way of doing things and since Danny was a dragon, he would be the last those dull feathers would check.
Luckily, Danny agreed. So long as he didn't blow his cover as a non-human to the new family he found himself with.
The Wayne family.
Yea, they were a bunch of rich guys and maybe emotionally constipated but Danny likes what he's got going on here. They don't have any secret basements or labs, helpful to Gotham city itself and they're just totally normal people!
Emotional constipation notwithstanding.
Vlad agrees, he scratches Danny's back and Danny scratched his.
Vlad kept to Danny's room for the first few days, and would've kept to said room until he was forced out by Damian Wayne, who quite frankly scared him. The creepy boy was literally watching him sleep and he suddenly decided that Daniel's room isn't all that safe anymore.
The Wayne Mansion is big, so there should be at least one place Vlad could hide.
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