Flight into Fantasy

In which I review a seriously overhyped YA SF novel.
Title: Little Brother
Author: Cory Doctorow
Genre: science fiction
Excerpt: You can actually download the whole thing here
Reason for Reading: It had been on my radar for quite a while, but it wasn’t until Thea reviewed it that I decided to try it.
Synopsis:

Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

My Thoughts: If you go to the Amazon page linked above, you’ll see lots of critical acclaim for this book. That’s how it got to my attention, so I eventually knew I had to read it to see if the hype amounted to anything. To be fair, there’s a lot going for this book, not least of which is the fact that it can be downloaded for free from the author’s site. I also really like what Doctorow has to say, but the fact is, when I read, I want relatable characters, and Little Brother didn’t provide. Not only that, but I just felt like there was too much Doctorow in the story and not enough Marcus.

Little Brother is set in that famous science fiction construct, Twenty minutes into the future. It’s a future that is not unlike our present, and from what little googling I’ve done afterword, seems likely to happen. Unfortunately, this trope will probably make the book seem dated in a few years. At least, one hopes. When terrorists attack San Francisco, Marcus Yallow and his friends are at the wrong place at the wrong time and are picked up by Homeland Security and interrogated. They’re suspicious of Marcus because he doesn’t give the passwords he’s got on all his technology right away. After a humiliating interrogation, Marcus and his friends are released, minus one of their number, and Marcus is determined to fight against the injustices perpetrated by the DHS.
What really worked for me about this setup was the use of technology. It all seems so very plausible that I half want to find myself an XBox and see if I can use it to get online. If anything, I learned a lot about what technology can do, and Doctorow’s extrapolations about where it can go from here are fascinating.

Unfortunately, as I said, the characters leave something to be desired. Marcus is likeable enough, but he’s so encumbered by Doctorow’s message that he’s never quite allowed to escape and become a three-demensional character. The few moments of vulnerability he experiences are quite moving, but then he figures out how to solve his latest problem, and I was never left in any doubt that in the end he would prove victorious, since he was basically the author’s self-insert. His friends aren’t given much more depth, either, though I did quite like his love interest. And the less I say about the DHS goons, the better.

Speaking of self-inserts, there really are a lot of them in this book, and I mean that literally. Doctorow dedicates every chapter to a different bookstore. This brought me out of the book every time it happened, and while I’m sure that the information is excellent, it seems like highlighting his favorite bookstores is maybe something he should have done somewhere else. In addition to all that, Doctorow takes the opportunity to engage in massive amounts of fillibustering on everything from technology to politics and the threat to our rights to privacy. While I agree with most of his positions, this was seriously annoying after a while.

When the plot is allowed to happen, it is engaging, and there were moments where, despite massive eyerolling in the beginning, I enjoyed it. The climax, while rolling along about like I thought it would, had me glued to the edge of my seat, and I liked the end, which was positive without wrapping things up too neatly.

Final Verdict: Pauses in the action for the author to air his political views and characters who were flat and bland made this book’s interesting premise fizzle without ever getting a chance to work properly. My grade: A C-. Then again, I guess I get what I paid for.