Craphound

by Cory Doctorow

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 squirrelly alien kitsch-fetish to Craphound. So I did the unthinkable. I violated the Code. I got into a bidding war with a buddy. Never let them tell you that women poison friendships: in my experience, wounds from women-fights heal quickly; fights over garbage leave nothing behind but scorched earth. Craphound spotted the sign -- his karma, plus the goggles in his exoskeleton, gave him the advantage when we were doing 80 kmh on some stretch of back-highway in cottage country. He was riding shotgun while I drove, and we had the radio on to the CBC's summer-Saturday programming: eight weekends with eight hours of old radio dramas: "The Shadow,"

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Cyberpunk, Ebooks

10 pages, ebook

First published March 1, 1998

About the author

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger — the co-editor of Boing Boing and the author of the YA graphic novel In Real Life, the nonfiction business book Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free, and young adult novels like Homeland, Pirate Cinema, and Little Brother and novels for adults like Rapture Of The Nerds and Makers. He is a Fellow for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Beige · Rating 4 out of 5]

A creative little sci short story from The Big Book of Science Fiction that is steeped in nostalgia. It happens to be set where I live, but written 20 years ago it references places that no longer exist or are unrecognizable, adding another layer of nostalgia to the mix.

https://www.blogto.com/city/2013/08/w...

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alien garage sale enthusiasts!

[Stevie Twicetimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

RATING: 4.5 stars, rounded down.
This is the first individual short story that I've rated on Goodreads. I don't exactly know why I'm rating it, but hey, it's 10 pages for my 2024 Year in Books, so I'm not complaining.
"Craphound" follows a world where aliens have begun living alongside humans on Earth, making bank by selling the secrets of their technology to wealthy governments and investors, and in return taking little curios for themselves. The main character, Jerry, is a human who likes to scour garage sales and Goodwills with his alien friend, Craphound. A bidding war over a cowboy trunk tears them apart, and leads to a subtly sweet ending that flips the typical aliens-and-humans-coexisting concept on its head in a humorous and surprisingly thoughtful way.
It's a short read, freely available on Project Gutenberg, and a lot of fun. If you're looking for a small sci-fi fix, you can't do much better than this.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute short story about a human and alien craphound, thrifters that seek out garage sales, Goodwills, and charitable auctions to buy and resale anything from junk to hidden gems. Quick and fun read steeped in nostalgia for an older generation.

[Bastiaan Machielse · Rating 5 out of 5]

My most favorite short story

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

From Escape Pod podcast.

[oct4v · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short and funny. Liked the idea and Craphound's character. Wished there was more weird extee behaviours shown

[Fernando Hisi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um conto muito bom, com fôlego para mais algumas dezenas de páginas, eu diria...

[Chris Aldridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting clash of cultures and morals codes between an alien and a junkyard bargain hunter. From the Years best science fiction sixteen , edited by Gardner Dozois.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Believe it or not, this was my first short story that I've actually read in a long time. The last time I read a book or a short story for recreation was when I was in middle school.

To get on with the review, Cory Doctorow is awesome so far. Maybe that's because I haven't explored many other authors considering this is the first book I finished. I'm glad I chose this book after finding the epub file to download to my ereader. Cory Doctorow writes this story in a sort of futuristic way. It wasn't really detailed about the settings and the characters weren't in depth as much as other authors would make it. But in Cory Doctorow's defense, this was, as I understand it, his first short story.

In this future setting aliens are a part of the world and the culture. The couple characters that are followed in the reading are craphounds, which are people who go to auctions and buy crap to sell later at a much higher cost. It wouldn't seem that interesting to be reading about, but if you have a passion for a sort of futuristic, possibly maybe dystopian, science fiction then this is a great start. I look forward to reading the next book that will most likely be more in depth as Cory Doctorow gets greater at writing science fiction.

[5t4n5 Dot Com · Rating 5 out of 5]

Available in the collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More .

Cory's first story from way back in 1998.   Definitely a story for those of us who love thrift shops, junk shops, auctions, yard sales, charity shops, etc..   The extees remind me of the groks who come to Devon on holiday and deplete all our wonderful charity shops, only difference between extees and groks is that extees actually bring something decent to the table whereas groks only bring their rubbish, noise and pollution.   Groks don't follow the craphound code.

[Calen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read many short stories and I'm finding them an interesting form. This one left me nostalgic and rather happy I'd read it though it felt like something written for a college english class, albeit by someone with a future in writing.

[Katriena Knights · Rating 4 out of 5]

A neat little story. I read the Robot Comics version on my Google phone, which was an interesting experience but worked surprisingly well.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to make several attempts at this before I finally finished. But I am glad that I did. The story comes to a meaningful conclusion.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story with a cool concept: extra-terrestrial wheeler-dealers. Very different to his later stuff.

[Mckinley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audio at http://literalsystems.org/abooks/inde...
Good story

[Rairy]

One of the stories on Escape Pod

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crap can be treasure, and vice-versa. If you get all tingly at the sight of a roadside flea market you'll probably like this.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good short story. This was another Project Gutenberg free download, and the story preface by the author says it is a novel. Maybe this was just a sample then. I'll have to look into it.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet story of friendship among Canadian memorabilia pickers, one of whom is an alien. Enjoyable and immersive.

[Iah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've not found anything by Cory Doctorow that I've not enjoyed even his YA books Little Brother are great.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story, interesting premise

[Jezier · Rating 4 out of 5]

not a book, but a short story. Interesting nevertheless.

[Katsu Goto]

The science fiction was not very important to the story but I liked it anyway.