{"id":270,"date":"2009-04-16T08:46:14","date_gmt":"2009-04-16T12:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/?p=270"},"modified":"2009-04-16T08:46:14","modified_gmt":"2009-04-16T12:46:14","slug":"little-brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/?p=270","title":{"rendered":"Little Brother"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just finished Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother<\/em> and found it a worthy read.\u00c2\u00a0 The attentive among you will have noticed that I picked this book for my sf class without having read it.\u00c2\u00a0 For the most recent book in the course I choose the sf title with the highest critical and marketplace impact.\u00c2\u00a0 Last year the Oprahized The Road<\/em> was the obvious choice.\u00c2\u00a0 And while hardback Little Brothers <\/em>on sale in the local Kroger a full year after pub date with no paperback in sight, might not be Oprah, it’s close enough for sf.\u00c2\u00a0 That it’s about the War on Terror when the theme of this particular class is war, made it inevitable.\u00c2\u00a0 Besides, I like Doctorow.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s smart, important in his own right as a mover and shaker.<\/p>\n

I haven’t read the bibliography yet, which gives a hint to one of the problems with the narrative.\u00c2\u00a0 Forget the Xbox.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s plenty of soapbox here for anyone, and maybe too much for many.\u00c2\u00a0 For my purposes, this makes it a perfect ending for a course that begins with Heinlein’s Starship Troopers<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201doriginally written as YA also and larded with right-wing lectures.\u00c2\u00a0 Doctorow’s info-dumps are shameless, but this didn’t bother me so much.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s always interesting, which James says is the only requirement of a novelist.\u00c2\u00a0 This isn’t exactly Melville and the whales or even Stephenson in The Diamond Age<\/em>, but interesting enough and clear.\u00c2\u00a0 At heart, perhaps, Doctorow is an essayist.<\/p>\n

I did find myself longing for some shades of gray in the tale.\u00c2\u00a0 The only untrustworthy soul under twenty-five is so cartoonishly over the top he’s impossible to take seriously. \u00c2\u00a0 Surely, there’s one right of center kid in California with more than two brain cells firing.\u00c2\u00a0 My favorite YA writers like Robert Cormier or Philip Pullman allow for dark ambiguity in the narrative, but here the whole thing’s pretty easy after the nasty torture bits are over.\u00c2\u00a0 No one betrays our hero except the DHS.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite all the paranoia, it’s never personal.\u00c2\u00a0 Lucky fellow.\u00c2\u00a0 The villain lives to fight another day and that’s supposed to be enough darkness?\u00c2\u00a0 It all just seemed a little too sunny by the end.<\/p>\n

I quibble.\u00c2\u00a0 Except for a bit of a lull toward the end, the narrative remains interesting and the hero engaging.\u00c2\u00a0 I agree with his politics, so I’m not the one to ask how effective the book is for those who don’t.\u00c2\u00a0 I trust some of my students will have something to say on the matter this summer.\u00c2\u00a0 My favorite fan of The Watch<\/em> (a thoroughly lefty book) is self-described conservative Lelia Taylor who owns Creatures n Crooks<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 It makes me proud to have poisoned her mind.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s hoping Little Brother<\/em> charms my class as well.<\/p>\n

I’ll be on electronic hiatus for a while.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 Enjoy the spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother and found it a worthy read.\u00c2\u00a0 The attentive among you will have noticed that I picked this book for my sf class without having read it.\u00c2\u00a0 For the most recent book in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}