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Summary
Summary
Marcus, a.k.a "w1n5t0n," is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works-and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school's intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.
But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they're mercilessly interrogated for days.
When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.
Author Notes
Writer and activist Cory Doctorow was born in Toronto, Canada on July 17, 1971. In 1999 he co-founded a free software company called Opencola and served as Canadian Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. For four years he worked as European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and in 2007 won its Pioneer Award. His first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, won a Locus Award for Best First Novel. His short story collection A Place So Foreign and Eight More won a Sunburst Award, and his bestselling novel Little Brother received the 2009 Prometheus Award, a Sunburst Award, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Doctorow also writes nonfiction books and articles, and he co-edits the blog Boing Boing.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (7)
Publisher's Weekly Review
SF author Doctorow (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom), coeditor of the influential blog BoingBoing, tells a believable and frightening tale of a near-future San Francisco, victimized first by terrorists and then by an out-of-control Department of Homeland Security determined to turn the city into a virtual police state. Innocent of any wrongdoing beyond cutting school, high school student and techno-geek Marcus is arrested, illegally interrogated and humiliated by overzealous DHS personnel who also "disappear" his best friend, Darryl, along with hundreds of other U.S. citizens. Moved in part by a desire for revenge and in part by a passionate belief in the Bill of Rights, Marcus vows to drive the DHS out of his beloved city. Using the Internet and other technologies, he plays a dangerous game of cat and mouse, disrupting the government's attempts to create virtually universal electronic surveillance while recruiting other young people to his guerilla movement. Filled with sharp dialogue and detailed descriptions of how to counteract gait-recognition cameras, arphids (radio frequency ID tags), wireless Internet tracers and other surveillance devices, this work makes its admittedly didactic point within a tautly crafted fictional framework. Ages 13-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) The encroachment on individual rights by national security is a primary theme of George Orwell's 1984, and, as his title suggests, Doctorow pays homage to that classic with an impassioned, polemical consideration of the War on Terror that dovetails with themes of teenage angst, rebellion, and paranoia. After a major present-day terrorist attack, Marcus Yallow, a.k.a. "w1n5t0n" (as in Winston), is arrested and interrogated by the Department of Homeland Security. Marcus is released, and before he is rearrested and ultimately tortured, he applies his formidable technological savvy to thwarting further efforts to restrict personal liberty, drawing him into a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game with the government, a game that is complicated by issues of friendship, romance, trust, loyalty, and betrayal. The San Francisco Bay Area is an inspired choice of setting, with its history of technological innovation and free-thinking counterculture. While the interesting digressions into history, politics, social commentary, and technology occasionally halt the novel's pacing, Little Brother should easily find favor with fans of M. T. Anderson's Feed, Janet Tashjian's The Gospel According to Larry, and Scott Westerfeld's So Yesterday.From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Seventeen-year-old techno-geek w1n5t0n (aka Marcus) bypasses the school's gait-recognition system by placing pebbles in his shoes, chats secretly with friends on his IMParanoid messaging program, and routinely evades school security with his laptop, cell, WifFnder, and ingenuity. While skipping school, Markus is caught near the site of a terrorist attack on San Francisco and held by the Department of Homeland Security for six days of intensive interrogation. After his release, he vows to use his skills to fight back against an increasingly frightening system of surveillance. Set in the near future, Doctorow's novel blurs the lines between current and potential technologies, and readers will delight in the details of how Markus attempts to stage a techno-revolution. Obvious parallels to Orwellian warnings and post-9/11 policies, such as the Patriot Act, will provide opportunity for classroom discussion and raise questions about our enthusiasm for technology, who monitors our school library collections, and how we contribute to our own lack of privacy. An extensive Web and print bibliography will build knowledge and make adults nervous. Buy multiple copies; this book will be h4wt (that's hot, for the nonhackers).--Dobrez, Cindy Copyright 2008 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
IN the opening chapters of "Little Brother," a near-future terrorist attack hits San Francisco's Bay Bridge and a teenager named Marcus Yallow is arbitrarily and brutally detained in the federal crackdown that follows. Marcus is a likable if undeniably cocky hero - he hacks cellphones, sasses clueless authority figures and quotes the Declaration of Independence from memory. That cockiness gets scuffed a little in the disaster, and both the story and Marcus himself acquire grit and interest as a result. The fear and humiliation he experiences in interrogation are vividly detailed, and afterward Marcus takes a principled stand that leads him into an ingenious program of resistance and civil rights activism. An entertaining thriller and a thoughtful polemic on Internet-era civil rights, "Little Brother" is also a practical handbook of digital self-defense. Marcus's guided tour through RFID cloners, cryptography and Bayesian math is one of the book's principal delights. He spreads his message through a secure network engineered out of Xbox gaming consoles, to a techsavvy youth underground (we are now post-nerd, I learned - hipsters and social networking experts have replaced the unwashed coders of yore). This is territory the author knows well. Cory Doctorow is an ardent copyright activist, speaker, teacher, columnist, prolific writer of novels and short stories, and co-editor of the popular blog Boing Boing. His grasp of the implications of present-day information technology is authoritative, and his prose features upto-the-hour Internet-speak (viz., "She wasn't h4wt in the traditional sense"), which may already be dated by the time this review comes out. The first-person voice, however, has the authentic tang of the technologically literate. If Marcus's journey to adulthood has aspects common to other young-adult novels, they feel real on the page. He sees his father in a new light, cowed and confused by the federal government; he learns the meaning and cost of standing up for himself and others. And he meets a girl. "Little Brother" is a terrific read, but it also claims a place in the tradition of polemical science-fiction novels like "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Fahrenheit 451" (with a dash of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"). It owes a more immediate debt to Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli's comic book series "DMZ," about the adventures of a photojournalist in the midst of a new American civil war. "Little Brother" isn't shy about its intent to disseminate subversive ideas to a young audience. The novel comes with two essays, plus a bibliography of technocountercultural writings, from "On the Road" to Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography." It's even been made available for a free download, a daring gesture that hasn't hurt its print sales in the least. Doctorow's characters tend to speak on behalf of the ideas they represent, as when the teenage protagonist stagily debates his Homeland security interrogator: "I thought I lived in a country where I had rights. You're talking about defending my freedom by tearing up the Bill of Rights." At such moments, "Little Brother" is trying to make speeches, and it would be unfair to judge the writing by other standards, but it does lead to a few awkward shifts in tone. After a disquisition on Internet protocols, it's a little uncomfortable having to hear about Marcus's first real kiss; it's like spotting a favorite professor eating lunch. MY favorite thing about "Little Brother" is that every page is charged with an authentic sense of the personal and ethical need for a better relationship to information technology, a visceral sense that one's continued dignity and independence depend on it: "My technology was working for me, serving me, protecting me. It wasn't spying on me. This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy." I can't help being on this book's side, even in its clunkiest moments. It's a neat story and a cogently written, passionately felt argument. It's a stirring call to arms when Doctorow writes: "Even if you only write code for one day, one afternoon, you have to do it. Computers can control you or they can lighten your work - if you want to be in charge of your machines, you have to learn to write code." The framers of the American Constitution were in a sense a bunch of political science nerds too, pulling all-nighters to hack together the code for a government without tyranny. "Little Brother" argues that unless you're passably technically literate, you're not fully in command of those constitutionally guaranteed freedoms - that in fact it's your patriotic duty as an American to be a little more nerdy. Austin Grossman is the author of "Soon I Will Be Invincible," a novel.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 10 Up-When he ditches school one Friday morning, 17-year-old Marcus is hoping to get a head start on the Harajuku Fun Madness clue. But after a terrorist attack in San Francisco, he and his friends are swept up in the extralegal world of the Department of Homeland Security. After questioning that includes physical torture and psychological stress, Marcus is released, a marked man in a much darker San Francisco: a city of constant surveillance and civil-liberty forfeiture. Encouraging hackers from around the city, Marcus fights against the system while falling for one hacker in particular. Doctorow rapidly confronts issues, from civil liberties to cryptology to social justice. While his political bias is obvious, he does try to depict opposing viewpoints fairly. Those who have embraced the legislative developments since 9/11 may be horrified by his harsh take on Homeland Security, Guantanamo Bay, and the PATRIOT Act. Politics aside, Marcus is a wonderfully developed character: hyperaware of his surroundings, trying to redress past wrongs, and rebelling against authority. Teen espionage fans will appreciate the numerous gadgets made from everyday materials. One afterword by a noted cryptologist and another from an infamous hacker further reflect Doctorow's principles, and a bibliography has resources for teens interested in intellectual freedom, information access, and technology enhancements. Curious readers will also be able to visit BoingBoing, an eclectic group blog that Doctorow coedits. Raising pertinent questions and fostering discussion, this techno-thriller is an outstanding first purchase.-Chris Shoemaker, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In this unapologetically didactic tribute to 1984, Marcus--known online as w1n5t0n (pronounced "Winston")--takes on the Department of Homeland Security. It's only a few years in the future, and surveillance software is everywhere. Monitored laptops track students' computer use; transit passes and automated toll systems track travel; credit-card networks track consumer purchasing. A terrorist attack on San Francisco is all the excuse the DHS needs for a crackdown, and Marcus is swept up in the random post-bombing sweeps. But where arrest and torture break 1984's Winston, they energize w1n5t0n. Released from humiliating imprisonment and determined to fight those who say that the innocent have nothing to hide, Marcus becomes the driving force behind a network of teenagers fighting the surveillance state. Long passages of beloved tech-guru Doctorow's novel are unabashedly educational, detailing the history of computing, how to use anti-surveillance software and anarchist philosophies. Yet in the midst of all this overt indoctrination, Marcus exists as a fully formed character, whose adolescent loves and political intrigues are compelling for more than just propagandistic reasons. Terrifying glimpse of the future--or the present. (Fiction. 13+) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
When your government becomes Big Brother, it takes a Little Brother to bring it down. There is another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Marcus (aka "w1n5t0n") is in the wrong place at the wrong time and is swept up by Homeland Security and taken to an undisclosed location for interrogation. When he is released, he is ever more determined to take back his country by bringing down the authorities who have put a stranglehold on his city. Why It Is for Us: This book makes no apologies for its hatred of the Patriot Act and the War on Terror (readers get a first-person account of the horrors of waterboarding). The coeditor of Boing Boing, Doctorow knows his technology. Industrious teens (and others) will be able to use Marcus's techniques to bring down their own school firewalls, thanks to an excellent reading list that also champions intellectual freedom and information equality.-Angelina Benedetti, King Cty. Lib. Syst., WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.