Little Brother pretty much lived up to the hype it's been getting. It's not perfect, but it is close. An excellent book explaining the loss of civil liberties, surveillance, abuse of Homeland Security powers, and the power of an informed and active populace of all ages aimed at a YA audience. I'd say it's good for kids about 12 or 13 and older. I'll be buying several copies for some folks (kids and adults) for holiday gifts for sure.

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This is a great book and the only reason that I see it is in the YA shelves is because the mail character is a teen. This book is very powerful and can really make you think about how much should we allow the government to know about what we do.

This book opens our eyes not only to what kind of tracking is taking place but makes us ask the question, "Is that OK?"

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~9/3/08 A YA, very hip version of 1984, Marcus, who is also called w1n5t0n and M1k3y, is 17 years old and in the Tenderloin with three friends ARGing (its a game) when a bomb blows up the Bay Bridge. They go the Powell Street BART station, but they dont stay there.

The Department of Homeland Security arrests them, puts them first in Alcatraz, then at Treasure Island, where they are interrogated, tortured, humiliated as enemy aliens. Marcus and two of his friends are released after five days. They are told by the DHS that if they tell anyone what happened they will be arrested again and put somewhere much worse.

So, Marcus doesnt tell his parents, other friends, and he fights the DHS using his Xbox. Meanwhile, the DHS presence is becoming omnipresent: all to keep people safe.

You cant get anything done by doing nothing. Its our country. Theyve taken it away from us. The terrorists who attack us are still free -- but were not. I cant go underground for a year, ten years, my whole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me. Freedom is something you have to take for yourself.

I am 35 years too old to be the intended audience for this book, I dont understand most of the technology Marcus fights or uses as weapons, but I recognize that its an amazing thesis. And I hope it is as popular with bright young geeks as it should and needs to be. I want thousands of adolescents to view it as a manual.

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I don't think I have ever rated anything five stars before, but this book deserves it.

Essentially a modernized version of the classic 1984, but so much more. It really has a lot of plot elements that are different. I liked this book a lot better that 1984, in fact, because as a teenager in the Bay Area, not an adult in England, I can relate to it a lot more.

Whoever you are, this is an extremely important book to read, because the torture, wiretapping, and code-making and -breaking techniques are really in use today, making this a completely believable and possible story.

I hope that our country isn't like this in five or ten years, but I worry that it might be.

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We all know someone who insists on paying for everything in cash, or who won't bank online, or who is absolutely convinced that big brother is out to get them and everybody else, or at least that big brother is watching. We listen to them and think to ourselves "That's just crazy talk. Can you say Paranoia?". But what if they're right? What if those security cameras are more than just ordinary anti-theft precautions? What if our spending histories are tracked by some entity other than our banks? What if all the electronic devices we've come to rely on so much can be and are monitored to establish our movement patterns and what not? It's not really paranoia if what you're concerned about is really going on. Cory Doctorow examines a world like that, a world where everything is bugged. School books have chips in them, gait recognition cameras are everywhere, credit cards and public transit passes are used to track movement of their holders, and all this feeds into whatever agency is in charge, be that the school board or the Department of Homeland Security. After a terrorist attack the system is thrown into overdrive and Marcus is one of the first victims of the indiscriminate checks performed by the overzealous officials, who seem to be looking for someone, anyone to pin the crime on. At only 17 he's scared but he's not backing down, instead he's fighting the system with its own weapons.
My favorite thing about Marcus is that he is a realistic character in that he is not some superhero devoid of fear, and when he is afraid he is not too proud to admit it. At the end of the day he is just a kid against adults who have all the power, he fights when he can and with the tools he has but he isn't reckless about it because he knows that more than just his freedom is on the line. And when things go as far as they can with the status quo unchanged he recognizes that it's time to take the fight to the next level, time to hand it off to those with more resources and more influence. He is also a 17 year old with a life outside of the fight. He has a girlfriend, he is at odds with his dad, he reads books and does school work, he plays video games and mouths off to his teacher.
Marcus' father is a character who represents the "I'm not doing anything wrong so I don't see what the big deal is, let them check and monitor and catch the bad guys" side of the argument, and I'm glad that Doctorow wrote him this way. I'm also glad that this wasn't his position from the very beginning of the book, it showed that people can and will change their minds under certain circumstances. It also showed that such changes of heart are not seamless or painless.
Marcus' friends and acquaintances cover the remainder of the spectrum, from spirited support of his actions to adamant disapproval. There are also those who are spies out of necessity, recruited by the DHS to infiltrate the underground network. The tensions resulting from these interactions provided the difficulties that made the story more believable, after all life's not all black and white, the gray often dominates the playing field and that's just how it is.
Overall I loved this novel, but what made it a little less enjoyable for me is all the technical talk. Marcus often walks the reader through what the different bugs and gadgets are, how they work, how they can be deactivated or circumvented, and since I'm the kind of person who loves her gadgets but doesn't particularly itch to find out how the software and hardware work it went over my head on occasion. Besides, I figured it was all author's imagination steeped in today's technological reality. But then at the end of the book one of the afterwords is by a security technologist, whose job is basically to figure out how electronic systems can be broken and how to make them more secure, and the other is by a professional hacker. Imagine my surprise and general feeling of unease when these real-life guys started talking about how Doctorow's "inventions" either do exist or aren't that far-fetched. There is also a bibliography with an extensive list of eye-opening titles. I admit, after reading these sections I started to wonder whether I should move my family to a cash-only basis for daily transactions to protect us from the possibility of both big and little brother infiltration (let's face it, if the government has no interest in us there's probably a marcus hacking away within a 2-mile radius from our house). In the end laziness won over that sentiment, but the seed has been sown.
This is a very well-rounded novel that is fast-paced and written in a voice that is casual without being too adult or too adolescent. It poses interesting questions and explores a variety of standpoints that are just as relevant today as they were when the book was published, if not more so. I recommend it without reservation, especially if you are the kind of reader who loves their gadgets, wants to know how they work inside, and wants their privacy to remain their own, regardless of whether there's anything to hide besides grandma's secret pie recipe.

P.S. Those with ereaders, heads up: Doctorow makes the novel available on his website free of charge in a variety of formats under the Creative Common License. Yes, he is that cool.

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Great story, high tension, compelling characters. I think this is Cory D.'s best work yet.

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Marcus is a seventeen year old high school student. He knows a lot about technology and has strong views on how the world works, and how he'd like to see it work. He and his friends (Darryl, Van, & Jolu) enjoy playing the scavenger hunt game "Harajuku Fun Madness", but in order to fulfill the tasks that are posted on the net, they must sneak off school grounds to get a head start on their search for the clues. Even with advanced security measures the school's security system is no match for Marcus.

Things take a frightening turn for the worst when they find themselves in the middle of the aftermath of a terrorist attack on their city San Francisco. While trying to get help for his friend Darryl who was wounded, him and his teammates are taken by the Department of Homeland Security and sent to a prison where they are locked in cells, and have to sit through excruciating interrogations.

The DHS finally releases Marcus, Van, and Jolu, but Darryl is not released and his father assumes that he has died in the explosion. They are told not to tell anyone what happened, and if they do they will be taken again or worse. After returning home Marcus finds that his city has become heavily secured, and every person is treated like a terrorist. Marcus is afraid that if he tells his story that no one will believe him, so he decides to try and outwit, outlast, and outplay the Department of Homeland Security himself with the help of the Xnet and friends.

"Little Brother" is one of the most exciting, fun, and politically challenging Young Adult books I've read in, well, forever. Cory Doctorow has received high, and well deserved praise for his Young Adult Sci-Fi novel, from the likes of Gaiman, Weseterfeld, and Scalzi. How can avid Sci-Fi readers not be interested in this story? I know I was! Marcus is a very likeable main character, and his drive to accomplish his goals is admirable. Even while fighting the DHS he finds the time to fall in love with the smart, quirky, and charming Ange.

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I really despised the narrator of this book. Although I enjoyed the premise, Marcus is very grating. I think what really bothered me about this book was the idea that Americans do not strike out against torture or the DHS unless it happens directly to them. Marcus obviously always knew about torture of people, but did not think twice about it or do anything. It said to me, and I may be off base, that Americans care only about the plot of Americans. Also a white, privileged teen talking about his rights being taken away? The "bad guys" also felt very underdeveloped to me and that also bothered me.

That being said, the author does a very good job explaining all the ins and outs of the tech issues that make up a good part of the story. I found the way that Marcus takes down the DHS very interesting. I just wish Marcus wasn't, well, a typical teenage boy.

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This book was awesome. I found myself unable to stop reading as it was that good. There were points when the author got a bit technical, but fortunately, these only last for a couple pages and you were back in the action.

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What a wonderful book. If you're at all concerned with the issues of excessive electronic government monitoring of its citizens, or of electronic privacy in general, make sure to give this book to your young teenagers.

Written post 9/11, and after the passage of the Patriot Act, Doctorow gives us a San Francisco where the Department of Homeland Security has gone over-the-top after the destruction of the Bay Bridge. His protagonist gets caught up in the post-attack frenzy, suspected of being a terrorist essentially because he knows how to penetrate the firewall of his high school.

It's a fantastic story pitting reduction of freedom in exchange for safety vs free expression. (And Doctorow is clearly on the free expression side, given that "safety" is portrayed as hiding in your home, terrified of the government.)

Doctorow's characters are wonderfully complex and well thought out, and I especially liked the San Francisco setting (I'm a native of the area). All the tricky, techno bits were lots of fun as well.

Highly recommended.

5/5 stars

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