Writing on Reading: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

It's been a while since I've read a novel that's had me hooked from beginning to end, but Little Brother by Cory Doctorow did just that. Little Brother is being marketed as a "young adult" or "teen" book. I suppose I can see why. The protagonist is a high school techno-geek, the book is shorter than standard genre fare, and the message of the book is--well--less than subtle. Even so, the book is worth a read even if you're an old geezer nearing 40 like me. Doctorow does a great job using a first person POV to build sympathy for the protagonist, and he creates a believable near-future world that overreacts to the threat of terrorism. He very deftly covers all the hot button issues of today: the Patriot Act, biased journalism, Guantanamo Bay, even waterboarding. As you might expect from Doctorow if you've read his columns in Locus, he has lots of interesting information and ideas about about technology and the web. 

I image this book will end up pissing a few people off; Doctorow sure doesn't pull any punches about where he thinks the United States is going if it stays on its current path. On the other hand, as Doctorow points out in Little Brother, Allen Ginsberg pissed lots of people off when he published Howl.