One of the dangers of writing about today's technologies is that technology is
changing so fast that what you think is the epitome of human creation today is
obsolete tomorrow. There are many famous examples of this, such as Bill Gates
predicting that no one would ever need more than 640K of memory in a personal
computer. So, it's important to read this novel in the time it was written,
around the middle of the first decade of the 21st century.

Some of the tech is dated, but the core of what Doctorow is talking about --
the average person using the Internet as a social network -- is quite spot on,
especially with respect to issues such as privacy and fighting the
"authorities" (the big telcos, the government, etc.) that have their grubby
dinosaur grips on this new media.

My only complaint is the ending. There is a twist regarding the protagonist's family in the final pages, but we're left hanging mid-climax. I won't go into detail as I don't want to spoil things.

In the end, I really enjoyed this story. There are many threads to follow. Some were interrupted early on and simply picked up again where they left of way later on without a dumbed-down rehashing of what happened before. I liked how he played with the names of the protagonist and his brothers, and how he used the same naming convention with another character who shared their same uniqueness. I like how he used fantasy to describe the aloneness, the frustration, the awkwardness, the anger, the unusualness and freakishness, the hatred, the quirkiness, the love, the infatuation, the silliness, the intelligence and understanding, the loneliness, the self-pity, and the guilt to describe freaks and nerds and other social outcasts.

C. Doctorow is one hell of a writer, I can't find the perfect words to express how good he is at what he does ;)

Did not care for the device you use where a phrase is repeated and parenthised text explains thought ... Sorry.

And what was with the name changes? Absolutely brilliant! I no trouble recognizing the different characters, but wished I understood more about the meaning behind that device and why a particular name was used in a given context - davey, Darren, etc.

I will be reading this one several more times!

Thank you!

i love stories that mix up genres. i used to read a lot of piers anthony stories and he was quite fond also of mixing the mystical with the scientific. douglas adams too, in a different way. many others i can't name but i didn't expect the mystical element so strong in a cory doctorow story and it was at first uncomfortable, but once it bedded in, very satisfying.

also, in regards to one of the above comments about how to classify this story, i would certainly call it a fable more than anything else. a fable or an allegorical tale i suppose, whichever you prefer. certainly, most mothers get treated as washing machines, do they not? and it's always far too late by the time we realize that we ought to be treating her as more than a washing machine. as alan discovers. it's just all taken to a bit more of a literal plane than is typical.

cheers and thanks for the excellent novel, cory :)

Dale

I recommended it to my daughter and the next time we were in Toronto, she wasn't happy til she found Goth kids and the video store. We also looked for boxes on the buildings but with no luck.

It's weird finding out about your literary work just now - being myself into the FOSS culture and all for a long time, and SciFi for even longer - but I guess it's never too late for a good thing!
I consider myself a "difficult" SciFi reader; I'm not sure I would classify this one as SciFi, but I consider it your best work by far. I already know it will take a third and fourth reading before I can dust the diamonds you've built in this one, and maybe I will even be persuaded that the WiFi mesh story isn't as foreign as it seemed this first time.
I'm looking forward to see more of your work! Thank you for pioneering and helping push this world to become what it should be.

I've never read a another book like it.

Great job!