Red Team Blues, by Cory Doctorow

I liked reading this book. Fast paced action, an appealing if imperfect hero, at the cutting edge of computers, society, and security. A quick read that kept me turning pages.

I am still disappointed. Where is the Cory Doctorow of "Walkaway"? Or "Radicalized"? The protagonist in this story seems to be a guy who is feeling his age and still has sympathies for progressive ideas but has (sort of) made peace with things as they are. Though I think the ending is worth reading a couple of times. At first it sounds a bit obvious and some have thought it tone-deaf, but I think it is self-consciously so.

Cory Doctorow intends his speculative fiction to be "at the very edge of the present". This one feels less at the edge. More like a modern thriller than speculative fiction, he's just slotted there.

Maybe he will stretch Martin Hench in future books. But it kind of doesn't look that way.

David (Spring, TX)’s review of Red Team Blues | Goodreads

Homeland, by Cory Doctorow

I recently picked this up in order to complete the series. It is a bit behind the curve now, just because of how Doctorow writes--his books are ripped from the latest blogs, the cutting edge of now that sounds like SF. Knowing this, the books are also pretty depressing. We now know that exposing Carrie Johnstone will not bring her to justice--it will only make her and her handlers mad. There are a lot of good descriptions of handling protests that ring true according to friends in Portland that have participated. Afterwords by some solid and well known activists. But it's a tough read, I have to say.

My Goodreads Review

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow

 I know I have read this book, but somehow never wrote a review of it.  It is something of a period piece now, just because of how Cory Doctorow writes--his stories are on the cutting edge of the present.  As I recall it was good, you really got into the main character Marcus Yallow, but also depressing.

Attack Surface, by Cory Doctorow

Like other reviewers, my feeling as I read this book was that it was not science fiction--more of a cutting-edge thriller with technologies that seem very possible today. This is how Cory Doctorow usually writes--the technology is from the descriptions of alpha- and beta-version tools in the best technical journals and blogs (like Boing Boing).

For about 80% of the book I felt sad at the state of play that Doctorow describes. There's just no real hope of retaining your privacy if you have the nerve to stand out and get a powerful actor's attention. For the last 20%, the hope faded to cynicism. The setup was so bleak that it really did not leave much room for a turnaround beyond Masha's "waking" moment. It made me think about Hong Kong, where the protesters had the latest versions of all this technical and social engineering thrown at them. The protesters lost in the end. And they knew it was going to happen. I do have to give props to Doctorow's complex ending. Even a turnaround that stretches hope to the edges leaves the situation at status quo ante.

We live in historic times. This book is not going to make you feel better about them. Sorry.

My Goodreads Review

Walkaway, by Cory Doctorow

Walkaway by Cory Doctorow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a book of ideas, in some ways a throwback to older science fiction in that the ideas are front and center, and the characters are mostly mouthpieces for them. I do not think of this as a bad thing, and thoroughly enjoyed the book. It made me think all the way through. Yes, the premise is a bit contrived, that cheap fabrication and smart design render both ownership and expertise somewhat optional (though he has to take the latter back a bit in the second half of the book, as we get immortality and warfare). But he's not the first person to imagine post-scarcity communalism, the idea that we will have more than enough for everyone if we stop hoarding. I'm thinking of B. F. Skinner's Walden II. Yes it's preachy, because what you are getting is Doctorow's analysis of current events and a prediction about how it would go if a critical mass of people started to try some really radical solutions. It's possible he didn't spend enough time motivating the dystopia--the system has become even more transparently rigged than it is now, we have company towns and indenture making a comeback. My main critique would be that he set it too far in the future. We could be doing this in 30 years. Not a perfect novel, but the story often grabbed me so I think it worked.



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