Book Review: Little Brother

After a major terrorist attack hits San Francisco, the government creates an Orwellian surveillance society, a techno-savvy teenager rebels back -- a geek focused coming of age story.

The author, Cory Doctorow, is quite knowledgeable and explains technology well. Even though the story was written almost 10 years ago, the technology topics still hold up. It would be a slightly different story written in our post-Snowden, smart phones everywhere world, but not that different.

The book is realistic, though a bit over the top with the author taking the themes of surveillance, freedom, and rights to the extreme to make his points. They are important and good discussions.

I quite enjoyed the book, it is filled with good action and an interesting story; it was a pretty quick read, I ended up staying up late a couple nights to finish it. I would definitely recommend, especially for software engineers and open source fans.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is released under creative-commons and available for free download in numerous formats. You can still purchase from Amazon to support the author.

Length: 387 pages Reading time: 2 days