Review of Makers by Cory Doctorow

This interesting, near-future technology-based novel initially came out in 2009 in serial form as an ebook, before being released by Voyager as a printed version. I’ve been interested to read a variety of responses to the book, many of them hostile…

Perry and Lester invent things. All sorts of things. Seashell robots that can make toast, Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls that drive cars. They also invent an entirely new economic system. ‘New Work’ is a New Deal for the technological era, and together Perry and Lester transform the country, with journalist Suzanne Church there to document their progress.

For the record, that’s half the blurb published (which I hadn’t read before embarking on the book) on the inside of the cover – and the reason why I’m not continuing any further, is that the next paragraph proceeds to give away at least half the major plot points of the book. Which is the reason, I reckon, that one of the recurring complaints I’ve encountered about this book is that the story is slow and predictable. If those reviewers knew in advance what was coming up, no wonder they felt the book dragged. That’s the only explanation I can come up with – because although it’s a long book, at no time did I find my attention wandering. Doctorow’s gleeful enthusiasm for the new toys he’s envisioned for the near future didn’t stop him paying attention to providing an entertaining storyline and likeable, interesting characters. I was also impressed at the clarity of the writing – at no point was I scratching my head or having to backtrack and reread any sections in order to understand exactly what all these cool, techie gismos did. And while I enjoy browsing through the New Scientist, I’m no science specialist.

I have a suspicion that many of the poor reviews about Makers are aimed at the high profile author who makes no secret of his beliefs, many of which are somewhat controversial. One complaint was grumbling about the fact that Doctorow chose Duracell as a struggling company of the future… while another targeted the fact that Lester and Perry spent a lot of time making kitch dross, rather than worthy, planet-saving inventions. There were several scathing comments along the line that despite Doctorow’s dislike of large profit-hugging corporations, such as Disney, his maverick inventors still ended up working in a system that made money.

Well – duh… I would suggest that while it’s a no-brainer that Capitalism is a toxic system, criminally wasteful of the resources and humanity that get ground up underfoot – so far, thanks to the crash of Communism and the current woes of Socialist governments across the globe it’s the system we’re stuck with. And if Doctorow had managed to come up with a credible alternative system in his novel, he’d probably be Out There, earning himself a Nobel Peace prize and becoming the first President of Earth, rather than critiquing the current sorry mess as a writer.

I think it’s a shame that Makers has drawn down so much unfriendly criticism due to Doctorow’s political stance, because while at times the prose is a little rough around the edges, I’ve read an awful lot of science fiction novels   where the pacing, characterisation and plotting was a great deal worse, yet garnered far more favourable reviews. Doctorow has all sorts of interesting observations to make in this thoughtful look at the near future and how technology may shape the outlook for sections of American society. I also thoroughly enjoyed the story of Lester, Perry and Suzanne and am not sure how anyone could have thought the poignant epilogue was predictable.

If you are genuinely interested in what one person has to say about how new technology might impact the near future – and won’t throw up your hands in horror if said person chooses not to address the issues of resources or climate change – then I strongly recommend this novel.
9/10

May you live in interesting times…

…Says the old Chinese curse. Well, we are – living in interesting times. The election result was riveting and all for the wrong reasons.

Here we are, two days after we voted (those of us who managed to get to the polling stations, despite the queues and missing ballot papers, that is) and still not sure exactly who is going to be our new Prime Minister. Under normal circumstances, we could all afford to mutter about how our weird ‘first past the post’ system works most of the time, but makes a right old mess of things when it doesn’t – and sit back to see what’s going to happen, next. With varying amounts of enjoyment, depending on just how politically minded we are…

Except that we haven’t got the luxury of time. What most of us in Britain may have missed due to the media hysteria over the election non-results yesterday, is that there was a fairly important meeting. It was an emergency meeting of the heads of the Eurozone states who were desperately trying to thrash out some kind of package to limit the spreading damage caused by the ailing Greek economy. This issue threatens to pull the rest of Europe into a fiscal black hole similar to the 2008 debacle caused by the American banking sub-prime mortgage scandal. Think I’m exaggerating?

Well, while German leader, Angela Merkel announced that their response to Greece’s financial crisis would be ‘decisive’, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said that the eurozone was in a ‘state of emergency’. Both he and the French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy cancelled their visits to Moscow tomorrow (Sunday) commemorating the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II, due to the fiscal crisis. If you’ve ever sat through ten minutes of any war film made in the last sixty years, you’ll know that the heads of France and Italy wouldn’t lightly miss such an event.

As for Britain? No, we’re not part of the eurozone. But that doesn’t mean we won’t get caught up in this mess. We are part of Europe; we are already mired up to our necks in debt and if the euro goes down the tube, we don’t have any kind of economic safety net left to cushion us from the resultant freefall.

Surely, the situation is extreme enough for the three parties to seriously consider forming a coalition Government. Just listen to any economic analyst talk for five minutes and you’ll realise that we need the combined talents of all our most able politicians, from whatever Party. And if the talking behind the scenes doesn’t very speedily result in a solution that puts the terrible state of the economy before every other political consideration, then life in this country – along with the rest of Europe – could get very grimly Interesting, indeed.