Makers

Makers was an incredible book. Doctorow did a really great job in character building to where I felt I knew the attitude and look of each character. Even characters with relatively small parts to play in the book were interesting to me. It was hard to see an overall theme to this book but I feel that, even though it is a sci-fi book, the underlying them to the book is friendship. I could feel the connection that each character has for the other. But also I believe that there was a "political" (for lack of a better word) message too in sort of the same way, but not as overtly as, say Fahrenheit 451. I do feel that Doctorow does impart some of his personal views on the business environment and if you read BoingBoing you will know what I mean. But I did not feel he was "pushing his agenda" even though I dig his agenda. The book is definitely a geeky book but I feel that even a non-geek or a shade-tree geek like myself could enjoy the book overall. Makers is witty, funny, and heartwarming too. I love a book that can make me feel the emotions of each character. There were definitely times where I actually laughed out loud as wept. The dialogue was very effective. Not too simple but not overly wordy. The only negative I can say is the publisher's description of the book on the dust jacket. I think that it is a little misleading in that it is kinda a pseudo-spoiler. Pseudo in that I don't think it was quite accurate and it gives you information that I feel either does not fit the overall feel of the book or just does not make since. I highly recommend you read Makers. You will laugh, cry, get pissed and be thoroughly entertained.

Remember "The Graduate"? Benjamin, a child of privilege, has no idea what to do with his life. At his graduation party, a colleague of his father's pulls him aside, and says "I have one word for you: plastics." The rest of the movie isn't about that, of course, but about Benjamin's sexual and romantic exploits. But in some parallel universe, perhaps a different version of "The Graduate" exists, where Benjamin follows his father's colleague's advice, goes into plastics, becomes an inventor, strikes out on his own, and winds up rebelling not against Mrs. Robinson, but Exxon, or GE or IBM. "Makers" is the closest thing in this universe to that version. It is youthful and exuberant, but also world-weary and wise, and freshly of-the-moment. Part I is a head-spinning avalanche of incident and invention, Part II, a meditation on failed revolutions, Part III the battle plan for a hard-fought, ambiguous, but plausible victory. The book is many things: let me point out three. One: it is a catalogue of brand-new desirable products. My personal favorite is the lego-block-shaped ice-cubes. I want them so badly. You'll have your own favorites, I am sure. You'd have to go back to "American Psycho" for so many wonderful things to buy on each page. But "Makers" is much hipper: genuine cool versus ironic-cool. Two: it is a detailed, extremely plausible, and only thinly disguised history of the dot-com bubble and the intellectual property wars since the World Wide Web came into being. It is thus simultaneously about the near future and the recent past. In other words, it is about this minute. Third: it's the best popular business book I've ever read, better than "The Tipping Point," better than "Freakanomics," better than "The Black Swan." Finally, you get great value for your dollar. This edition may be a little over four-hundred pages, but the publisher is that marvelous cheapskate Tor. Tightly clustered chapter breaks and a tiny, densely packed font camouflage a much longer book, easily six or seven hundred pages, possibly almost as long as "Under the Dome." In this case, longer is better.

Cory Doctorow's work is up to the minute (or perhaps 30 seconds into the future). It is the perfect science fiction and manifesto for Makers, Hackers, DIY'ers and Entrepreneurs. As an active member of the Philadelphia Hackerspace--Hive 76 I will recommend it as fiction that speaks to this generation of electronics, software, materials and economic hackers. Lester and Perry's adventures and misadventures speak to all of us who have our own dreams of building the next self-directed innovation, whether in the Physical, Virtual or Economic sphere. The ambivalence as to what and how successful the current generation's successors to yesterday's mega-corporations will be and for how long, and in what form is realistic and intriguing to its potential participants. This is the book of fiction and reality which meets, validates and invalidates the expectations of today's reader's of Make Magazine, Wired and Business Week, and is an exemplar of Speculative Fiction which more closely fits the unfolding of current reality than the textbooks I encountered in a Wharton School MBA program... --Ira Laefsky MS Engineering, MBA, Psychophysiology & HCI Hacker & Member of the Hive76 Philadelphia Hackerspace

Born to invent and create, Perry and Lester go together like peanut butter and jelly. When they invent a whole new world with someone taking notes of every move, life becomes a little hectic. Then, when their baby crumbles, the whole world is watching. These friends are draw to the limit and it's no surprise that the company and the friendship, may be doomed for ever. Will they be able to redeem themselves? This is a witty novel that will appeal to nerds everywhere. I'm including myself in this nerd category. So to all you dorks out there, this is a book written just for you. (And me.)

I won an Advance Uncorrected Proof of this book. Just like everyone else, I love winning things, especially ARCs. So when I first started it, I didn't really have any expectations. Of course, the fact I only managed to read about twenty pages before setting the book down for the night led me to believe it would take a long time to finish it. Not so. The next night I managed about another twenty pages--not so hard to believe as small font, long pages and I only spent about an hour reading. The third night I read fifty pages and hated to stop. By that time, Cory Doctorow literally grabbed me and pulled into the story. I got so caught up in the lives of these five people that I hated to stop reading. First off, we have Suzanne Church, a journalist in a press conference given by Landon Kettlewell, new owner of Kodacell--a merging of Kodak and Duracell. A brilliant, manic man who's not happy unless he has some crisis to solve. Kettlewell ends up talking Suzanne into covering his idea of investing money in small groups of entrepreneurs. And so Suzanne ends up meeting Lester and Perry--two brilliant men with zany ideas who make things from garbage. Then Tjan joins them as the "suit" or management. This whole concept of "New Work" takes off. Suzanne ends up quitting the paper and blogging. When New Work tanks, Lester and Perry don't just sit around, they come up with newer and zanier ideas and Suzanne goes off to Russia--the new metropolis of cosmetic surgery. I really loved MAKERS. The characters are all bigger than life and very easy to fall in love with. Of course, the villains are all easy to hate too, well, except for Sammy Page. Felt a bit ambivalent about him. The action is non-stop and the way Perry and Lester, and even Suzanne react to the world around them is awe-inspiring. Perry especially is determined to do things his own way and stays true to that throughout the book. And this futuristic world Cory Doctorow comes up with, well, don't really think I'd want to live there. With the way things are going now with the economy and all--very plausible. Start this story and you will have to finish it, if for no other reason than to find out what Lester and Perry come up with next.