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pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/18/anarcho-cryptid/

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14/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Recent appearances:

* FediForum Keynote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7%5FGs1t0qe78

* Science Fiction is EXPOSING Scams and AI Dystopia (Bad Faith)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlrKlp%5FIiko

* The Rideshare Guy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKeoCxJWVVE

13/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #SanFrancisco: Enshittification at Public Works (The Booksmith), Oct 20
https://app.gopassage.com/events/doctorow25

12/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #Manchester: Co-operatives UK Co-op Congress keynote, Jul 4
https://www.uk.coop/events-and-training/events-calendar/co-op-congress-2025-book-your-place

* Virtual: ORG at 20: in conversation with Maria Farrell, Jul 16
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/events/org-at-20-cory-doctorow-in-conversation-with-maria-farrell/

* #DC: Enshittification at Politics and Prose, Oct 10
https://politics-prose.com/cory-doctorow-10825

* #SanFrancisco: Enshittification at Public Works (The Booksmith), Oct 20
https://app.gopassage.com/events/doctorow25

* #NewOrleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

11/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Upcoming appearances:

* #PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025

* #PDX: Picks and Shovels with BUNNIE HUANG at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0

* #Tualatin Public Library, Jun 22:
https://www.tualatinoregon.gov/library/author-talk-cory-doctorow

* #London: How To Academy with Riley Quinn, Jul 1
https://howtoacademy.com/events/cory-doctorow-the-fight-against-the-big-tech-oligarchy/

* #Manchester: Picks and Shovels at Blackwell's Bookshop, Jul 2
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1308451968059

10/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

https://craphound.com/shop/

9/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

My last nationally bestselling novel was "The Bezzle," an ice-cold revenge story of high-tech finance crime starring the forensic accountant Martin Hench.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Signed copies from Chevalier's Books:

https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/product-page/the-bezzle

--

My latest nonfiction book is "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation" from Verso Books:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

Signed copies available from Book Soup:

https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245

Both are national bestsellers!

8/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

May 30th's threads: Farewell (for the moment); and more!

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/114597237091087760

7/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

#10yrsago Seattle’s tent cities https://grist.org/cities/tent-cities-seattles-unique-approach-to-homelessness/

#5yrsago This is the EU's interoperability moment https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/18/digital-services-act/#interop

#5yrsago Sterilizer company vs Right to Repair https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/18/digital-services-act/#steris

#1yrago It's been twenty years since my Microsoft DRM talk https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

6/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

#15yrsago Canadian copyright astroturf site gives marching orders to its users https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2010/06/astroturf-campaign-mandatory-letter/

#10yrsago Corbis will cheerfully charge you up the wazoo for public domain images https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/stock-photos-will-drive-photoshop-use-into-the-ground

#10yrsago Privacy activists mass-quit U.S. government committee on facial recognition privacy https://theintercept.com/2015/06/16/privacy-advocates-resign-protest-u-s-facial-recognition-code-conduct-2/

#10yrsago FCC fines AT&T $100M for throttling “unlimited” customers https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/06/17/att-just-got-hit-with-a-100-million-fine-after-slowing-down-its-unlimited-data/?utm%5Fcontent=buffere69ad&utm%5Fmedium=social&utm%5Fsource=twitter.com&utm%5Fcampaign=buffer

5/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Hey look at this

* Chubby Cable https://chubbycable.com/collections/chubby-cable

* Why I Became a Crypto Shill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDsSg-Xm1ms (h/t User Mag)

* Russian edition of "Attack Surface" https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/114636648703596013

4/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice: Anarchists, cryptids and haints (oh my).

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/114704507403962852

3/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.

Catch me in #PDX with BUNNIE HUANG at Barnes and Noble on FRIDAY (Jun 20):

https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0

And at the TUALATIN Public Library on SUNDAY (Jun 22):

https://www.tualatinoregon.gov/library/author-talk-cory-doctorow

More tour dates (#London, #Manchester) here:

http://martinhench.com

2/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/18/anarcho-cryptid/

#Pluralistic

1/

Boosted by pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow"):
saramg@fosstodon.org ("SaraMG 🏳️‍🌈") wrote:

I love a good mansplain smackdown.

Boosted by pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow"):
feed@404media.co ("404 Media") wrote:

Podcast: Airlines Sold Your Flight Data to DHS—And Covered It Up

Airlines selling detailed flight data to DHS; how AI scrapers are hammering open archives; and the casual surveillance relationship between ICE and local cops.

https://www.404media.co/podcast-airlines-sold-your-flight-data-to-dhs-and-covered-it-up/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.

Catch me in #PDX with BUNNIE HUANG at Barnes and Noble on FRIDAY (Jun 20):

https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0

And at the #TUALATIN Public Library on SUNDAY (Jun 22):

https://www.tualatinoregon.gov/library/author-talk-cory-doctorow

More tour dates (#London, #Manchester) here:

http://martinhench.com

eof/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

These three tales stand alone, so there's no need to read the previous volumes before diving into this one. But you *should* read the other two, because they're great:

* *The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion* (2017):

https://reactormag.com/excerpts-margaret-killjoy-the-lamb-will-slaughter-the-lion/

* *The Barrow Will Send What It May*: (2018):

https://reactormag.com/excerpts-the-barrow-will-send-what-it-may-margaret-killjoy/

9/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Killjoy's really onto something with this series. She's tapping into the deep roots of fantasy - maybe the socialist parables woven into William Morris's stories. She's also connecting with the roots of urban fantasy (I was delighted to see a reference to Terri Windling's *superb*, absolutely *amazing* Borderland series).

8/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Pratchett did one of these (*Lords and Ladies*), and so have many others - but no one's done it where the resistance comes from a motley band of queer punk club-owners in a rural town, who team up with local shitkickers to hunt the elves and banish them to their realm.

The final tale is "The Battle of Miami," a story about a streetfighting anti-globalist battle. It's a tale of Black Bloc tactics and true queer love, that lights up with joy.

7/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

It's ultimately a story about how the competent people who have their shit together in our lives are just as broken as the rest of us, and about the many ways that release, fulfillment and actualization can take place. It's spooky as *fuck*.

The middle story is "The Fairies of the Spring," which summons up the old, mean roots of the Fair Folk, the cruelty behind their beauty and merry laughter.

6/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

This is a great setup: a group of endangered comrades, huddled together against the darkness without, telling tales to buoy up their bravery. It's the framing device that makes *The Decameron* an enduring classic after 800 years and counting. In Killjoy's hands, it sings.

The first story is "The Troll King's Court," a ghost story about a Norwegian troll cult that came to America in a failed Manhattan-Adjacent Project to create a mystical superweapon with which to win WWII.

5/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

To save themselves, they must court their own dead, welcoming them to their circle. They pile a camp-plate high with food for the dead to eat, build the fire up, and begin the tell the stories of their dead comrades, summoning them as a defense against the monstrous forces that stalk the All Saints night. This is the setup for the three linked short stories that make up this short book.

4/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Danielle Cain is a freighter-hopping, anarcho-queer hero whose adventures are shared by solidaristic crews of spellcasting, cryptid-battling crustypunk freaks and street-fighters. In *Immortal Choir*, the action opens with Danielle and a motley band around a campfire in a dark Idaho woods, surrounded by the night-screams of some distant demonic presence. It's Samhain, and the veil between the realm of the living and dead is as thin as it gets. Bad things are stalking the night.

3/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Her 2024 YA novel "The Sapling Cage" is a queer coming-of-age epic that *motors* with all the narrative energy of a genderbent Conan epic:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/24/daughters-of-the-empty-throne/#witchy

Today, Strangers In a Tangled Wilderness Press publishes *The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice*, a collection of three linked short stories set in Killjoy's celebrated Danielle Cain series, which Alan Moore called "ideal reading for a post-truth world":

https://www.tangledwilderness.org/shop/p/the-immortal-choir-holds-every-voice

2/

pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

Margaret Killjoy writes fantasy stories of relentless tension, boundless wonder, thrilling adventure...and completely radical, unflinching anarchist politics.

--

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/18/anarcho-cryptid/#decameron-and-on

1/

pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

I don't think we're going to miss the trash Mike Lindell is selling. We've got dollar stores.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/06/18/minnesota-has-lost-a-thriving-business/

Boosted by pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow"):
beyondmachines1@infosec.exchange ("BeyondMachines :verified:") wrote:

"Works on my machine", oil on canvas.
Unknown artist, 2025

Boosted by pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow"):
broadwaybabyto@zeroes.ca ("Broadwaybabyto") wrote:

I’m seeing a lot of people posting about how sick they are with a “summer flu”

Main complaints? Fatigue, extremely sore throat, fever and loss of smell.

It’s Covid. The Nimbus variant is here & appears to be more transmissible.

It’s time to wear a respirator, clean the air & stay home when sick!

Boosted by pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow"):
randahl ("Randahl Fink") wrote:

Afghan man gets a VISA to the US after assisting the US army in Afghanistan as an interpreter.

Now, without a warrant, Trump's ICE goons have arrested him and put him in detention to get him deported to meet their deportation quotas.

That is your reward for being an ally of the US.

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/afghan-ally-detained-by-ice-immigration-court/