 |
| image from www.amazon.com |
Summary —
Marcus Yallow and three of his friends are skipping school one afternoon to play their favorite Alternative Reality Game (ARG) the day a terrorist attack happens on one of the commuter bridges of the San Francisco Bay area. The four are detained by the Department of Homeland Security and treated as suspects for the attack. Three of them are eventually released after several days, but a fourth, Darryl, is detained throughout the duration of the book. Marcus is determined that the tactics of DHS are subverting the liberties that are part of America's birthright, and he vows to bring the DHS's inhuman torture tactics public, although he’s at first unwilling to tell his parents what happened. He lies and comes up with a cover story that he was on the wrong side of town during the attacks and had been unable to get home for several days. Once he's back, he helps create the Xnet, a network of Xbox free game consoles hacked to run ParanoidLinux, a flavor of the real OS Linux invented for this novel. He constantly find ways to subvert and undermine DHS's escalating surveillance and monitoring, hoping to show how their tactics don't make the populace safer, they simply make suspects of those who are not otherwise connected with terrorist extremists. As part of his work with Xnet, he meets Ange Carvelli, who becomes his new love interest. Marcus and Ange stage a news conference within a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Play Game that Xnetters often play, but all his words are taken out of context or turned against him by a press that doesn’t understand why the kids aren’t all right. After things get really scary, Marcus decides to come clean to his parents about his original detainment. They contact the father of Darryl, who at this point had assumed his son was lost in the original terrorist attacks, and all of them decide to talk to Barbara Stratford, investigative journalist for The Bay Guardian. She offers Marcus to look into the DHS secret prisons, but warns him that once she has a story, it’s no longer just his; there may be repercussion. Marcus is contacted by another teen working for DHS, Masha, and warned that they are on to him and are only a few days away from making another series of busts. She’s planning to escape from DHS and offers Marcus a chance to get out of town with her if he can organize a distraction that DHS will have to respond to. Marcus stages a Vampire-themed ARG/demonstration as part of his plans to meet up with Masha, but he’s separated from Ange in the ensuing confusion. Marcus is eventually captured by DHS once more, but not before he’s able to get photos from Mashas’s phone to Startford for her expose. Once in DHS’s captivity, he’s waterboarded as part of his interrogation. He nearly gives up hope of living through this when Stratford and a the California State Troopers intervene, taking the first few steps to dismantling the secret prisons run by DHS. Marcus is eventually released and thanks to the work of ACLU lawyers he’s charged with only minor misdemeanors in a court of law for stealing Masha’s phone.
Lucien’s thoughts —
I have to admit that this has been one of my favorite books I’ve read this semester. Doctorow knows how to set up a fast-paced adventure while still managing to slip in interesting characterization and various screeds about public encryption systems, privacy rights, and identity hacking. The novel is a good exercise in exploring what liberties we are in danger of losing or have already lost as a result of the measures taken in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The novel includes secret prisons, waterboarding, and warrantless surveillance measures, but has them happen in our own back yard. While it's near future dystopian sci-fi, it borrows much from the present political climate and postulates what would happen if there were another successful terrorist attack on American soil. It's equal parts revenge narrative, love story, and civil liberties indoctrination. I really enjoyed reading this book, but I have one very small complaint. The villains in charge of DHS are very one-dimensional and I think Doctorow harms his otherwise cogent critiques by having such simple strawmen as the antagonists. It’s a minor flaw in an otherwise wonderful thriller. Doctorow is even willing to make this book, as all his others, available for free in a variety of different electronic formats. No excuses, now. Please read this book.
Librarian’s use —
I think that this book’s would be a great discussion starter for young readers about the things they can do to protect their privacy in an increasingly public digital world. We can first discuss how little of what occurs online is truly private: Facebook and ISPs often work with law enforcement to track down criminals, and what they publish thinking only their friends can see can come back to haunt them. The book can be an invitation to discuss what liberties we are in danger of losing or have already lost as a result of the measures taken in the Patriot Act, and what else we may lose if citizens are not active in their desire for transparency and accountability in our government.
Other reviews —
Spisak, A. (2008). Little brother (review). Bulletin of the center for children’s books, 62 (3), 113.
Marcus considers himself an average teen, if a bit on the tech-savvy geeky side, until a horrific terrorist attack in California (and an unfortunate misunderstanding about his role in the event) changes his life forever. After he and his friends are questioned for days without official charges, decent treatment, or even notification of their families, all but one are released and warned that they will now be under constant surveillance. The remainder of the volume is primarily a well-written and edgy radical technology how-to about all the ways teens (or adults) can resist governmental and police efforts to trample and abuse freedom. Marcus embarks on a quest to save his still detained friend, falls in love with an equally intelligent and progressive girl, and becomes the anonymous online leader of an underground movement to rein in the increasingly dictatorial powers that be, but his story is essentially background to the elaborate and clear descriptions of the individuals, technology, and methods that could all be researched and used by readers themselves. The hybrid of fiction and instructional guide could be an uncomfortable fit, but Doctorow makes it all so compelling, whether explaining how to hack an Xbox or waxing poetic on two otherwise brilliant teens negotiating the inevitably awkward but endearing pursuit of first love, that readers will be captivated by the whole complex mix. And if readers aren’t inspired to direct action by the book itself, then the intriguing and passionate afterwords by the original Xbox hacker, a security technologist, and Doctorow himself, who offers an informal annotated bibliography of important works, may nudge a few away from political apathy or measured, organized protests and into some radical acts of their own.
Hunt, J. (2008). Little brother. Horn book magazine, 84 (4), 441-442.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment