Little Brother - Cory Doctrow

[bookgazing]

Marcus and his friends are tech heads, living in a city where citizens who know about technology are considered suspicious, even though technology is being harnessed by the government and schools, who are supposedly trying to prevent danger. When Marcus and his friends skip school to take part in a treasure hunt, organised online they find themselves in the wrong place during a terrorist attack. After being abducted by Homeland Security when they try to flag down some help for Darryl, a member of their group injured in the crowds trying to escape underground after a bomb goes off, Marcus, Van and Jolu are treated like criminals because they know their rights and have a history of technological mischief. No evidence is found against them, but their unwillingness to surrender the contents of their phones, memory sticks and laptops is viewed as proof that they were somehow involved in the attack. While Van, Jolu and Marcus are released, Darryl is held captive at an unknown location without trial.

After the attack Marcus’ town is subject to increased security measures that border and then tip into the insane. Phones and laptops are bugged and people can be spirited away without evidence, if anyone thinks they are endangering security. Campaigning for privacy becomes equal to hiding evidence of terrorism. Unable to trust that his parents or the police will believe he was kidnapped and interrogated Marcus sets out to fight the people who unlawfully abducted him, by sabotaging their technology and creating a covert internet campaign to expose them. As the illegality and ridiculousness of the situation increases society accept the erosion of its rights until Marcus begins to wonder if anything will convince the people around him that what is happening is wrong.

I think if you’ve been reading this blog for a while you can broadly guess where I stand politically when it comes to most of the big issues, so yes a book like ‘Little Brother’ is always going to appeal to me because it’s main character confirms my own political views. I enjoyed reading about a character who thinks that privacy is important, that free speech is essential and that being asked to sacrificing basic human rights in the name of security is indefensible. Seeing Marcus examine these ideas and prove their worth with logical reasoning stretched my mind and made me see the importance of developing my ideas past my instinctual beliefs. It also made me think about political complacency and how I could combat it in myself and others. Importantly, it really clarified the reasons why other ordinary people like me might hold an opposing position to me and gave me a greater understanding of people whose politics I might not agree with.

However the fact that a book chimes with my own views shouldn’t (and doesn’t) guarantee it a good review (although in the interests of full disclosure I can’t guarantee it doesn’t earn a book a bit more leniency when it comes to small areas of weakness). So it’s now time to tell you what else is cool about this book.

I’m a girl who often doesn’t understand technology at all, but I thought this book which is full of technical descriptions was compelling. Cory Doctrow has a passion for technology that shines through in his writing, which makes technological experimentation sound like fun. By having Marcus explain the satisfaction he feels when he builds a computer from scratch, or talk about the time he spends working on various projects with his friends Doctrow makes technology personal and interesting for non-techys like me. He also has a practical grasp of how to explain complicated concepts to the technologically challenged. He uses comparisons and lots of simple, explanatory details that help to break down what originally seems like a complicated idea:

‘Gait recognition software takes pictures of your motion, tries to isolate you in the pics as a silhouette, and then tries to match the silhouette to a database to see if it knows who you are. It's a biometric identifier, like fingerprints or retina-scans, but it's got a lot more "collisions" than either of those. A biometric "collision" is when a measurement matches more than one person. Only you have your fingerprint, but you share your gait with plenty other people.’.

It seems that Doctrow’s main aim with this novel is to explain, so that readers can understand concepts, which will enable them to experiment with technology and thought. This never feels like dry education, as the action and the pace of the novel heighten the tension. The novel feels constantly charged, as it moves from one big piece of social activism action to another and Doctrow keeps the fear levels high by having Marcus constantly in danger of being caught before his aim is achieved. Whatever is happening the writing feels urgent and forceful:

‘When I couldn't dance anymore, I grabbed her hand and she squeezed mine like I was keeping her from falling off a building. She dragged me toward the edge of the crowd, where it got thinner and cooler. Out there, on the edge of Dolores Park, we were in the cool air and the sweat on our bodies went instantly icy. We shivered and she threw her arms around my waist. "Warm me," she commanded. I didn't need a hint. I hugged her back. Her heart was an echo of the fast beats from the stage -- breakbeats now, fast and furious and wordless.’

Doctrow’s teenage characters fill the novel with enthusiasm and vitality. They’re unashamedly odd and passionate about the things they like. They’re smart and they think being smart should count for them, not against them. Marcus and his new girlfriend Ange buzz and bang off each other, powering each other with their commitment to the cause, which pushes the novel on to new peaks of energy and inventiveness. Are you getting that I loved it yet? Honestly if I met you in the street and we started talking about this book you’d have to run away to stop me talking about it. There’s still so much I haven’t mentioned, but hopefully I’ve done enough to convince you to think about reading ‘Little Brother’.

‘Little Brother’ is available for free download, as is much of Cory Doctrow’s writing. If I still haven’t managed to convince you that he’s an author you need to know about check out the forward, where Doctrow talks about the ethics behind his decision to write ‘Little Brother’ and make it available for free. It’s inspiring stuff.

Now it’s your turn – did you like ‘Little Brother’, hate it, are you ambivalent, did it make you want to become more politically active or encourage you to start writing code? Leave your thoughts in the comments and hopefully we can have a chat.

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