Cory Doctorow is one of the most interesting science fiction authors working today, as well as an editor and frequent contributor to Boing Boing, one of the most popular blogs in the world.
His new book, Little Brother, is a young adult novel about a high school student 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.”
It is smart and funny and important. It makes technology look like fun and it explains clearly and convincingly why our freedoms matter and why our government’s obsessive secrecy and wiretapping and paranoia are not making us safer.
I’ll be buying copies and pressing them on high schoolers. You should read it. It’s not just for kids.
Neal Gaiman’s quote sums up my feelings:
“I’d recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I’ve read this year, and I’d want to get it into the hands of as many smart 13 year olds, male and female, as I can.
“Because I think it’ll change lives. Because some kids, maybe just a few, won’t be the same after they’ve read it. Maybe they’ll change politically, maybe technologically. Maybe it’ll just be the first book they loved or that spoke to their inner geek. Maybe they’ll want to argue about it and disagree with it. Maybe they’ll want to open their computer and see what’s in there. I don’t know. It made me want to be 13 again right now and reading it for the first time, and then go out and make the world better or stranger or odder. It’s a wonderful, important book, in a way that renders its flaws pretty much meaningless.”
