Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

This is one of 5 nominees for a Hugo Award this year. My friend Gail and I will be heading to Montreal this fall for the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and part of our membership is we get to vote on the Hugo Awards.

The nominees in the Novel Category are (there are categories for just about everything):
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
The Graveyard Game by Neil Gaiman
Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi
Saturn's Children by Charles Stross


Marcus Yallow is a seventeen year old living in San Fransisco who loves anything to do with computers, hanging out with his friends - Van, Darryl and Jolu - and is a typical teenager. He has already outsmarted his schools surveillance systems, was booted out of a science fair when he demonstrated how to find the hidden cameras with a toilet paper tube and he is well known on-line as w1n5st0n.

Marcus, Van, Jolu and Darryl skip school one afternoon in pursuit of an on-line style game of geocashing, when they find their world turned upside down when explosions rock the city. The four are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security because they were "seen" in the vicinity of the explosions, tortured and set free with dire warnings not to say where they were kept. Except for Darryl - nobody knows what happened to Darryl.

Now Marcus's city is under the thumb of Homeland Security, with video cameras on every corner, passes that monitor your travel routes, cameras in the schools all in the name of "safety". Marcus, appalled by what he's seeing to his freedom of rights under the constitution, fights back in the only way he knows how - on-line.


I found this book...tedious. I read about 1/2 of it then started skimming. It struck me as a cross between a computer "how-to" manual and a dry history book with a human element thrown in. I liked the human element, I got tired of reading how to infiltrate the internet with various subversive programs. I got very tired of the history lessons. It was like they were just stuck in there as filler. Now maybe the intended audience - it is published for young adult - might find this more fascinating, but I thought it really dragged along.