Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
Alan is a middle-aged entrepreneur in contemporary Toronto, who has devoted himself to fixing up a house in a bohemian neighborhood. This naturally brings him in contact with the house full of students and layabouts next door, including a young woman who, in a moment of stress, reveals to him that she has wings--wings, moreover, which grow back after each attempt to cut them off. Alan understands. He himself has a secret or two. His father is a mountain; his mother is a washing machine; and among his brothers are a set of Russian nesting dolls. Now two of the three nesting dolls, Edward and Frederick, are on his doorstep--well on their way to starvation, because their innermost member, George, has vanished. It appears that yet another brother, Davey, who Alan and his other siblings killed years ago, may have returned...bent on revenge. Under such circumstances it seems only reasonable for Alan to involve himself with a visionary scheme to blanket Toronto with free wireless Internet connectivity, a conspiracy spearheaded by a brilliant technopunk who builds miracles of hardware from parts scavenged from the city's dumpsters. But Alan's past won't leave him alone--and Davey is only one of the powers gunning for him and all his friends.
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What Hacker News says
- Hilarious and sad describe much of Doctorow's work.
Though I'd characterize "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town" as superbly creepy.
- Or maybe not:
https://slashdot.org/story/05/07/13/236203/doctorow-and-stro...
> Two prominent science fiction authors have recently released their newest novels as free downloads to coincide with their in-store releases. The first is Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, by Cory Doctorow. This is an unconventional story about an entrepreneur (who happens to be the child of a mountain and a washing machine) who gets involved in a scheme to blanket Toronto with free wireless mesh network, among other things. The second is Accelerando, by Charles Stross, which tells the tale of three generations of the Macx family (beginning with perptually-slashdotted venture altruist Manfred Macx) in the years leading up to and beyond a technological singularity
- Haven't read it yet,but I just downloaded the TXT version (which I always do). I am a not-so-long time fan of cory(2 years). I have read all of his novels (someone comes to town someone leaves town). Was attracted to his writings through his podcasts. I love the open touch he adds to his writings by launching them with a creative commons licenses on the same day as the launch of the paper version. He is a revolutionary, and proves that being open is profitable.
