Magical short story podcast about Google Book Search, data visualization and the Olde Curiousity Shoppe

This week's story on the Escape Pod science fiction podcast is a remarkable tale called "Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store" written by Robin Sloan and billed as a "short story about recession, attraction and data-visualization" and it is fabulous. It's a fantastic, magical realist tale about Google Book Search, magick with a K, an olde curiousity shoppe, and the power of data-visualization. The story was initially self-published on Sloan's blog and was recommended to the Escape Pod editors by a friend, who read it, loved it and bought it. If you enjoyed Ben Rosenbaum's The Ant King: A California Fairy Tale, you'll love this.

IT'S 2:02 A.M. ON A COLD SUMMER NIGHT.

I'm sitting in a book store next to a strip club.

Not that kind of book store. The inventory here is incredibly old and impossibly rare. And it has a secret--a secret that I might have just discovered.

I am alone in the store. And then, tap-tap, suddenly I'm not.

And now I'm pretty sure I'm about to snap my laptop shut, run screaming out the front door, and never return.

* * *

I SHOULD START AT THE BEGINNING.

I lost my job in the slumped-over spring of 2009. I applied for dozens of replacement gigs but was rebuffed, again and again. And I took only the coldest comfort when the companies doing the rebuffing were, themselves, forced out of business months later. I probably couldn't have turned them around single-handedly. Probably.

The job I lost was at the corporate headquarters of the New Amsterdam Bagel Bakery. I designed bagel marketing materials. Menus, coupons, posters for store windows, and, once, an entire booth "experience" for the bagel industry trade show.

I also ran the website.

Now, months into my unemployment, I'd started watching for "help wanted" signs in windows, which is not something you really do, right? I was taught to be suspicious of those. Legitimate employers use Craigslist.

EP215: Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store (podcast)

Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store (text)

• [bbreader]

  Thanks Cory!! I was just starting to worry as have heard just about all of the Mindwebs which I learned of from a post of your back in Nov ’07

  http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/12/mindwebs-free-old-sc.html

• [Robert]

  I enjoyed the writing, and that led me to pledge to Robin’s new book.

• [postliteracy_dot_org]

  Eerie. I was just looking at this story last night before going to bed. Nice to see it make an appearance on Escape Pod.

• [Anonymous]

  Thank you for this. Great little read, that.

• [redhead]

  that was fabulous, I adored the story. I’m a “Read or die” type of book lover, but i like computers and technology too.

• [Thad E Ginataom]

  Nice story.

  Not great but hey, whose demanding great.

  Come to think of it, it was a great way to pass some of the midnight hour tonight :)

  There was a google-takes-over-the-world story a while back. I think it was on BB that I saw it. Anyone remember? I think it started with a guy arriving in Immigration…

• [Rod Begbie]

  If you enjoy this short story, be sure to help support Robin’s upcoming book: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robinsloan/robin-writes-a-book-and-you-get-a-copy/

• [foobiebletch]

  Wonderful story. I’ve contributed to Robin Sloan’s upcoming novella on kickstarter.com because of this! Can’t wait to read more of his work.

• [Wickedashtray]

  Great short story Cory, thanks for the link.

• [mrsomuch]

  That was ace! thanks Cory!

• [stevew]

  Thanks Cory, that was great. I’ve passed the story on to others. Now I’m going to Click on the kickstart link above.

• [Gal_n_AL]

  thoroughly enjoyable story! thanks for the link !

• [Anonymous]

  funniest line:

  “Legitimate employers use Craigslist.”

• [jacques45]

  Enjoyable, and I liked the description and use of Google :)