Craphound
10 Installments—Entirely free
(Preview)
Members' Rating:
from 13 Ratings and 2 Reviews
Tags: Science Fiction, Short Stories
ISBN:1568582862
Praise for Cory Doctorow
"Cory Doctorow straps on his miner's helmet and takes you deep into the caverns and underground rivers of Pop Culture, here filtered through SF-coloured glasses. Enjoy."
- Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods and Sandman
"Few writers boggle my sense of reality as much as Cory Doctorow. His vision is so far out there, you'll need your GPS to find your way back."
—David Marusek, winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Award and Nebula Award nominee
"Like most aliens-mingling-with-human-society stories, Doctorow's story serves mostly to hold a mirror up to human nature, but the odd corner of human nature it examines is fascinating, and the story is smoothly and expertly written, with some good detail and local color and some shrewd insights into human nature and human culture, and an almost Bradburian vein of rich nostalgia running through it (although the nostalgia is quirky enough that perhaps it might more usefully be compared to R.A. Lafferty or Terry Bisson than to Bradbury)."
- Gardner Dozois, editor of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
Extended Copyright Information
Copyright 1998 by Cory Doctorow.
This work, Craphound, by Cory Doctorow, is distributed under the following Creative Commons License: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 1.0 Generic
Originally published in Science Fiction Age, March 1998.
Previously published in A Place So Foreign and Eight More, (Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 2003), Northern Suns (Tor, 1999, David Hartwell and Glenn Grant, editors), Year's Best Science Fiction XVI (Morrow, 1999, Gardner Dozois, editor), and Hayakawa Science Fiction Magazine (Japan, September 2001).
Back to top
About the Author
Born in 1971 to a Canadian family whose values included political activism, Cory Doctorow devoted much of his youth to activist and social justice causes. After leaving college without a degree, he went on to serve pivotal roles in the field of copyright in the electronic and internet age. In 2003, he published his first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which was greeted with much success from the science fiction community. A sought-after lecturer, Doctorow recently held the inaugural Fulbright Chair in Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. He has since published other works, among them a short-story collection entitled A Place So Foreign and Eight More, and a novel, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.
Back to topOpening Lines (Experimental)
Craphound had wicked yard-sale karma, for a rotten, filthy alien bastard. He was too good at panning out the single grain of gold in a raging river of uselessness for me not to like him--respect him, anyway. But then he found the cowboy trunk. It was two months' rent to me and nothing but some ...
Back to topCopyright
Copyright 1998 by Cory Doctorow.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 1.0
Back to topMember reviews
4/5
Reviewed by mustang6771 on Nov 7, 2011
Short and to the point
Shorter than I thought it would be, it's a nice change of pace from the rest of Sci-Fi I have been reading. Laid back but methodical in the same stride. Give it a read.
4/5
Reviewed by lindseak on Jan 4, 2010
Enjoyable, "a story and a poem."
Slow at first, this short story has some interesting ideas and a very interesting take on extraterrestrial life. At times almost lyrical, it manages to handle it's sci-fi aspects in a way that doesn't over whelm the real relationships or emotions in the story. Very enjoyable and worth reading.
Login to review this book
Not yet registered?
Ratings for 'Craphound' by Doctorow, Cory
| benaud | ![]() | 2011-11-17 | |
| boookywooky | ![]() | 2011-06-30 | |
| bswarner | ![]() | 2010-07-29 | |
| cresswga | ![]() | 2009-07-23 | |
| eldatari | ![]() | 2011-11-03 | |
| firewhite | ![]() | 2009-07-12 | |
| Gambitus | ![]() | 2011-05-23 | |
| HollyCampbell | ![]() | 2012-11-24 | |
| Khyarete | ![]() | 2008-09-05 | |
| kittnpie | ![]() | 2011-09-27 | |
| lindseak | ![]() | Read review | 2010-01-04 |
| mustang6771 | ![]() | Read review | 2011-11-07 |
| shana12047 | ![]() | 2009-03-19 |
Craphound
Receive installments for free



