Little Brother

In some ways, this book harks back to the juveniles of fifties as written by some of the great masters of sf, most especially Heinlein. Like those earlier books, it portrays teenagers that are intelligent, resourceful, game-loving, and confrontational, but are still at times prone to making stupid mistakes in the name of peer-group status. In other words, they are real teenagers. The setting is the near future, when some ill-defined terrorist group decides to blow up the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Marcus, our hero, and several of his friends are picked up in a rather wide sweep by Homeland Security forces as possible suspects. And therein lies the tale, as the actions of the security forces clash violently with Marcus's idea of what is right and proper in the supposed land-of-the-free America. What Marcus decides to do about this situation is an instructional manual to the reader in just how personal freedom and privacy have been restricted and what can be done about it in today's very high-tech world of security cameras, RFIDs, cryptography, computer databases, and the insidious insinuation of propaganda both at our schools and into everything we see and hear on the internet and our TVs and from the mouths of our political leaders. The story bubbles with suspense, and the actions that Marcus takes are very believable as something a seventeen-year old could actually do. It is very easy to identify with Marcus and become very sympathetic to his cause, while the situation itself is stark enough to frighten the daylights out of the reader as being all too possible. The info-dumps along the way not only impart some very necessary information to the reader, but are handled very much the way Heinlein did it, as things that are necessary for the hero to either know or learn about to accomplish his desires, making them easy to swallow. The techniques and technology presented are real, as some of the afterword material to this book details. The other characters of this book, while not presented with the detail that Marcus is (almost a given in any first-person narration), are both intriguing and in some cases frightening. Marcus's father is a major case in point, as a man with liberal leanings who nevertheless finds himself driven to support the majority view out of fear for his son, and Marcus's social studies teacher, who is very reminiscent of some of the `mentors' of Heinlein's books, as her willingness to engage her students in free-wheeling debate and attempts to get them to think for themselves leads to a very plausible and ugly fate. It is just such touches that make the whole situation ring with that touch of reality that marks excellent science fiction. The politics of this book are decidedly left-wing. The Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security come in for some merciless beatings, but the reasoning behind such depictions is carefully laid out and form a clarion call to all Americans to look carefully at just what we are g

This book is a great story... exciting and well written.. its also interspersed with some very advanced technology and security concepts.. made easy to understand and follow. I'd give it five stars for just that reason. I read the free copy, and have recommended it to about... 10 people or so, and I plan to do so even more often. I worked in computer security for years, and what I saw there was upsetting and sad, which is why I left. Computer security was being turned from a way to prevent terrorists and criminals from doing what they do, and into a way to prevent people from having freedom and privacy. Computer security was used as a way to prevent layoffs, by systematically finding little policy violations, often going years back, and using those as grounds to fire. Vendors who sell security software often liked to quote that 80% of attacks came from inside the company... those for profit entities really sell fear, uncertainty, and doubt... extrapolate that to a near future in which 80% of attacks are said to come from inside the country, and I think you'll see that this slippery slope leads somewhere awful indeed. This books not just good, its important. I hope it strikes a debate. I hope young folks do read it... because its just that important.

"Little Brother" takes Orwell's "1984", and updates it ala Stephenson's "Cryptomomicon", while taking me back to the young adult stories I remember and loved like "The Three Investigators". The near-future plot revolves around a group of high school students and the massive security and civil liberties crackdown that lands on San Francisco after a new "9/11" style attack occurs there. It begins with the teens being mistakenly held for military-style interrogation by the DHS, and does a good job (at a YA appropriate level - explicit, but not violently graphic) of describing the mind manipulation and power games that can be played in these situations. When they're freed, they discover that the Department of Homeland Security has used the event as an excuse for a massive surveillance crackdown in the Bay area, and they chronicle the resultant affect on civil liberties and free speech. Then they fight back, with all the powers next-gen l33t hacker kids can muster. It's fun, insightful, timely, and it's Doctorow's best work yet. It's sold as "Young Adult" fiction, so don't look in the SF section, but it's well worth reading by everyone.

I was halfway through Little Brother last night when I went to bed. As I lay in the darkness, all I could think about was the book. The questions it raised, the insecurities it provoked in me. After about an hour of this I got up and went into the living room, sat down and finished it. Few times in my life have I encountered a piece of art that reflected the zeitgeist so clearly. This is a fabulously brave and important book, and you will hopefully learn a great deal by reading this. Cheers to Mr. Doctorow! This was like reading Ender's Game and the Diamond Age for the first time.

I enjoyed this novel immensely. I want to make that clear from the start. There are many reviews that are going to talk only about how important and topical Little Brother is. They're going to talk about how this novel needed to be written. They're all right, but I think everybody should know how much FUN it is to read (even while you're being outraged by how possible it all is). I started reading it and didn't put it down until I was finished. Little Brother is the first-person narrative of Marcus, a 17 year-old with a talent for technology. Doctorow gets Marcus' voice just right. He alternates between street-swagger and vulnerability, between naivete and expertise. I found him to be an entirely believable contradiction, which is a pretty good definition of a teenager. At first, I found Marcus' love of explaining technology a little irritating, but I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized that it reminded me of my own poorly restrained tendency to try to explain computers to anyone who would listen (35 years ago). Nothing reaches you quite like seeing your own flaws in the hero. Marcus finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time. Without revealing any plot details, suffice it to say that he comes to the attention of a law-enforcement agency with a broad remit and limited oversight. Deceit and mistrust test his family and friendships as he comes face to face with the conflict between personal safety and the responsibilities of a citizen. Cory Doctorow has managed to create a wonderful fusion of science fiction, action novel, political thriller, and whimsical romp. It's very hard to bring those elements together, but he has succeeded admirably. I haven't seen anyone pull this off since "The Long Run" by Daniel Keys Moran. Buy it. Read it. Buy copies for your kids. Once they start reading it, they'll finish it.