Cory Doctorow's Little Brother reminded me not so much of 1984, which the title references, but of protest classics like Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman. The work is essentially agitprop/revolutionary handbook in novel form.
While I like Doctorow's motivation and message, it isn't great literature. It includes long irrelevant sidetracks (Jane Jacobs's philosophy of urban planning, for example) that a generation noted for its short attention span would likely tune out. There are also tired YA tropes: the first love (with obligatory safe sex), the clueless parents, the spunky geeks, and evil jocks (Charles).
The novel, then, is mostly a frame for Doctorow's attempt to agitate young readers about their loss of privacy in the guise of homeland defense that grows ever more tyrannical. The setting is near-future San Francisco, where cameras, school-issued tablets, and even library books track students's every move, and where any attempt to thwart surveillance makes the surveillance more foolproof. The message is designed to appeal to teenagers who, in any era, chafe under the idea that adults are spying on them, and particularly to tech-savvy Millennials.
Doctorow gives Marcus technical know-how as well as knowledge of 1960s street theater tactics as he plans his VampMob toward the novel's close. It's a brilliant plan--peaceful, designed to smoke out the brutal tactics of the power structure and to maximizes press coverage. This and other passages show Millennials how to be a political force to be reckoned with.
However, as a college teacher in my 60s, Marcus strains my credulity. I've met few students in my career with any knowledge of or interest in political action as I knew it. Millennials are immersed in information clutter, which makes it hard for them to focus on a single movement or effort. To Millennials "sharing" memes on Facebook constitutes political action--and Little Brother's Facebook page has only 3,313 "likes." Hard to see Doctorow's message sinking in as he'd hoped.
P.S. Also read Kit Reed's dystopian-in-a-monastery, "Enclave" (quite good) and another YA dystopian, Lydia Millett's "Pills and Starships," which was OK.
While I like Doctorow's motivation and message, it isn't great literature. It includes long irrelevant sidetracks (Jane Jacobs's philosophy of urban planning, for example) that a generation noted for its short attention span would likely tune out. There are also tired YA tropes: the first love (with obligatory safe sex), the clueless parents, the spunky geeks, and evil jocks (Charles).
The novel, then, is mostly a frame for Doctorow's attempt to agitate young readers about their loss of privacy in the guise of homeland defense that grows ever more tyrannical. The setting is near-future San Francisco, where cameras, school-issued tablets, and even library books track students's every move, and where any attempt to thwart surveillance makes the surveillance more foolproof. The message is designed to appeal to teenagers who, in any era, chafe under the idea that adults are spying on them, and particularly to tech-savvy Millennials.
Doctorow gives Marcus technical know-how as well as knowledge of 1960s street theater tactics as he plans his VampMob toward the novel's close. It's a brilliant plan--peaceful, designed to smoke out the brutal tactics of the power structure and to maximizes press coverage. This and other passages show Millennials how to be a political force to be reckoned with.
However, as a college teacher in my 60s, Marcus strains my credulity. I've met few students in my career with any knowledge of or interest in political action as I knew it. Millennials are immersed in information clutter, which makes it hard for them to focus on a single movement or effort. To Millennials "sharing" memes on Facebook constitutes political action--and Little Brother's Facebook page has only 3,313 "likes." Hard to see Doctorow's message sinking in as he'd hoped.
P.S. Also read Kit Reed's dystopian-in-a-monastery, "Enclave" (quite good) and another YA dystopian, Lydia Millett's "Pills and Starships," which was OK.
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