Books by author: Cory Doctorow

This short novel isn't as good as Eastern Standard Tribe, but there are still some interesting elements. I'm interested enough to read another of Doctorow's novels. The price is certainly right.

I had become quite tired of Cory Doctorow's self-promotion and half-baked anti-DRM rants on boingboing, and I hadn't planned to read any of his novels, but I was looking for something free to read on my new Amazon kindle (which, by the way, is awesome). One of Doctorow's biggest claims to fame is that he has freely provided all of his fiction under a Creative Commons license, so I grabbed a copy of Eastern Standard Tribe, which is one of his shorter novels.

Color me surprised to find out that it's actually quite good! The story takes place in a believable near-future, the sci-fi jargon doesn't get in the way, the protagonist is recognizable and likable, and I liked the way that Doctorow interleaved the story's two timelines (this technique reminded me a bit of Matt Ruff's Bad Monkeys). I'm looking forward to trying another of Doctorow's novels.

This is my least favorite of Doctorow's novels. There are some very interesting elements and characters, but the protagonist's family is a little too bizarre for my taste (just for starters, he is the son of a washing machine and a mountain), and there are three or four too many characters in all. The mythology is never explained or even expanded enough to allow for a suspension of disbelief. I enjoyed some of the writing quite a lot (e.g., the opening section was very absorbing), but it didn't keep my interest well overall.