Kindle
OK, this is way cooler than having your own action figure: having your own fan fiction. It's not slash, but, you know, I sense that that's not far off.
It had been just over thirteen years since the Aliens had descended from the stars and seized the reigns of earthling power. Somewhere between declaring Minnesota their own sovreign territory and dismantling the planet's ridiculously outdated copyright system Supreme Overlord and Ruler Lil' Skippy had somehow got it in his head that Lessig was exactly the person to forge the entire legal apparatus of the human species into one coherent whole. Lessig still wasn't sure why. His memory of the three years following the alien invasion was nothing but a continuous blurred orgy of fatigue-denying go pills, all nighters with UN staff, and endless amounts of legislation. It hadn't been easy, but in the end he had created the two things that the aliens wanted: First, a system of indigenous courts where native earthlings could settle their differences without having to clutter up that administrative apparatus of their Alien rulers or risk incurring the fearsome and often sadistic judgement of the Courts Of The Alien Blood God. And second, a streamlined legal code featuring a revamped notion of property based on an expanded Creative Commons system of licensing rather than relying on superstitious native beliefs which took physical possession of meatworld objects as somehow paradigmatic of ownership and control. The aliens didn't care much for the details of the system - the centrality of biotech to their own civilization rendered obsolete such basic jurisprudential concepts as the 'individual' (as in physically discrete sentient body) in ways that Lessig still hadn't really figured out. They just something that wasn't embarassingly primitive, would lighten the load on their over-worked staff, give humans an illusion of autonomy, and make them feel good about how magnanimous the imperial administration was.Link Discuss (via JOHO the Blog)
I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.