author: Philip K. Dick

name: Steev

average rating: 4.01

book published: 1965

rating: 4

read at: 2018/01/29

date added: 2018/01/29

shelves: fun, novels, own-it, politics

review:

author: Cory Doctorow

name: Steev

average rating: 3.94

book published: 2008

rating: 4

read at: 2013/12/24

date added: 2013/12/25

shelves: fun, novels, own-it, politics

review:
This is not great literature, but it is great inspirational storytelling for kids who might be geeks or are leaning toward becoming geeks, interested in computers, hacking, cryptography, and civil liberties. Basically the book is a piece of not-so-subtle propaganda - a word I use simply as description, not as value judgement. Doctorow is trying to spread and instill a way of thinking about politics, the "War on Terror," the Security State, and related issues. He does so with writing that is pretty basic, though it is competent storytelling that kept me turning the pages and wondering what would happen. There was a lot of (to me) over-obvious, breaking-the-fourth-wall explanation, mostly of stuff I already knew, on topics ranging from ciphers to DNS to San Francisco Mission District burritos. Some of that was fun to recognize and skim over, while other instances of that made me wonder if young readers would get bored or angry with such bald instructional passages and just set the book down. The potential problem is that when you cross over the line from political literature into expository how-to manual thinly disguised as fiction, you run a risk, and you also waste an opportunity to make truly great art. I could argue that David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" occupies the other end of the spectrum, in that it covers a lot of the same ground, politically, that "Little Brother" does, but it does so while also being an amazing work of avant-garde literature that is at many times formally brilliant and challenging, something that "Little Brother" definitely never is. But of course I would be clueless and stupid to think that the average 14-year-old computer nerd might get the same kind of call-to-arms buzz from DFW's mammoth opus as from Doctorow's book, or even finish it. I just think that some middle ground might be the better way to go, because any kid smart and dorky enough to care about jamming arphids or installing linux on Xboxes will most likely also be smart enough to smell literary hamfistedness and benefit from the pleasure of reading a piece of writing that is not just good, but great. Doctorow's book is good-not-great writing, but it is admittedly very good popular education.

author: Paul Beatty

name: Steev

average rating: 3.78

book published: 2015

rating: 5

read at: 2017/02/04

date added: 2017/02/04

shelves: fun, novels, own-it, politics

review:
Brilliant, hilarious, intense satire. Really really good.

author: Dave Eggers

name: Steev

average rating: 3.43

book published: 2013

rating: 4

read at: 2017/07/02

date added: 2017/07/03

shelves: fun, novels, own-it, politics

review:
This is a super scary and topical book.
It's mostly quite good, as all of Eggers' stuff usually is.
I have a slight problem with the portrayal of the main, first-person character, Mae Holland. She seems almost pathologically un-self-aware or at least self-stupid. It seems at least somewhat unrealistic, probably very unrealistic, the ease with which she gets swayed and brainwashed into the cult that is this kind of Google/Facebook/Amazon conglomerate corporation. She's a 20-something, smart woman, and yet somehow she just blithely goes along with all these bizarre and creepy things her new employer is doing. There doesn't seem to be any character development, she goes from being a clueless noob to being a clueless high-level PR flack, with, to be honest, no real reason to identify with or care about her. She just is this kind of pawn for the higher-ups who never puts up even a modicum of resistance; [spoilers removed]So the effect is of this lengthy morality parable with none of the satisfaction of a good narrative. As such, the message is important, but it could have been a short op-ed essay in Harper's to equal effect. Although then I guess he couldn't have sold movie rights...

author: Dave Eggers

name: Steev

average rating: 3.45

book published: 2013

rating: 4

read at: 2017/07/02

date added: 2017/07/03

shelves: fun, novels, own-it, politics

review:
This is a super scary and topical book.
It's mostly quite good, as all of Eggers' stuff usually is.
I have a slight problem with the portrayal of the main, first-person character, Mae Holland. She seems almost pathologically un-self-aware or at least self-stupid. It seems at least somewhat unrealistic, probably very unrealistic, the ease with which she gets swayed and brainwashed into the cult that is this kind of Google/Facebook/Amazon conglomerate corporation. She's a 20-something, smart woman, and yet somehow she just blithely goes along with all these bizarre and creepy things her new employer is doing. There doesn't seem to be any character development, she goes from being a clueless noob to being a clueless high-level PR flack, with, to be honest, no real reason to identify with or care about her. She just is this kind of pawn for the higher-ups who never puts up even a modicum of resistance; [spoilers removed]So the effect is of this lengthy morality parable with none of the satisfaction of a good narrative. As such, the message is important, but it could have been a short op-ed essay in Harper's to equal effect. Although then I guess he couldn't have sold movie rights...

author: Paul Beatty

name: Steev

average rating: 3.84

book published: 2015

rating: 5

read at: 2017/02/04

date added: 2017/02/04

shelves: fun, novels, own-it, politics

review:
Brilliant, hilarious, intense satire. Really really good.

author: Cory Doctorow

name: Steev

average rating: 3.96

book published: 2008

rating: 4

read at: 2013/12/24

date added: 2013/12/25

shelves: fun, novels, own-it, politics

author: Horacio Castellanos Moya

name: Steev

average rating: 3.81

book published: 2009

rating: 5

read at: 2010/03/19

date added: 2010/03/22

shelves: fun, novels, own-it, politics