Here are four urgent stories from author and activist Cory Doctorow, four social, technological and economic visions of the world today and its near—all too near—future.
Unauthorized Bread is a tale of immigration, toxic economic stratification and a young woman's perilously illegal quest to fix a broken toaster.
In Model Minority a superhero finds himself way out his depth when he confronts the corruption of the police and justice system.
Radicalized is the story of a desperate husband, a darknet forum and the birth of a violent uprising against the US health care system.
The final story, The Masque of the Red Death, tracks an uber-wealthy survivalist and his followers as they hole up and attempt to ride out the collapse of society.
I went through a brief love affair with Doctorow. But the sweetly clunky how-to-do-X-techie-thing-to-bring-down-Y-bad-guy-slash-system got too clunky for me. And repetitive too.
These short stories were OK though. Maybe he's gotten better, or maybe it's been long enough between my readings. Either way in all his writing, I still don't understand how encryption and private/public keys work (not asking for an explanation).
This is science fiction as commentary in its highest forms. Across four stories, Doctorow paints vivid portraits of how current social and technological trends could easily lead to dystopian social conditions. In each case, it's really just a way of amping up the volume on existing practices and problems in a way to better dramatize the problem.
Kim Stanley Robinson gives the cover blurb, and that choice is perfect: Doctorow is operating in the same tradition as Robinson, but in a more immediate and accessible way. While Robinson has elements of sprawling, high literature in his novels--including length!--Doctorow has more of a page-turner style, like a fun escapist sci-fi story with the intellect amped up. He gets to the point quickly, making you care deeply about the characters immediately. It's easy to see how "normal" people get swept up in destructive social and technological systems.
Another good comparison point is …
This is science fiction as commentary in its highest forms. Across four stories, Doctorow paints vivid portraits of how current social and technological trends could easily lead to dystopian social conditions. In each case, it's really just a way of amping up the volume on existing practices and problems in a way to better dramatize the problem.
Kim Stanley Robinson gives the cover blurb, and that choice is perfect: Doctorow is operating in the same tradition as Robinson, but in a more immediate and accessible way. While Robinson has elements of sprawling, high literature in his novels--including length!--Doctorow has more of a page-turner style, like a fun escapist sci-fi story with the intellect amped up. He gets to the point quickly, making you care deeply about the characters immediately. It's easy to see how "normal" people get swept up in destructive social and technological systems.
Another good comparison point is Black Mirror. There is a similar format--stories about problems created by technology--and a similar focus on the human elements in these stories. But I'd say that Doctorow has a slightly more thoughtful and articulate vision of what's right, and why things are wrong, in these technological dystopia. It's not "look how crazy technology is making us!" It's "look how the way that fundamental social tensions around capitalism, class, and race are being fought in this new terrain of a higher tech society."
Special shout-out to the last story in the collection, which follows a super wealthy Wall Street guy who creates a doomsday bunker and continually opines about how much smarter, better, and more deserving he is than everyone else suffering from societal collapse. It's got "Neoreaction a Basilisk" vibes, in a very good way.
