Cory Doctorow's "Makers" (ca. Part IV)
Cory Doctorow is this fascinatingly strange guy. He makes a living writing, for one thing - that makes him pretty bizarre right there. And like a lot of folks on the Internet, he's got unusual tastes in hobbies and pass-times. But he's also full of wild, weird, and sometimes wonderful ideas.
For example, in "Eastern Standard Tribe", he built an entire novel around the idea that eventually essentially everyone will be knowledge workers, and at that point, there won't be any real reason to come together to do work - other than habit, and preference. The world starts to fragment and self-organize into loose bands of netizens who self-identify based on their sleep schedules. I thought the book was sort of "meh". But the ideas were bizarrely beautiful, like deep-sea creatures. Things that look totally at home in their habitat, but just so wrong at the same time.
His most recent novel, "Makers" (set to be released in October) is currently being serialized on Tor.com. The first installment is here (1 of 81). I'm current, which is to say that I've read the first four installments.
I'm hooked. The characters are likable, like people I've known for years. The portrait of Silly Valley, unflattering as it is, is very believable. He's got interesting people doing interesting things, and a masseur's wet dream of tension building quietly in the background. It feels to me not unlike Neal Stephenson's work, before he started publishing bibles. And I mean that in the very best of ways.
So here's hoping the next 77 installments deliver on the promise of the first four. More later.
For example, in "Eastern Standard Tribe", he built an entire novel around the idea that eventually essentially everyone will be knowledge workers, and at that point, there won't be any real reason to come together to do work - other than habit, and preference. The world starts to fragment and self-organize into loose bands of netizens who self-identify based on their sleep schedules. I thought the book was sort of "meh". But the ideas were bizarrely beautiful, like deep-sea creatures. Things that look totally at home in their habitat, but just so wrong at the same time.
His most recent novel, "Makers" (set to be released in October) is currently being serialized on Tor.com. The first installment is here (1 of 81). I'm current, which is to say that I've read the first four installments.
I'm hooked. The characters are likable, like people I've known for years. The portrait of Silly Valley, unflattering as it is, is very believable. He's got interesting people doing interesting things, and a masseur's wet dream of tension building quietly in the background. It feels to me not unlike Neal Stephenson's work, before he started publishing bibles. And I mean that in the very best of ways.
So here's hoping the next 77 installments deliver on the promise of the first four. More later.