Little Brother

Author: Cory Doctorow

A near-future dystopia that has been compared to ground-breaking books such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, Little Brother is part coming-of-age story and part political treatise. Marcus Yallow and his friends skip school one day, tricking the cameras that track their gait and disabling the RFID chip in a school library book, to play an online game with real-life challenges and puzzles called Harajuku Fun Madness. While searching for clues to the game, the group is caught up in a terrorist attack on the Oakland Bridge and arrested by the Department of Homeland Security. They face horrific treatment at the hands of the DHS, and when they return home, they find that things are no better there. Their every move is watched, and Marcus's every attempt to discover what happened to their missing friend Darryl is met with opposition. Using his computer-savvy, Marcus decides that it's time to fight back. Little Brother was a winner of the 2009 White Pine, Prometheus, and John W. Campbell Memorial awards, and it was a finalist for the 2009 Hugo Award. It's easy to see why. Marcus's voice is engaging and witty and completely believable for a teenage boy, and his story hits close to home to anyone who uses technology, which, is pretty much everyone. While the book can get a bit messagey at times, the message is important: Know your technology and make it work for you, not against you. Peppered with lots of hacktivist tidbits and history, Little Brother helps the reader do just that and all in the form on an incredibly entertaining and timely story.

Books in Little Brother Series (2)

Homeland

Lawful Interception