Cory Doctorow has posted a spanking new and good story called 'Anda's Game' at Salon.com(day pass or subscription reqd. - a kind of DRM, methinks) under a Creative Commons License. To make it easier for you to read - I'm providing Anda's Game text and html versions - also under a Creative Commons License.
As is par for Cory's work, the topics are cutting edge - dealing with ebay-driven in-game economics, dietary restrictions on kids,anti-globalization criticism, puns on the Bradbury/Moore controversy and female rights a la SuicideGirls. In another time, a little girl might play with a golliwog, a Barbie or a teaset. In this post-modern age, she is a skilled character in a game that borrows from Everquest, Ray Bradbury, Quake & Tolkien - more a killer than a wayfarer. Her participation in, and then disavowal of, an in-game conspiracy to terminate characters who produce in-game gold to be sold for real money on ebay, is bracketed with the onset of youthful diabetes, induced perhaps by the sweetshops just outside the 500 m sugar-free zone at her school.
"Anda, I don't think it's healthy for you to spend so much time with your game," her da said, prodding her bulging podge with a finger. "It's not healthy."
"Daaaa!" she said, pushing his finger aside. "I go to PE every stinking day. It's good enough for the Ministry of Education."
"I don't like it," he said. He was no movie star himself, with a little pot belly that he wore his belted trousers high upon, a wobbly extra chin and two bat wings of flab hanging off his upper arms. She pinched his chin and wiggled it.
"I get loads more exercise than you, Mr Kettle."
"But I pay the bills around here, little Miss Pot."
Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2
Article comments