Customer Reviews
1984 for the 21st Century - By: DGT, 20 May 2008 
But with a slightly less upsetting ending.
This is marked here as "young adult" & by the publisher as "TOR Teens". I hope no-one minds my having read it, although I left my teens behind some 40 odd years ago. The story is certainly told from a teenage viewpoint but the moral is one that all of us would do well to remember & the tale is engrossing enough to have held me for the several hours it took to read the book. The narrator, Marcus Yarrow, is 17, at schoolin San Francisco & accidentally gets caught upin a nightmare as US security over-react to a terrorist attack. There is a lot of techie stuff that is explained well enough that I at least felt I understood it (whether or not I did is irrelevant - this is a story, after all). Circumstances & a certain bolshieness conspire to push Yarrow into opposing the forces who have taken over SFin the name of protecting it and,in the end, he comes out on top, more or less.
I can't judge whether this book is right for its target market, but I can say that it made me think & reminded me that "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty".
Everything that's fun about the internet and scary about the USA - By: G. McPherson, 14 May 2008 After reading Doctorow's blogs for years, I finally bought one of his books & I was absolutely entranced. This book brought back all the good memories of my teenage years, when the web was a twisted playground, a place to explore & meet people, to try all the cool tricks & be tricked by them. Special codes, hand-built gadgets & secretive communities where the members felt a true sense of kinship.
It's allin here as these kids live on the razor's edge, trying to stay ahead of the latest "security" countermeasures broughtin to a post-9/11 America. The great tag team of upbeat teenaged rebellion coupled with the grim & terror-filled atmosphere of Americain the grip of potential threats from outside assailants makes for compelling writing as Doctorow explores the Constitution of the US & how it is being bulldozed asidein the name of Patriotism as well as how trying to fight for these rights often leaves those crusadersin the sights to be branded as criminals.
The writing style is clear & designed to allow even the less tech-savvy into this world of intrigue & digital rebellion, making it both a joy for the wired & the wireless to read.
Believe
