The Hugo shortlist is off to a good start for me: Doctorow’s teen hero is unfairly arrested by the Department of Homeland Security after a terrorist attack on San Francisco. He then devotes his energies to fighting the system, and also negotiating other hurdles like school and girls. Marcus is rather fortunate in being in the right place at the right time with the right skills, and I felt that the end of the story in real life would certainly have been more ambiguous; also, since the purpose of the book is partly didactic, we get a number of mini-essays on various matters (including the Beat poets) inserted into the text. But it’s a good, thrilling read and certainly grist to the mill for any of us worried about the surveillance society.

(Pedantic point: I was puzzled by a reference to the “British High Commission” which clearly should have been to the “British consulate”, but my copy is an uncorrected proof so this may have been picked up before publication. Doctorow is Canadian so may not have been aware that most countries don’t have High Commissions, just embassies.)