During one of my wide, meandering swaths through the Internet, I came across a recent novel called Little Brother written by Cory Doctorow. Before I go on to explain the general premise of this book, I would like to first say that I read it in a day. This was not because it is a short book (somewhere in the ballpark of 160 pages?) but because it was so...riveting (I tend to avoid that word because it sounds too superficial).
Nevertheless, onward.
Little Brother is targeted at the techno-geek that unavoidably resides in us all. The basic plot line is that a high school kid, Marcus (also w1n5t0n and m1k3y) finds himself at odds with the Department of Homeland Security following a brutal terrorist attack on his home town of San Francisco. Marcus eventually declares "war" on the DHS, and the rest of the book is devoted to detailing his attempts at debasing the efforts of the DHS through the use of the Internet.
The book is just one of those that you simply cannot put down. I had a paper due today, but I postponed starting that until I had finished the novel because every time I would go to write, I would think constantly of the book.
Perhaps the most appealing part of this book is the price; free. Cory Doctorow's plot line is so riddled with ideals of freedom and access to information, that it would seem hypocritical of him to try and sell the book. Thus, the book is licensed under the Creative Commons license. You are free to download, remix, and share, as long as you give credit to Doctorow.
Oh yeah, you can find it here.
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1 comment:
That's awesome that he's allowing people to download it for free, it's also saying something about the way that the market is changing; much like the musicians who perform because they enjoy it, writers can more easily spread their works, which they obviously would not have done had they not enjoyed writing it.
I'll probably check this out this weekend, as I'll have more time then, so this question may be obvious: does he have a print version as well? If so, what is the cost of it?
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