Monday 30 November 2009

SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: Makers - Cory Doctorow

BOOK BLURB:

What does the future look like? A brilliantly entertaining and original novel about the end of the economy from the visionary author of Little Brother. Perry and Lester invent things. All sorts of things. Seashell robots that make toast, Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls that drive cars. They also invent an entirely new economic system. 'New Work' is a New Deal for the technological era. Soon barefoot bankers are criss-crossing the nation, microinvesting in high-tech communal start-ups like Perry and Lester's. Together they transform a country, and journalist Suzanne Church is there to document it. But a new economic system requires a whole new belief system -- and there are plenty of non-believers out there. The New Work bust puts the dot.com-bomb to shame and soon Perry and Lester are out of funds and out of business. Down but not out, they go back to what they do best - making stuff. But when a rogue Disney executive grows jealous of their once more soaring popularity and convinces the police that their amazing 3-D printers are being used to run off AK-47s, things get very dark very quickly! This brilliantly entertaining and original novel from the visionary author of Little Brother fizzes with bold ideas about the future and how our lives will look as part of it. But at its heart are three characters, Perry, Lester and Suzanne, on an unforgettable journey that will bring them together only to break them apart as they each try to discover how to live meaningfully in an ever-changing world filled with both beauty and horror -- where some things really are immutable!


REVIEW:

Authors try to find new and inventive ways to make the world of tomorrow the reality of today, at least in books. Yet few imagine things quite the same way as Cory Doctow who in this offering brings the mini worlds of genetics along with the world of tomorrow to make gods of mortal men. Its definitely one the strangest books out this year but backs itself up with a believability of industrial espionage and a tale of men who had, lost it and regained it all again. A cracker of a book and one that will definitely bring the furture colliding with the present.

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