• (hreview version 0.2)
• (Reviewed on 02 October 2008 by Anthony Bailey)
• product

This is a fun coming-of-age adventure telling a very contemporary tale of tech-savvy teenage righteous rebellion against a police state.

The plot is straightforward in the large, but the formula is well-executed, is written in a convincing voice, and features wonderful details. Doctorow regularly writes apparently futuristic science-fiction simply by basing his fiction on today's cutting edge, and the edge cuts keenly in this book - the politics and technologies are all here today or grown tomorrow.

I read the free CC-licensed download, as I did with one of his previous Eastern Standard Tribe - and the business model of this publishing approach (of which Doctorow is one of the earliest adopters and most passionate proponents) proves itself again: I've just ordered a copy of the just released UK paperback to send as geek propaganda to my own younger sibling.