Little Brother by Cory Doctorow - a late review

In 2008 I went to see Cory Doctorow  talk about books, Big Brother, and rights-free content. That night I bought a book, which I intended to read soon after and just got to this month, a few years late. Such is life sometimes for the Bookrastinator.

As I finished reading Little Brother on the express bus heading home to my home in Queens, I felt a sense of relief. I was free.
I looked down a street which was closed off for a block party and realized that even in today's restrictive world, we still live in a place where we can close off the street to throw a party. This is not the case in many parts of the world.

I really enjoyed Little Brother, even if half of it was a whirlwind of hacking terminology and lengthy explanations, with me being one of the least techy people I know, I sometimes felt out of my league. I kept thinking, man, I have friends who need to read this. They’d love it.

I did totally dug the main character, tech-obsessed high school senior, Marcus, known online as “w1n5t0n” and quite often in the principal’s office for hacking his way through school-mandated devices. 

When a terrorist attack disrupts an unsuspecting Bay area around San Francisco, a bunch of friends are caught right in the middle of it. And suddenly it's not so great to be the techy kid with all the gizmos in his backpack. Curious teen becomes a suspect. Suspect gets taken in for some unfriendly questioning. Things get serious.

Author Cory Doctorow mentions in the afterword that reading George Orwell's 1984 when he was twelve years old changed his life. I remember reading it in high school and it also affected me in a profound way.

Will Little Brother have this type of effect on the next generation? I'd like to think so. Government control, and surveillance is a big issue and will only continue to be so in the world we live in today. Will the torture scene scare kids? Sure. Did 1984's torture scenes scare me, absolutely. If it stirs up conversation, debate, shouting matches even, then it did it's job.

I feel like this is the type of book I need continually loan out, force people to read, because it's profoundly important in some way that is not completely clear to me yet. All I do know, as a father, is that this is a book I want my son to read when he's a teenager, so that we can have a debate about it like Marcus and his father in the book. 

And yes, I am dating myself saying that the title reminds me of the rap song from the 80s. I sang it in my head each time I opened the book. I'm not sure if Doctorow was going for that as well as evoking the spirit of Orwell. But either way, it worked for me.

Review of Wolverine Noir by Stuart Moore and C.P. Smith

I picked up the premier hardcover of Wolverine Noir a few weeks late as I was having a hard time finding it at a few local shops. I was expecting the compact, roughly 5 x 7 trade paperback like the other Marvel Noir books I'd purchased (i.e. Spider-Man, Daredevil, and X-Men) but for some reason Marvel decided to release this noir book in a standard (larger) comic book size hardcover. I'm not sure why.

Regardless of that bit of format discussion, the treasure is what lay inside. A tale of a lowly P.I. -- one Jim Logan. Inspired heavily by the Wolverine Origins book from 2000, this noir retelling focuses on many of the characters from that book, Dog, Rose, and James Logan of course, with a sprinkling of some of Wolverine's other regular cast: Victor Creed, a gangster in the Bowery section of New York City, and the Asian women of Logan's past: Mariko, the femme fatale, and Yuriko, training ninjas as thugs.

It is an interesting mix, and Logan slipped easily into the role of a hard drinking, down on his luck PI, who works with his half-stupefied partner, Dog, as a result of a long ago incident that takes the entire book to play out. I might have expected a fee more cameos, but this cast if characters kept the story tight and moving along.

Smith's artwork, purposefully sloppy, worked well for the series, as only in flashbacks is James presented like a clean cut kid, who is not sure if he's more human or animal -- the perpetual question of his life. Stuart Moore, recreates the noir sensibility quite well, in 1930s New York, and the build up to World War II. It's in the newspaper headlines, it's evident in the business of arms dealing on the black market...its all right there.

I'd give this a 'very good' and definite solid addition to the Marvel collection of noir books. Also of note is the inclusion of a sketchbook and sample of the issue #1 script in the back, for a detailed look into the creative process. 

All I missed were more villain cameos from Wolverine's illustrious past, as there is so much material to draw from. That, and the fact that I thought the smaller size trades that the other books were released in really lent itself to the "pulp fiction" feel of the stories.
 
Overall, a fine book by a talented creative team.

Catching Up on the Classics: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

One great thing about having access to the various mobile reading devices these days, is it allows me to catch up on those classic books, now all easily accessible through various applications. And we all have them, we all have books that we've somehow missed over the years, for any number of reasons.

Using the Masterpieces app on the iPod Touch, whenever I am without a proper book (or new ebook), I scroll through their bookshelf collection and give something that I've missed a try.

This week, it was H. G. Wells and his classic, The Time Machine. This is one of the great ones that I've missed.

Oddly, I still had an odd affection for this story, as I was first introduced to the 1979 film, Time After Time, that was based on a novel of he same name that was published that very same year. This was something that I was not aware of until researching for this blog post. I thought that some Hollywood execs got together and just thought to combine H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper. I had no idea that film was based on a book of the same name. I will find a copy of that book for my collection. But I only remembered the film, which I watched over and over with my brother and sister. It was a favorite of ours.

The story of the film combined the literary character of  H.G. Wells, himself, played by Malcolm McDowall--my introduction to his work, his time machine, and Jack the Ripper, played by the fantastic, David Warner--who still creeps me out to this day due to this role in this film and his other evil roles in Time Bandits and Tron.  He really does play such a great bad guy.

He chases Jack the Ripper into the future to stop him and recover his time machine. I watched this film so many times when younger, that I believed it to be the actual story of the book--and somehow missed the reading assignment in high school or shrugged it off perhaps. (Many of my English teachers would be surprised to learn that I became an editor.)

I was so surprised when I finally started reading and the story was altogether different. I longed to know more about each character that the time traveler is speaking to at the table in his parlor. I was especially fond of The Editor. And his far future time travel was so different than the few decades of travel that occurs in the film. Fantastical creatures appear, a future evolution with little or no explanation. It was a thrilling read, and before I knew it the novella had ended. It should always be that way--enjoyment leading right up to the end.

I guess I can now watch the Guy Pierce film as well, which looks like it was a true adaptation of the novella. Well, I am glad to have checked that one off the list, and have already started reading Wells' The Invisible Man which I am also enjoying. Reading books in between reading other books. I've totally forgotten what it is like to read only one thing at a time. Occupational hazard I guess.

Catch up on a classic recently? Share your story in the comments.

My Book Expo (BEA) Experience with Comics of course!

I will be writing more about my one-day at Book Expo this week at the Javits Center in NYC. But here's a quick bit about one of the books I picked up.

At the IDW booth, I grabbed the "Exclusive BEA Preview" copy of The Man with the Getaway Face (A prelude to The Outfit featuring Richard Stark's Parker adapted by Darwyn Cooke). Still trying to find a good image of the preview cover, but this cover to the right is what the actual book cover will look like when it debuts in July.

I just read it this morning, and it is terrific, a perfect bridge story between last year's Hunter graphic novel and the upcoming, The Outfit adaptation. The preview is over-sized, 8 x 12, and really shows off the beauty of Cooke's artwork and style.

I'll have more from my day at the show soon, but just wanted to update the blog (finally) and mention this great book. Keep your eyes peeled for it.

From the Rooftops. My review of DAREDEVIL: Noir TP written by Alexander Irvine and illustrated by Tomm Coker

Depression Era, New York City. Neighborhood, Hell's Kitchen. Two mob bosses fight for their stretch of the street and all bootlegging and hard living they can handle.

But some forces have lived in Hell's Kitchen a long time too, and have seen a whole lot of nastiness. Or have they?

Carlton Fisk and Jimmy O'Halloran meet over dinner to discuss their rivalry and just what they're going to do about it. Just two men discussing work over a meal. 

Writer Alex Irvine did a great job of bringing these characters to life, even Foggy Nelson seemed more street wise then he is often portrayed.

In the story, a beautiful femme fetale wanders into the law office of one Foggy Nelson, and bemuses his sidekick, blind assistant Matt Murdock. Eliza. Temptress.

In an attempt to protect his new love interest and find out more information, our blind friend becomes his other self, a vengeful street force, as mysterious and fearful as they come. And so it begins.

If ever there was a Marvel character who was a perfect fit for a noir-themed tale it was the blind justice of New York, Daredevil.

I can not speak highly enough about the artistic approach to this book. Not only are the dark sketchy panels drawn to noir perfection, but additional elements like the old school type face of Daredevil's thoughts worked beautifully.

Even the design of the smaller than average size trade paperback is superb. Grainyness is a word that's thrown a lot in the comics medium, but here it achieved the desired effect. The people responsible for the creation of this collected trade paperback did a wonderful job with design elements and extras. Not only is there a cover gallery in the back but there are also Tomm Coker's character sketches from early on. I'm all about the supplemental material.

A solid addition to the Marvel Noir line of books. Next I'm off to purchase the Wolverine Noir trade. Maybe next week.

Disclaimser: This is a comic that I purchased myself at the comic shop just like any normal Wednesday regular might. It was not a free sample and I no gun was held to my head to write this review. The book simply rocked.

Book Review: Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst

Walk the streets of Salonika alongside special police detective, Costa Zannis...in 1940s Greece.

War is in the air. You can feel it. The Germans have moved across northern Europe like a tidal wave. The Greeks are used to struggle. Their beautiful stretch of islands have been sought after for millenia. The Persians, the Turks, even their neighbors, the Italians. History has been a long struggle with occupation.

Costa has seen a lot during his time as a police officer in northern Greece. But he can feel that things are only going to get worse. This policeman decides to make a crucial decision to help some people escape Berlin. It won't be easy and he knows he is putting his life at risk, but he can't help it, feels its the right thing to do.

Reading Alan Furst is like enjoying a fine wine. At one point in your life maybe by mistake or by recommendation, who knows, you happen upon one of his books. Once you've had a taste, you can't figure out how you've gone so long without it. For it seems he was always there, just in front of you.

He is able to mix elements of spy intrigue, military history, local color, and sexual mischief, all into one. This is something I haven't found in any other historical novels, especially ones with a military history bend. 

And I know I am late to the Furst party, but I feel that I've found a writer who I yearn for each new project. 2008's The Spies of Warsaw allowed me to meet him when he read at the Barnes and Noble on 68th Street in NYC. It was a treat and he was such a nice person, we chatted briefly at the signing table.

Back to the new novel, the only thing I can think to say negatively, is that it was way too short of a book after having waited two years for it. I was hoping for tome, and at less than 300 pages I felt somewhat disappointed when it was over much too quickly. 


Regardless, I've been recommending his work ever since I first read him and I'm pleased, that at least for me, there is a backlist for me to draw upon when I need my Furst quenched.

Delicious. My review of: BRAINS: A Zombie Memoir by Robin Becker

Ok, first, the good stuff. What I liked about Brains: A Zombie Memoirby Robin Becker. When I try to think of what Brains reminds me of the most, I'd have to say the Marvel Zombies series (started by the infamous Robert Kirkman). The idea that some of the mutants in that story retain levels of sentience after "turning" immediately came to mind when I started to read the story of this unfortunate professor who was unable to escape the zombie apocalypse.

What Becker does is lead you on the shambling path of said zombie as he gathers like-minded, sort of, zombie crew, creating a party intent on reaching a goal--aside from the all-consuming goal of eating brains of course. At every turn humans are consumed, the remaining military appear, guns blazing, and we are witness to the desperation of this particularly undead situation.

My pet peeves. I don't mind when an author spews forth pop culture jargon in an endless zombie-like stream. In fact, I like it. And Becker does a good job of that, cracking jokes, cramming in that needless Trivia Pursuit-like knowledge at every turn. This style of writing, in turn, was reminiscent of the twisted novel by none other then Penn Jilette, Sock.

What I didn't love so much, was the amount of social commentary. Slipping in bits of political opinion is one thing, but it felt at times like the author talking and not so much this character, and when this is noticeable, that means it's a bit too much for me. This is of course, my opinion, that it is a fine line between subtle social commentary or long-winded pontificating.

And yet, I really enjoyed reading this novel. Go figure. The author was able to weave a fun and desperate plot of this undead academic, trying to hold onto the shreds of memory and humanity, and attempt to reach the originator, the doctor who unleashed the plague in the first place, in a feeble hope that he can undo the mayhem.


At many times I felt bad for the still-human characters that I met along the way, knowing that they were either lunch or about to be turned. Only one of those two zombie fates awaited the poor human survivors. There was a dark dystopian streak running through this novel, like an inescapable zombie horde, there at every turn.


I think if you're looking for a fun zombie read, Brains is worth the time. You may find the author's writing style as witty as I did even with all the yucky bits thrown in.

Disclosure: Please note that I received an advance reader copy (ARC) from the publisher for review purposes. I was not forced to eat brains at any time during this reading although the urge occurred to me once or twice.