Little Brother |  | Author: Cory Doctorow
Publisher: Tor Teen
List Price: $17.95
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Seller: book worm 87
Rating:  142 reviews
Sales Rank: 4036
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.5
ISBN: 0765319853
EAN: 9780765319852
ASIN: 0765319853
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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. |
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 142
A Title Well Earned November 19, 2009
Dennis (Houston)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If there's a more realistic post 9/11 book written in the style of 1984, I haven't yet read it. All the security devices, the laws, the things said by the media, were very reminiscent of post-9/11 America, gone extreme. It posses the very real questions our society faces at this time; How does the constitution apply when you're dealing with a terrorist threat? How does the constitution apply to the internet? Maybe I'm a paranoid conservative, but I find it plausible that our country would slide farther down the slippery slope away from the constitution and personal freedoms. The beginning, however, I found to be a bit, tedious. It didn't get better till about 1/4 the way in. Thats when all the character development, privacy invasions, and great messages of freedom started showing up. The relationship Marcus develops with a girl I found to be very relatable. Very much the quintisential, post modern teenage romance. Lots of love, lust, emotions, fear, and desperation. What really made this book for me, however, was the strong message of personal liberty's, and the constant comparison with their movement to the 60's civil rights movement, sexyual revolution, womens rights movement, and gay rights movement. Evn more so was the fact that the charictors were rich in emotion. I felt like i could see everything happening through marcus's eyes, not simply someone observing him, but acctually experiencing, misinterpreting, feeling, and fearing every moment. After what was basically a lenghthy introduction, i could not put this book down.
 Mediocre November 16, 2009
CBC
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Good politics, but very slow-paced... characters aren't very likable. Gets a bit better as it goes on, but barely worth a free download. On the positive side, it is very good that Cory gives the electronic version away with a creative commons license.
An Avid Teenage Reader's Opinion November 3, 2009
Alyssa M. Kirk (Los Angeles, CA United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'd give this 2.5 stars.
Marcus Yallow (aka w1n5ton) is a 17-year old high school senior living a care free life playing video games and writing programs with his friends in San Francisco. Until...one day he chooses the wrong day to cut school.
Marcus, his best friend Darryl and some other buddies ditch school to look for clues for their favorite ARG (Alternate Reality Game - they look for clues online as well as in the real world).
Suddenly BOOM! A huge explosion hits (you later find out it was the Oakland Bay Bridge blowing up) that sends the city into chaos.
Darryl is stabbed while they try to flag down help, and they all end up kidnapped by the government. Taken to a remote island, they suffer torture, must give up all their passwords and usernames and spend grueling hours in interrogation.
Eventually they're released but without Darryl. Marcus soon realizes that his city has become a police state where everyone is constantly watched by the DHS (Dept of Homeland Security). Marcus and friends decide to rebel against the government to save their city and their friend.
And that is where the fun stops. After the all the excitement and explosions wear off the rest of the book is slow paced and boring. I had to force myself to pick up the book and finish reading it. The only reason I did was because the book was due back to the library the next day.
The story starts turning into a political message about how to government overreacts to things and how the people are really in charge and blah blah blah. I watch the news. I read the paper. I'm informed. When I read, I want to be entertained... swept into a fantastic tale and away from the real world. I'm not looking for a head pounding political message in my fiction.
And, the whole point of the book was supposed to be kids fighting back using technology and secretly hacking into computers and breaking into secret facilities and save their friend! WRONG!
*Spoiler Alert*
Marcus finally confides in his parents who get him in touch with a reporter friend who helps expose all nefarious deeds. The justice system takes over and all is well. So 97.43% of what he did leading up to his talk with the reporter could have never happened and you would have gotten the same end result.
In the end they just use the media and lawyers and all that junk to get the bad guys. So while I was expecting them to hack into the governments secret files and infiltrate the place where their friend in being kept and single handedly expose the foul ways of the DHS, all I got was a half-baked ending.
* End of Spoiler Stuff *
Also, (aside from the main characters) there was little character development. Even his best friends stayed flat. In fact after they get out of the prison they're cast aside as if they didn't exist and magically appear in the last chapter after all the dust has cleared.
He does meet this one girl whom he shares a romantic relationship and is his constant companion throughout the rest of the book. But there were a lot of key characters that show up during his quest that are just like "Here's what I look like. Here's some important information. Okay bye-bye!"
The parts that were enjoyable were enjoyable. It was fun while it lasted but all in all it was just a political message wrapped in a clever disguise of teenage techno-geek rebellion.
 Stand Up For What You Believe In October 26, 2009
L. Gibaldi
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm not tech savvy. I don't know how to hack into a computer and my favorite video game system is still Sega Genesis. Regardless, I loved Little Brother, not just because of Doctorow's conversational storytelling, or because of its inspirational message, but because it made me want to try to be more observant. To be something more. Go figure a YA tech/sci-fi book would do that for me.
In Little Brother, Cory Doctorow introduces the reader to a very secure, very monitored San Francisco. Marcus, or w1n5t0n, is a 17 year old who knows how the system works. He's smart, fast and can hack into, or override, almost any security system, including the ones at school. When skipping class, he and his friends find themselves in the middle of a terrorist attack. After being taken in for brutal questionings for five days, the group discovers that the city wasn't how they left it. The Department of Homeland Security took over and now monitors everything. The kids can't walk anywhere without being watched, can't talk without being tracked. Instead of letting DHS get away with it, Marcus decides to fight. Using his advanced intellect and army of like-minded youths, he figures out ways to take down the DHS, to make them realize that it's not smart to mess with freedom.
I like how Doctorow made this average hacker (and ex-LARPer) into someone people look up to, not a geek high schoolers pick on. In other words, Doctorow made computer dorks look cool. Not just that, he made education look cool. Marcus quotes the Declaration of Independence and continuously searches the Internet for more information. It's Marcus's intellect that plays a major role in the story.
That said, I really liked Marcus. He's a good guy, one I probably would have wanted to be friends with in high school. I really liked his group of friends and their relationships with one another. I was slightly disappointed with how some aren't mentioned as much after the middle of the book, but at least the lack of contact is mentioned.
The book has a compelling story that may be too much for some. This pre-attack California is scary and a little too telling. It shows how anyone can and should stand up for their rights and although it isn't easy, it's worth it. Doctorow's story flows nicely, occasionally interrupted only to define the technological terms Marcus is mentioning. In that sense, the book is extremely educational.
What I liked most was, incidentally, the bibliography in the back of the book. Doctorow, someone who constantly speaks out against Internet censoring, includes a list of resources for those interested in continuing their education in either freedom of speech or, well, hacking. The afterword even contains stories from well known hackers - those who do it for a living for corporations. Basically, Doctorow is saying "yes, you do it now, some may say it's bad, but it's actually awesome. Want to get paid for it?"
All in all, Little Brother is an excellent book for those interested in technology or, even simply, freedom. It's an excellent book for teenagers and I can definitely see them being very addicted to it. And it shows - the book was translated over and over again by, that's right, fans from around the world. There's even a Brail version.
So check out the securities around you. Stand up for what you believe in. And always use your voice.
Jamming The Thought Police October 8, 2009
darklordzden (Australia)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
San Francisco, The Near Future: Seventeen year old Marcus Yarrow lives a privileged middle-class existence with his parents in an affluent suburb of the city by the bay. The kind of highly intelligent kid who can run rings around the hall surveillance software that has already made its way into his high school, Marcus fills his spare time futzing about with computers, programming and playing Alternate Reality Games with his friends Daryl, Jolu and Van. During the course of playing just such an ARG on the streets of San Francisco, Marcus and friends find themselves unwittingly caught up in a major terrorist attack on the city and, due to a series of misunderstandings and a draconian military response, find themselves imprisoned in a Guantanamo Bay style military prison where they undergo a particularly harsh interrogation at the hands of the department of homeland security. Four are detained, but only three are released and are told that should they relate their experiences to anyone else they will be "disappeared". Back on the streets, Marcus discoverss that San Francisco has virtually been transformed into a police state by a DHS that incorporates all manner of technological surveillance in its war on both terror and civil liberties. But technology is something that Marcus knows more than a little about and furious over his treatment and the illegal detention of his friend, he resolves to take down the DHS in the only way he knows how...
Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" is apparently aimed at an older teenage audience, but don't let that dissuade you from reading it because it's one of the finest thrillers that you'll read this year. Hell, I'm in my mid-thirties and I couldn't put it down. However, not only is it a good thriller, its also an education on the willful misuse of technology by governments to infringe civil liberties and a warning on how easy it is to overthrow these so-called full-proof systems - the ease with which Marcus manages to swap the Radio Frequency Identity tags ('arphids') and information contained on people's ID and credit cards will have even the most staunch proponents of biometric ID cards breaking out in a nervous sweat. And Doctorow knows of what he writes - after all, he is the co-editor of the "BoingBoing" website and a former director of The Electronic Frontier Foundation. If you harbour any misgivings concerning the technological content of this book, you can lay them to rest; I'm something of a cantankerous technophobe myself and commend Doctorow on explaining the ins and outs of the tech in a way that even I could understand.
That said, the book is not without the occasional problem. There is a vague whiff of parochial superiority running through the story (did the supply teacher brought in to indoctrinate Marcus' high school compatriots with DHS propaganda really have to have a southern accent?) which made me think of the episode of "South Park" where San Franciscans are depicted getting high on the smell of their own farts before having their city destroyed by a "perfect storm" of liberal smugness. This is possibly not too wise a move on Doctorow's part: I know it would've alienated the hell out of me if I was a kid reading it in Houston. Also, a badly disguised caricature of Dick Cheney ("Kurt Rooney"), will no doubt alienate those of a more traditionally right-wing bearing.
That said, I give the book five stars as it's an incisive, well-written and important examination of technology, its potential for misuse and the itinerant arguments that circle the subjects of civil security and individual privacy. And its also a cracking thriller into the bargain.
But, then again, you shouldn't trust me as I'm over twenty five - and readers of the book will know to what that pertains...
Showing reviews 1-5 of 142
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