Astute readers might remember that sometime last week I complained that Cory Doctorow had not yet gotten around to releasing his latest work for free on the internet. Well, he promised it to us Monday, and by gum, we got it on Monday. Unfortunately I’d already cued up a review for Tuesday, so you get it Wednesday. Most won’t complain. Cory Doctorow is not the Ragtime guy; that’s E. L. Doctorow. Cory is the BoingBoing.net guy as well as the guy who wrote this other book that I reviewed a few months ago.

Before I get into the plot, I should say that this novel’s anti-draconian-copyright-laws essay is different, and contains some wonderful ideas.

I recently saw Neil Gaiman give a talk at which someone asked him how he felt about piracy of his books. He said, “Hands up in the audience if you discovered your favorite writer for free — because someone loaned you a copy, or because someone gave it to you? Now, hands up if you found your favorite writer by walking into a store and plunking down cash.” Overwhelmingly, the audience said that they’d discovered their favorite writers for free, on a loan or as a gift. [...]

Neil went on to say that he was part of the tribe of readers, the tiny minority of people in the world who read for pleasure, buying books because they love them. One thing he knows about everyone who downloads his books on the Internet without permission is that they’re readers, they’re people who love books. [From the introduction to Little Brother, retrieved from Craphound.com on May 5, 2008.]

Now, I am hardly advocating book piracy, but I love this quote. However, I’ll get on with the review and stop discussing politics. Or can I?

Marcus, a.k.a. w1n5t0n or m1k3y, is a techno-savvy 17-year-old kid living San Francisco, in a world only a few years removed from our own. (Actually, by simple addition, it’s around 2010 or 2011. See the ‘Sega Dreamcast’ reference for my dating.) Computers monitor everything from your car to your schoolbooks via RFID (“arphid” — radio frequency identification) tags, and Marcus knows how to get around every single one of them. One day, while playing an ARG (sort of like a combination of a computer game and a scavenger hunt; there was an interesting episode of Numb3rs about these), Marcus and his best friends are caught outside when terrorists bomb San Francisco, blowing up the Bay Bridge. The four of them are arrested and thrown into a prison. Naturally the Department of Homeland Security is using ‘national security’ as the bugbear to scare everyone into complying with horrific laws, including ridiculous amounts of surveillance and arrests if you don’t fit their definition of ‘normal’. Also naturally, Marcus (once he is no longer imprisoned) decides to fight it. Yes, the DHS.

This is only barely a novel. I do not say that because it is lacking in any particular novel elements; there is definitely a plot, and characters, and all those other things. I say this because while all those things are interesting, it’s awfully difficult to read the book and come away with the idea that it’s just a good rollicking adventure. It’s not. It’s a treatise disguised as a novel. If you disagree with Cory Doctorow’s views on copyright, security, and liberty, you will probably not get past page 20 of this novel. I don’t think I’d even try it. But then again, I’m 25 (although not over 25) and you’re not supposed to listen to me. If you want to be convinced, though, Doctorow can do it. However, I would even go so far as to say that this book, read by someone expecting a YA science-fiction novel, could turn people off the subject.

It’s also truly frightening. Doctorow has done his homework; he (via Marcus) displays his knowledge of so many up-to-date bits of technology and history and policy that it’s just on the edge of being believable. That Marcus, a seventeen-year-old, knows this much, that is — not Doctorow’s writing. The frightening part is just how small the distance is between Marcus’s world and our own. We have red-light cameras; I’m sure there’s decent facial-recognition software out there somewhere, and gait-recognition software is being used in the LA airport, and surely other places. His Xbox, the Xbox Universal, is only about two versions ahead of our current Xbox. No one’s invented ParanoidLinux yet, but the mods he has in his distro are mostly available today. (Uh, in English: it basically already exists.)

Frankly, with the PATRIOT Act and other infringements on our civil liberties that people are perfectly OK with (how about that 3 oz of any liquid on a plane deal?), it seems we’re already heading towards Marcus’s world, and it would only take one event — a bombing in San Francisco, say — to make almost everything he’s written a reality, and that’s frightening.

Doctorow’s writing is not without flaws; he repeats the same phrases, and I wasn’t entirely convinced that he was reusing those phrases to mimic a seventeen-year-old boy. (If his writing was flawless, I would be convinced of that.) However, Marcus’s voice is strong, if not altogether distinct from Doctorow’s, and his characters — especially Jolu and Ange — are vivid. I also loved Zeb, a homeless man, who described himself as a “freegan” — he only eats free food.

Doctorow makes the comparison between this work and Orwell’s 1984 himself, obviously saying that he has a lot to learn from the master. A new 1984? No. The major difference between 1984 and this novel is that Doctorow chose not to separate Marcus’s world from our world by very much at all. He’s making his point in about the most blatant way possible: we are one event away from a police state. Perhaps it’s a little removed, since it was intended as a YA novel, but I don’t think that registers much at all. Also, in Orwell’s time, the scary totalitarian dictatorship was the Soviet Union, or Communism in general. In Doctorow’s time, the scary totalitarian dictatorship (well, the one he’s warning against) is us — the United States of America. It’s very possible that Doctorow could have chosen to make his point using a fantasy or science-fiction world. That would have softened the blow a lot, and made the book more accessible to a large group of readers. I don’t think he wanted to, though; I think he wanted to write a book that would appeal to only a small segment of society — a cult classic, if you will.

There is a fair amount of technical jargon in this book. I didn’t find it confusing at all, but then again, I’m dating a computer nerd. This book does have very left-wing political views, and it isn’t afraid to use them. I can see how it would easily put off someone who isn’t at least a little left of center. The book is aimed, I think, at the people who already agree with him. I’m not convinced that was the best idea, though. Isn’t the point to convince the people sitting on the fence? If that wasn’t his intention, then perhaps he might have misjudged the strength of his message through the novel.

I know that Doctorow meant this work at least somewhat as entertainment — otherwise it would have been non-fiction. It was definitely, on some level, entertaining, but it was also a warning. The good news is, however, that we are not yet in Marcus’s world; that we can change things; and that this book has not yet been put on any sort of list by the American government. I’m going to save a copy on my hard drive, though, just in case, because Little Brother made me frighteningly paranoid. 5/5 stars for effect, about 3/5 for general novel-like-ness, readability, and writing style, and 1/5 stars for subtlety. Recommended, but with a caveat.