Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Little Brother is a thrilling dystopian novel about a geeky teen whose life is totally changed when he is arrested by the Department of Homeland Security.
Marcus is a 17 year old hacker. He and some friends play Harajuku Fun Madness, an adventure/puzzle game both online and in “RL”, or Real Life. He is sitting in school one day when he gets a notice on his phone that there is a new clue in the game. He convinces some friends to skip the rest of school with him to go and try to get an early start on the clue.
They are getting close to the clue when they hear a massive explosion and the civil alarms start going off. They follow the crowd, trying to get underground, but then decide that all of these people are not going to fit and turn back. On the way out of the mob one of the posse, Darryl, is stabbed by some random person. The group is by a bench outside the subway station trying to flag down help for Darryl when a humvee stops and masked men hop out and tie up and bag all of them.
Marcus is held in a military prison on an island for about a week, and interrogated daily. He is forced to tell them all of his passwords and everything about him.
When he is finally released a week later, with basically a death threat if he tells anyone about the prison. He tells his parents that he was stuck in a quarantine area. He does not immediately realize that Darryl was never released, and possibly killed.
When he sets out to take down the DHS you can tell that it will be an interesting story.
The really cool thing about this book is that everything in it is real – the arphids, the cameras, the encryption, The Onion Router (TOR)…
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes technology and dystopian fiction. (or nonfiction…)
This book gets 8.5 out of 9 shurikens.
-Aletheia
PS. There are some, uh, “mature” parts.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
Just read it. Absolutely fantastic. Best book I’ve read since… since… well, the best book in a loooonnnng time.
that book was pretty great.
especially because the narration was good enough that there could be pages of nothing happening except Marcus talking about tech stuff and it was still way interesting. that there is a skill at not being boring.
Excellent!
Why don’t you do this more often? Yours are so much better than mine…we might actually get *gasp* readers.
I searched for an email address and couldn’t find one, so I hope you don’t mind my dropping a comment here. Feel free to delete it if it contravenes your policy.
Do you ever review online YA fiction? I’m an indie writer who publishes online – and am determined to keep doing so. Good fiction should be available on the net, not just in print.
Our email addresses are on the main page, http://www.invictusverbum.com/ .
I totally agree that books should be available on the internet. (google books ftw)
I’ll email you when I get a chance.
For future reference, this should go in the Suggestions forum.
Sounds good. Nice review!