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Little Brother |  | Author: Cory Doctorow
Publisher: Tor Teen
Buy New: $9.99
as of 9/6/2010 19:29 CDT details
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Rating:  163 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 416
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0765323117
EAN: 9780765323118
ASIN: 0765323117
Publication Date: April 13, 2010
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 163
 Inappropriate August 26, 2010
selectivemom
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Totally inappropriate for the teen reader. Sections read like a dirty romance novel. One scene of teenage intercourse. Bad language, explicit material.... not a choice for my children.
Doctorow's enthusiasm is contagious--it's exactly the sort of book I want to make people read August 12, 2010
TJ (California)
San Francisco's Bay Bridge is bombed in a terrorist attack even worse than 9/11. 17-year-old Marcus Yallow, a high school student who tends to cause trouble with his technical savvy, happens to be minutes away from the bombing. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pick him and his friends up to interrogate the teenagers at an illegal prison. Eventually, Marcus is released from the prison to an America that has changed fundamentally. The United States is now an oppressive regime bent on discovering national threats at the expense of the freedom and privacy of the people. Only kids like Marcus are young and dumb enough to speak out against the violations against American citizens.
Cory Doctorow is a savvy guy. What I mean by that is that he's in touch with the younger generations and what we find interesting. He's as comfortable discussing manboobs, gaming (mostly ARG, or alternate reality games, whereas FOR THE WIN focused on MMORPG, massively multiplayer online role playing games), LARPing, and sci-fi as he is with technology, security, and politics.
Essentially, Doctorow is as in love with technology as he is freedom and privacy. The combination takes the beginnings of the Bush administration's controversial movements against privacy in the name of national security (namely, the PATRIOT Act) and extends those movements to the point where America becomes an exaggerated, but scarily possible and familiar dystopia. In fact, Doctorow is anything but shy about his criticisms. He even introduces a second PATRIOT Act that allows the government to track citizens by use of their debit/credit cards.
Just for the record, anyone who's vehemently right-wing will probably have issues with the novel, quite obviously. Without getting to political about it, I'll say that I didn't have any problem with Doctorow's very overt politics, but was equally aware that this aspect will turn off a lot of readers. And not even only those who necessarily agree with the PATRIOT Act, but others. Not very long ago one of my friends told me that he wouldn't be buying the next album by a particular artist because their music was becoming political and filled with social concerns. I boggled a little bit, but that's the way it is: agree or disagree that friend just doesn't like to mix his politics and entertainment. Now, I'm a different beast entirely. Plus, I find that Doctorow's message and questions are only more relevant now than when the book was written. Just take a look at the news and see how many articles regarding government or corporate control over the internet.
Okay, enough about the politics. They're there and they're engaging, but what of the other aspects of the novel? The characters? The plot?
Well, reading Doctorow (if LITTLE BROTHER and FOR THE WIN are any indication) is a little like getting some lessons mixed in with the story. Every few chapters, Doctorow will drop what is, quite honestly, an info-dump. Strangely, Doctorow's info-dumps have never bothered me as much as they should or they would in most novels. Sure, some of the information is easy enough (I could have gone without the economics lesson in FOR THE WIN, for instance), but quiet a few of these info-dumps are absolutely essential to the plot and characters. Moreover, they sort of remind me of how I get when I'm visiting my dad. It's like he saves up the year's technical questions to ask me on each visit. Invariably, I spend at least 25% of my time visiting fixing, tinkering, and teaching him about his various electronics. I think most people my age have the same experience. For me, Doctorow's info-dumps almost seem to come from that phenomenon directly. It simply feels like these characters have truly had to be the explainers, the fixers their whole lives--so why should that stop when they narrate? Perhaps I'm inventing excuses for Doctorow, perhaps not.
As for the story itself, I found that Doctorow strikes up a riveting balance between the main protagonist and the plot. The story feels constricted by the plot, or the outside forces working against the protagonist, but also by the protagonist's decisions and personality. It's a nice mix and I truly enjoyed getting to know Marcus. Perhaps because he feels like a mosaic of people I knew as a teenager.
I won't fault Doctorow on the characterization of Marcus. He seemed quite real to me. However, I do wish that he'd gone into a little more detail with the other characters. Unfortunately, any character that wasn't Marcus got rather short-changed in the story. And there were so many possibilities! Ange and Marcus's mother were the best developed and both wonderful. I wish they could have gotten just a little more focus. Marcus's father and friends (Darryl, Van, and Jolu) all needed more development, certainly. They were all too easy to discard from the story, sadly. Even the ones that offered an interesting perspective or dynamic. In fact, poor Jolu is barely mentioned after he's basically written out by Doctorow. And that isn't even to mention the absolute demonization of the antagonists (the police, the DHS, and officials everywhere). Any possible power figure that was at all sympathetic or complex doesn't stick around long.
Well, I've already failed horribly at brevity, so I'll try to wrap up quickly. Franky, I found Doctorow's study of security and privacy--particularly with ever-evolving technology--to be fascinating. He brings the question of the right use and balance between security and privacy up beautifully within the very first sentence:
"I'm a senior at Cesar Chavez High in San Francisco's sunny Mission district, and that makes me one of the most surveilled people in the world."
Perhaps the security-privacy aspect and blatant love of technology are the best parts of this book. But there's also a spirit of revolution that I'm still young and dumb enough to feel and love. There are flaws in LITTLE BROTHER, no doubt, but I still can't help but get a little swept away by Doctorow's enthusiasm.
 Little Brother August 3, 2010
Roland
I put off reading Little Brother for some time. See, I have this subconscious aversion to the term "Young Adult". Which is weird, considering how I've loved almost all the YA books I've ever read, but there you have it.
Man, do I hate myself for waiting so long! Cory Doctorow's all-too-real dystopian vision of "security measures" gone wrong is one of the most gripping and compelling stories I've read this year. The story is set in an unspecified future a few years from now. Marcus Yallow is a 17-year old boy living in San Francisco. One day, while ditching school with his friends to look for a real-life clues from an on-line game, he becomes witness to a terrorist attack on the Bay Bridge. Being in the wrong place at the oh-so-wrong time, Marcus is nabbed by the Department of Homeland Security. A few smart-ass "I know my rights and I wanna know what I've been charged with" retorts on his part lead to a week of physical and mental torture, while the DHS extract all his little teen secrets from him just for the heck of it. After that he is released, together with two of his pals. The fourth - his best friend Darryl - remains missing.
In those few days the city has changed. It is now an Orwellian nightmare of surveillance, security checkpoints, tagging and random checks on the street by the forces of the DHS. Even broken and scared, Marcus still can't quell the fury and indignation he feels at this violation of his freedom and privacy. And after what has been done to him, the only course he sees is making them pay for it. And taking the country back from tyranny in the name of "security". Thus begins a story of a techno-revolution that is not dissimilar to the movements in the 60s.
What I loved about Little Brother was the feeling of urgency, the looming shadow of a reality that is rapidly turning into a Fascist nightmare. Also, the main character Marcus is one of the most believable teens I've seen in a novel in a long time. He is not idealized, but neither is he dumbed-down for stereotype's sake. He is a smart, socially aware boy who makes mistakes, feels fear and insecurity; he is vulnerable and cocky at the same time, he mouths off and gets into trouble. But his naivete is also a shield and a sword in the battle with a foe that any "mature" person would never even consider standing up against.
The level of techno-slang in Little Brother is just about right for someone like me who browses the net every day, but considers "hacking" to be something akin to VooDoo mysticism. I can't really say where the real slang ends and the imaginary technology begins, but Doctorow has made his book so believable, so real, that it doesn't matter. It all adds to the feeling of imminent danger, of a future that could very well be now.
What I didn't like about Little Brother was the amount of explanation. I realize the book is meant to be read by younger people, but even so the info-dumps are just a bit too much, and some of them are situated at points where the reader really expects the story to move. I don't mind a one-sentence explanation of a term or concept, but two pages of crypto-theory just puts a stopper on things.
This is a small problem though. All in all Little Brother is a great story of a techno-age rebellion, one that I really empathised with, and with a main character I thoroughly loved. It is a warning of what could very well already be happening, but it is also a promise: that when it all goes wrong, it won't be the Big, but the Little Brother - the Little Brothers - watching, and that they will never let it happen without a fight. And if we could believe that - well, then we are the Little Brothers.
9/10
[...]
 Full of Good Ideas July 28, 2010
GTC
Free downloads of all the author's books at [...].
The Boing-boing contributor's young adult tale of the Department of Homeland Security running roughshod over San Francisco after a terrorist attack on the Bay Bridge drew me in with believable characters and near-future tech and politics. Much of the technology -- anonymous internet access, hand-held RFID cloners -- exist currently and the included Resources section is a valuable aid in finding out more about the tech and privacy issues presented in the novel. This story would be a great introduction for a high school class to discuss privacy, patriotism, and security in our technological lives, especially in Dick Cheney's America. However, take it from someone way too old to be be target audience for this book: contrary to the author's claim, the sex scene is not hot.
Chocked full of interesting information July 18, 2010
P. Sewell (Stavanger, NORWAY)
This is the first of Doctorow's books I've read, even though I've followed his posts on Boing Boing for years. It was a great summer read, and like BoingBoing, is chocked full of interesting stuff but this time focussed around the issues of privacy, technology and government control.
I enjoyed the book much like the work of the late Michael Crichton. A story, but full of real world information giving you plenty of 'wow' moments as the story pauses to explain some new concept.
Highly recommended.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 163
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