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.