BC’s Recommendations: Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother

I started reading “Little Brother” at around 9am today after I found a link to a free pdf version on John Scalzi’s website. I finished it today, at around 6pm, and am now writing this review of it at 8 in the evening.

I could dedicate this piece to exploring the incredibly well researched and nuanced details of this book. I could expound on its libertarian philosophy and dire predictions of the future. I could do a lot of serious things. But you know what I do best? I do dumb. I do stupid with a certain flare and nuance.

This being said, I will seek to do the impossible. I will compress a summary of a thought-provoking, thematically driven novel into a 5 bit list format without diminishing its artistic integrity.

I give you:

5 Reasons you should purchase “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow

Reason #1 Meet Cory Doctorow

When I first discovered Cory Doctorow I was sitting in a recliner, wearing a pair of boxer shorts, with a desert worth of Oreo crumbs caught in my chest hair. A corona of milk outlined my mouth like clown make-up, and my glasses hung at a skew on my face. I was blindly hitting the “Stumble” button on my lap top, when suddenly this very passionate and articulate man started telling a bunch of people at Google what pricks they were for using DRM. Needless to say, I found this to be pretty ballsy, despite having no idea what DRM meant.

Needlesslier to say, I looked to either side of me, to make sure the coast was clear, opened Wikipedia… and pinched several of the larger crumbs of Oreo out of my chest hair and gobbled them down shamefully. Then, I thought about what a piece of shit I am for about a solid minute. Then, I wiki’ed DRM. And surprise surprise DRM is bullshit. Then I felt like I was bullshit too for being such a slob, so I straightened my glasses and cleared my throat very loudly. Finally, I watched the rest of Doctorow’s video and it all made clear and vibrant sense.

Cory Doctorow is a man of the future. A true visionary. A man over the age of thirty who actually knows how to use the internet. In short, Cory Doctorow is not the sort of man who tries to inconspicuously eat Oreo crumbs out of his chest hair. And if he did he would certainly not feel like shit about it when he discovered a hair caught between his teeth later that night after almost choking on it.

Reason #2 We all kind of wish we could be Hackers

“Little Brother’s” protagonist is a chic seventeen year old cyber-punk who is abducted by the DHS after a terrorist attack. When trying to get help for an injured friend puts him in the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus is transformed into a non person and detained for over a week in a detention camp. He’s released… but his friend has vanished. This is something Marcus finds he cannot live with, so he turns Orwell’s world of 1984 completely on its head.

Using the alias of M1k3y, our hero wages an on-line battle against the DHS. The low-cost tactics he deploys effectively demonstrates that a small group of tech savvy high schoolers could quite easily bungle one of the most well funded branches of the American Government. Not only this, but the book makes you feel like you could take down the government. I of course have known I was capable of this since my dyslexic uncle Phil got a job working air port security. However, it will probably be a shock to most of you.

During the various phases of the story, I went through ever increasing stages of feeling that I was a skilled computer hacker. I went into libraries and threw books into microwaves for no other reason than that I knew it would make them untraceable. I constructed a hidden camera finder with a toilet paper roll and inspected my house for bugs. Then, I burned everything I owned in a barrel by the river, huddled in a small blanket next to several Russian looking men, and recited various novels verbatim so that they could be remembered for all time… or something.

The point being: this book makes you feel like you can hack. You can wage war with the DHS. You can inflate the government and make it implode. For the whole while you read this book, you walk around from room to room, evaluating security systems, looking for chinks in the armor of society. You create aliases for yourself. Perhaps you even write embarrassing stories about your family and post them to the internet. Then finally, you kill someone in a well monitored area, not because you want to, but for the sheer challenge of getting away with it. And then maybe, just maybe, if you read this book like you should… you learn to see everyone as bits of glowing green code, and then assert your total domination over them as ruler of the Matrix.

Reason #3 Cory Doctorow is so resourceful he actually managed to find a practical use for Vampires.

We’ve all had our run ins with Vampires, and know their general attitude toward accomplishing objective goals, which makes it all the more surprising that Doctorow is able to use them to progress the plot. Let us perform a thought experiment…

“Brittney, will you please just answer the questions on page 47?” I groan, resting my head in the palm of my hand so I can stare angrily at my desk. Time in fifth period history has been suspended and unmoving since I was assigned my partner at the beginning of class.

Brittney flutters her dark cape and scoffs. “I do not know this Brittney you speak of. I am Raveness of the Dark Sea Clan, Bruja and Wise Woman.” Her cape threatens to send my papers flying so I hurriedly catch all of them.

I continue reasonably, intermittently biting my tongue, “Okay… but if we each take one page of questions then we’ll be done in a quarter of the time and we can go to lunch early.”

“Ha! Puny mortal. I have no need of your earthly food. These ivory fangs seek only the life source of man flesh.” Brittney opens up her mouth and two rows of unbrushed yellowed teeth cackle. I rub my eyes again. If I was lucky she would just shut up. If I was unlucky, she would explain the difference between psychic and blood drinking vampires.

“Fine, I”ll do your page too. Just give me some space because I need to hurry.” Brittney cackles again.

“Arrogant foolish, human! What matters these questions of men when the dark music of the next world plays only for those who hunt the night? The divine goddess of my vagina weeps golden with the liquor of surrender at such mortal qualms.”

Finally, reality hits me too strong. “Who touched you? It was your uncle wasn’t it?”

Brittney inhales sharply, looking from side to side. Her eyes dance in a very un-Vampiric fashion and for a moment I am able to verify the wagon route of the East India Trading company, but not for long.

“Do you have the second sight?”

… scene

Given the general disposition of Vampires (or Vampyres as they like to be spelled) to put off goals, scoff at the concept of work, and retreat into Vampiric nomenclature when forced to interact with the “mortal” realm, Doctorow’s accomplishment is nothing short of amazing. In fact, I would say this ground-breaking plot device is award worthy, and would hereby like to award Doctorow the BC Woods award for, “Best Use of Vampires in a Young Adult Book in 2008.”

For those of you who claim I have a Vampiric Vendetta, given my well known disdain of Black Vampires, and that this was basically just a reason Vampire-bash… well you’re probably right. But it’s not like I get paid for this. So fuck off.

Reason #4 Chic Under Age Cyber Punk Sex

Let’s face it. When you think of kids spending hours on-line, you naturally think “Wow, I bet those kid are pulling down ass like a liberated Iraqi pulling down a Saddam Hussein statue.” It’s a common stereotype, and it’s best just to put it out there and acknowledge it.

Of course, Doctorow knows better than to hide the candy store. In fact, he mentions the no doubt double magnum sized spermacidal condoms worn by Marcus, on several occasions. Given the subtext, we are also left with no doubt that Marcus nails his girlfriend Ange with the passionate desperation of a meth withdrawn sheet-rocker swinging a sledge hammer to earn money for that next sweet fix.

Reason #5 It’s FREE for Christ’s sake

Generally, when I get something for free, it’s a shitty cup of nuts at Costco that leaves me parched and unsatisfied. Or it’s a god damn pamphlet from a bunch of LaRouche kids who don’t understand that I already have ten copies of the same exact fucking pamphlet they gave to me earlier that same god damn day. Generally, free means shit.

“Little Brother” is different. Doctorow releases his work for free so people can read it and judge for themselves, not because he’s a desperate hack who has to write sensational stories about his family, post them on-line for free, and just sit waiting for a book offer because he’s an agoraphobic coward who can barely talk to people over the phone. No, Cory Doctorow gives his books away for free because he’s got so many cajones that his scrotum sac looks like a plastic bag tightly pulled over a bundle of grapes. His book speaks for itself, and if you click right goddamn here you can see for yourself.