SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: For the Win - Cory Doctorow

BOOK BLURB:

A provocative and exhilarating tale of teen rebellion against global corporations from the New York Times bestselling author of Little Brother -- a call to arms for a new generation. Not far in the future! In the twenty-first century, it's not just capital that's globalized: labour is too. Workers in special economic zones are trapped in lives of poverty with no trade unions to represent their rights. But a group of teenagers from across the world are set to fight this injustice using the most surprising of tools - their online video games. In Industrial South China Matthew and his friends labour day and night as gold-farmers, amassing virtual wealth that's sold on to rich Western players, while in the slums of Mumbai 'General Robotwallah' Mala marshalls her team of online thugs on behalf of the local gang-boss, who in turn works for the game-owners. They're all being exploited, as their friend Wei-Dong, all the way over in LA, knows, but can do little about. Until they begin to realize that their similarities outweigh their differences, and agree to work together to claim their rights to fair working conditions. Under the noses of the ruling elites in China and the rest of Asia, they fight their bosses, the owners of the games and rich speculators, outsmarting them all with their unbeatable gaming skills. But soon the battle will spill over from the virtual world to the real one, leaving Mala, Matthew and even Wei-Dong fighting not just for their rights, but for their lives!


REVIEW:

Having discovered Cory for myself last year, I was pretty happy when the latest offering from Harper Collin’s landed. What unfurls is a disturbing look into a future that is only slightly ahead of our own forcing the reader to face the responsibility of where a number of our goods arrive from with the title asking which side of the fence are you one.

It’s beautifully written, its got solid characterisation but it’s the question’s that will not only make the reader look closer into their own spending habits that will really stay long after the final page is turned along with the satisfaction of the underdogs “sticking it to the man.” Great stuff in my opinion.

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.