Book Log: Little Brother

[penmage]

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Marcus isn’t exactly what you’d call a good student, but he’s not a bad kid, either. What he is is a hacker, a damn good one. He knows how to hack the security settings on his school-issued laptop, and he knows how to get around the gait-recognition cameras that surveil the hallways of his school. That’s how he and his three best friends end up playing hooky, chasing after a clue in an ARG, during a massive terror attack.

It’s a case of wrong place at the wrong time, but Marcus and his friends are seized by the Department of Homeland Security. They’re held for days, questioned and harassed. When DHS finally lets them go, they emerge into a changed San Francisco—into what is virtually a police state.

Marcus is shaken and terrified, but he’s not having it. He knows that what’s happening to his world is wrong, and he knows that if no one stands up against it, then it will steamroll into an unstoppable force. Fighting the Department of Homeland Security—the government—is a huge, daunting task. But Marcus is a damn good hacker. He’s smart, and talented, and very, very determined. One way or another, Marcus is going to take his America back—or die trying.

I read this book a few days ago, and I’m still turning it over in my mind, mulling it. It’s a thoughtful book. In introducing Spider Robinson’s short story Melancholy Elephants in a Nebula anthology, Isaac Asimov called it a “dense” story. Dense, meaning packed with ideas, information. The kind of story that makes you think, that gives you something to chew on. Melancholy Elephants was unquestionably such a story—years later I still can’t get it out of my mind. I suspect the same will be true for Little Brother.

The other book this reminds me of is Jo Walton’s chilling and brilliant Farthing. Farthing is the sort of book that shows us how easy it would be—how easy it is—to let our freedoms slip away from us, and to give up the liberties we claim to hold so dear. Walton’s book showed us how that could happen in an alternate history. Little Brother is even more chilling, because it shows the same thing—in a very near future.

Little Brother feels real. I’m not a hacker, so I can’t swear that everything that Marcus does is doable right here and now, but it certainly feels that way. There’s hardly any technology that isn’t either available now or will probably be available soon.

It’s terrifying. It's a dystopian novel that takes place in fifteen years. It brings the message home and hits you where it hurts. It makes you take a long, hard look around your world and sit up and pay attention. It’s the kind of book that makes you want to stand up and be counted, to make your voice heard. I’m glad that this book exists, if only to ensure that the future it describes never comes to pass.

I want to stress something else. This isn’t just An Important Book—it’s also a good one. Marcus and his friends are great characters. It’s never not fun to read about the little guy striking out against the Goliath—and making an impact. It’s a really good, entertaining read—and if it scares you along the way, that just means that it’s doing the job of a really good book—changing the minds of people who can change the world.

Comments

[arib.livejournal.com]

Part of Doctorow's shtick when writing Little Brother was making the various hacks and things that Marcus and crew do as realistic as possibl without being preachy.

So, every time he describes something like an onion router (like TOR) or how to block RFID signals and such, they're all real and replicable. At this point, someone's in the middle of designing an OS like ParanoidLinux.

(Also, somewhere on Spider Robinson's website is a podcast of him reading Melancholy Elephants. I can dig it up, if you'd like.)

[octoberdreaming.livejournal.com]

I haven't read this yet, but I can't wait to get my hands on it. The whole ARG community was over the moon about it when it came out.

[vass]

I loved Little Brother.

[g33kgrrl]

Thanks for reviewing this! I really wanted to hear your take on it.

[(Anonymous)]

I like books that are important and good. :)
-em
www.emsbookshelf.blogspot.com

[penmage.livejournal.com]

What did you think? Did you review it and I missed it? (I try not to read reviews of books I want to read until I've read them myself, lest I spoil myself. I'm kind of a rabid spoilerphobe.)

[g33kgrrl]

Wow, I thought I had done a write-up but I looked and I guess I haven't. It will go on my to-do list.

I loved it, though, and was very scared by it.