Book 33: Little Brother

Completed May 18th

I really enjoyed this book, which was one of the best feelings ever after despising the last novel I finished. It's set in the present day, but with an alternate reality...technology is a little more advanced and available in this setting. And surveillance of every day citizens is more common as well. At least I think so. I guess there could be some camera watching me scratch my ass right now, but I like to hope that's not true.

The phrase "little brother" is a nod to "big brother." Where "big brother" refers to an authority figure or group monitoring the public, "little brother" refers to the public monitoring the authority. Kind of like "Who watches the Watchmen?" It's an interesting concept. Basically, the main character, Marcus, and his friends are in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are detained by Homeland Security as suspected terrorists. The treatment he and his friends receive, the threats made, and the terror to which they are subjected light a fire in Marcus and he decides to fight back once he is released.

So yeah, I loved it. When I read the last page, I was ready to sign up for a revolution. It made me curious how our non-fictional government would react if the scenarios in this novel were to occur and I had a lot of questions. What is freedom? What is the price of that freedom? Under what circumstances can it be taken away? How far would you go to get it back?

There is a great deal of tech and tech jargon, but Doctorow does an excellent job of explaining it as the story progresses. And not in that let's-have-a-wordy-and-boring-timeout-to-explain-difficult-concepts way. He incorporates it into the story.

Rating: 9/10

Book 32 - Genesis

Note: There are major spoilers here. I'll warn you when they're coming

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this book, but I enjoyed it about as much as I enjoyed kidney surgery. It's like a history textbook containing only court transcripts. Sure, there are some great philosophical elements regarding life, thought, ideas, creation, etc contained here, but I didn't care about the story at all. There was no story. The whole novel takes place in 4 hours time and deals primarily with the past. If I wanted to read something like this, I'd have grabbed a West Memphis 3 court transcript or a journal article...both infinitely more entertaining than this story.

Some people might think I'm missing the point, but I do get it. I just don't like it. I don't mind debating philosophy on occasion, but that's all this was: a great big philosophical barf. I could spend a few minutes or hours dissecting this novel in my mind and determining what my own beliefs are regarding the themes, but you know what? I'm just going to move right along to the next book instead. Which is my own decision, Mr. Beckett...because I'm human and have a brain and thoughts and ideas. Gah! I really don't like this book.

The reader is kept outside the story and little connection (no connection really) is felt to the characters. And maybe that's why I didn't like it. It's a cerebral book, not an emotional one...which is typically how I prefer to operate, but not when it comes to fiction. I kept waiting for something -- anything -- to happen. Something to move to story beyond the walls of the Academy, but no. I could have punched the author when I read the twist. I'm not one for giving the ending away usually, but do you want to know? Do you?

~SPOILER ALERT~

She's a monkey. Yeah. Anax (the main character) is an orangutan robot. The end. Thanks for reading.

Rating: 2/10