Forums / Fun! / Just For Fun

320,728 total conversations in 9,943 threads

+ New Thread


The Best Book Ever Written

Last posted Oct 31, 2010 at 07:35AM EDT. Added Oct 29, 2010 at 08:43AM EDT
44 posts from 22 users

From Wikipedia:

Little Brother is a novel by Cory Doctorow. The novel is about several teenagers in San Francisco who, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge and BART system, defend themselves against what they see as the Department of Homeland Security's attacks on the Bill of Rights

Read it. It's awesome,funny,scary,sexy,cool,smart,and geeky all at the same time. This book is like…….god, i don't even know how to tell you how much this book means to me.
I've read it fourteen times and i love it every time.
Plot summary, a la Wikipedia:
The main character, Marcus Yallow, also known by his handle w1n5t0n (the name Winston written using leetspeak), and three of his friends are truant from high school and find themselves near a terrorist bombing of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. The friends try to get help for Darryl who was stabbed while they escaped the massing crowd headed for a fallout shelter. The foursome are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and held as enemy combatants because of their suspicious behavior, including having encryption on Marcus' cell phone.

After three days of interrogation by psychological torture and humiliation, Marcus is released to find that San Francisco has become a police state. Marcus and two of his other friends, Van (Vanessa) and Jolu (Jose Luis) are released after being forced to sign documents stating they were voluntarily held and interrogated by DHS. The main antagonist Carrie Johnstone (known as Severe Haircut Woman throughout most of the novel) is introduced while interrogating Marcus.

His best friend Darryl, who was stabbed after the bombing, is not released after the interrogation, and provides Marcus' main motivation to fight back against the DHS. Marcus dedicates the majority of his time to organizing resistance to the DHS while his relationship with both his friends and family deteriorates. Both of his remaining friends from the original foursome, Van and Jolu, drop out because of fear of retribution by DHS. While his relationship with his mother (Lillian) stays strong, he and his father (Drew Yallow) are sharply divided over DHS's tactics and control over the Bay area.

However, while organizing resistance, he develops new friendships and a love interest, Ange (Angela Carvelli), that help support him during his doubts and fears over fighting the federal government. He helps develop a clandestine wireless network, X-Net, that avoids DHS monitoring using anonymity and encryption. Using the X-Net as a secure communications medium, he organizes teenagers and twenty-somethings who are upset with the police state tactics imposed after the bombing. They develop innovative uses of existing technologies to foil DHS monitoring and cause mass confusion and embarrassment to law enforcement.

After learning that his best friend, Darryl, is not dead, but still being held in a secret prison on nearby Treasure Island Marcus starts a series of events that culminates in his final confrontation with the DHS. Starting with his confession, to his parents and Darryl's father, of what really happened the three days he was imprisoned, he gives all of his information to an investigative reporter friend. This leads to his being imprisoned and tortured (specifically with waterboarding) by the DHS, personified by the Severe Haircut Lady. He is rescued by the California Highway State Patrol (CHSP) after the governor of California acts on the information provided in the news article. He finds his friend Darryl alive, if severely traumatized by his treatment, as well as his girlfriend Ange in the Treasure Island secret prison.

The novel ends with Marcus' life going back to "normal" and DHS's losing power even though no one from the DHS is actually punished despite video proof of DHS personnel torturing him. Marcus seems to be happy with his life and relationships with both his girlfriend and parents. However, he dedicates a lot of his time to campaigning against the established political party that let this happen to U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.

Last edited Oct 29, 2010 at 09:09AM EDT

I find it funny that you would post information from Wikipedia, not from the site itself, with out letting us know anything about the link you have provide, any legal information, and than expect us to just jump on in, and download this EBook.

Info from site:It’s timely, smart, relatable, realistic, thought-provoking and fun, and that’s why I strongly believe that readers will be talking about Cory Doctorow’s novel for a very long time.
Fantasy Book Critic


Remember the scene in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress where Manny sketches a structure for an underground organization? Now imagine that, done properly. With X-boxes.
Ken Macleod, author of The Cassini Division and The Execution Channel


Doctorow makes the technology so easy to understand it becomes practically invisible--except, of course, to eyes trained to find ways to make it break. Granted, some of the strokes he uses to paint the bad guys are overly broad, but this is still one of the most awesome books any young adult could read this summer… and one of the most important novels anyone of voting age could read in the months leading up to our next election.
Ron Hogan, Galleycat


Marcus is a wonderfully developed character: hyperaware of his surroundings, trying to redress past wrongs, and rebelling against authority. Teen espionage fans will appreciate the numerous gadgets made from everyday materials. One afterword by a noted cryptologist and another from an infamous hacker further reflect Doctorow's principles, and a bibliography has resources for teens interested in intellectual freedom, information access, and technology enhancements.
School Library Journal


A worthy younger sibling to Orwell's 1984, Cory Doctorow's LITTLE BROTHER is lively, precocious, and most importantly, a little scary.
Brian K Vaughn, author of Y: The Last Man


It's about growing up in the near future where things have kept going on the way they've been going, and it's about hacking as a habit of mind, but mostly it's about growing up and changing and looking at the world and asking what you can do about that. The teenage voice is pitch-perfect. I couldn't put it down, and I loved it.
Jo Walton, author of Farthing


The right book at the right time from the right author -- and, not entirely coincidentally, Cory Doctorow's best novel yet.
John Scalzi, author of Old Man's War


Cory Doctorow is a fast and furious storyteller who gets all the details of alternate reality gaming right, while offering a startling, new vision of how these games might play out in the high-stakes context of a terrorist attack. Little Brother is a brilliant novel with a bold argument: hackers and gamers might just be our country's best hope for the future.
Jane McGonical, Designer, I Love Bees


Little Brother is a scarily realistic adventure about how homeland security technology could be abused to wrongfully imprison innocent Americans. A teenage hacker-turned-hero pits himself against the government to fight for his basic freedoms. This book is action-packed with tales of courage, technology, and demonstrations of digital disobedience as the technophile's civil protest.
Andrew "bunnie" Huang, author of Hacking the Xbox


A rousing tale of techno-geek rebellion, as necessary and dangerous as file sharing, free speech, and bottled water on a plane.
Scott Westerfeld, author of Uglies and Extras


"I can talk about Little Brother in terms of its bravura political speculation or its brilliant uses of technology -- each of which make this book a must-read -- but, at the end of it all, I'm haunted by the universality of Marcus's rite-of-passage and struggle, an experience any teen today is going to grasp: the moment when you choose what your life will mean and how to achieve it.
Steven C. Gould, author of Jumper

https://knowyourmeme.com/forums/general/topics/4230-the-worlds-most-disturbing-childrens-book

Last edited Oct 30, 2010 at 05:44AM EDT

I didn't necessarily find it, it was from the thread that I posted a link to, but the site it came from is here. I have no idea what the book is called, though.

Last edited Oct 30, 2010 at 11:55AM EDT
Skeletor-sm

This thread is closed to new posts.

Old threads normally auto-close after 30 days of inactivity.

Why don't you start a new thread instead?

Hi! You must login or signup first!