Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
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''Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town'' is a contemporary fantasy novel by Canadian author Cory Doctorow. It was published in June 2005, concurrently released on the Internet under a
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license, free for download in several formats including
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and
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. It is Doctorow's third novel. The novel was chosen to launch the Sci Fi Channel's book club, ''Sci Fi Essentials'' (now defunct).


Plot summary

The story mainly takes place in two
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
locales. In flashbacks, the main character, usually but not always called Alan (he appears to have been alphabetized rather than named, and will answer to and identify himself as any masculine name beginning with A), and his brothers (also alphabetized) grow up outside of the remote town of
Kapuskasing Kapuskasing is a town on the Kapuskasing River in the Cochrane District of Northern Ontario, Canada, approximately east of Hearst. The town was known as MacPherson until 1917, when the name was changed so as not to conflict with another railw ...
. The novel opens with Alan's purchase of a home in the
Kensington Market Kensington Market is a distinctive multicultural neighbourhood in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Market is an older neighbourhood and one of the city's most well-known. In November 2006, it was designated a National Historic Site of Canad ...
neighborhood of modern-day
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
. There are two main plotlines. Alan befriends Kurt, a thirty-something punk who operates a dumpster-diving operation. Kurt uses computer components that he retrieves from the trash and turns them into
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...
network access points. Kurt's goal is to blanket the entire neighborhood with free and secure Internet access by attaching his access points to buildings in a
wireless mesh network A wireless mesh network (WMN) is a communications network made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology. It can also be a form of wireless ad hoc network.Chai Keong Toh Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks, Prentice Hall Publishers, 2002. A m ...
with the permission of their owners. Kurt's plan doesn't really get off the ground until he forms a partnership with Alan, who puts a more professional face on the operation and sweet-talks many local owners into allowing the access points to use their space and a small amount of their electricity. The second plotline features fantasy elements. Unbeknownst to most of the other characters, Alan and his brothers are not quite human. Their father is a mountain and their mother is a
washing machine A washing machine (laundry machine, clothes washer, washer, or simply wash) is a home appliance used to wash laundry. The term is mostly applied to machines that use water as opposed to dry cleaning (which uses alternative cleaning fluids and ...
. Alan's eldest brother can see the future, his second-eldest is an island, his younger brother is
undead The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if alive. Most commonly the term refers to corporeal forms of formerly-alive humans, such as mummies, vampires, and zombies, who have been reanimated by super ...
, and his three youngest brothers are a set of Russian nesting dolls. Alan is the most normal-seeming of his family. Outwardly, he looks human, but he heals at an incredible rate, and if part of him is cut off, it will grow back, and the cut off part can be made to form a new copy of him. Another plot strand concerns Alan's neighbors, a household of students and artists which includes Mimi, a troubled young woman who like Alan is not quite human. Born with wings on her back and no family history, she lives with her abusive boyfriend Krishna, a musician/bartender who can spot beings like Alan and his family, and hates them. Krishna amputates Mimi's wings every three months; she stays with him because she believes he's the only one willing and able to make her "normal."


Characters

Alan, the main character, is called by several names that start with "A", such as Adam and Abby. His brothers' names follow the same pattern, from "B" through "G" for the seventh and youngest brother. No name is given for their parents other than "mother" and "father". Alan is largely known as "Alan" in the narrator's voice, though rarely in any character's voice. Only in a few places does the narrator call Alan by another name. Alan's neighbors' first names also follow an alphabetic sequence: Krishna, Link, Mimi, and Natalie. Mimi is merely a name that she is called, described as being "as good as any other". There are repeat uses of some of these letters, namely Kurt, Lyman, and Marci. (An O and a P name are also briefly mentioned). There are also six anarchists collectively known as Waldo. Almost everyone is known by their first name only. A good number of people are nameless, described by some physical characteristic instead.


External links


Official website
for the novel, on Doctorow's site * {{doctorow-navbox 2005 Canadian novels Novels by Cory Doctorow Anarchist fiction Creative Commons-licensed novels Novels set in Northern Ontario Tor Books books