Alan, the eldest son of a mountain and a washing machine, refurbishes a house in Toronto, meets an anarchist bent on blanketing the city in free wireless Internet access, and falls for a woman with leathery wings on her back in Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town. But Alan is forced to return home and confront his misfit past when his murderous and deformed brother David reappears. Cory Doctorow adroitly interconnects these peculiar plots — e.g., the wireless blanket is used to track David’s movements — and successfully experiments with a risky prose style.`