jalestro

I loved this book for 2 reasons.1) It was a ridiculous and fun story. Easy to read, and never a dull moment. The character of Alan/Arthur/Antoine/etc is quirky (as expected being the son of a Mountain and a Washing Machine) and the development of his family dynamic through the story is really compelling.2) As it was originally released in 2005 and deals with contemporary technology (somewhat bleeding edge at the time) it is really interesting to see, 7 years later, how drastically different the technological landscape is today. In 2005, it was rare for a laptop to have a built-in wifi card. Hell, it was rare for people to have a laptop. The Blackberry was the closest thing to what we now consider a smartphone and it was hardly that. PDAs & Palm Pilots were still a big deal. A plan to blanket Toronto in free Wifi was revolutionary. It feels almost archaic reading about this world again and remembering back to 2005 and how things were then.As with any Cory Doctorow book, his personal politics bleed through a little bit, but he has some really good points on freedom of speech and free access to information that never get in the way of the story. (If anything, they add to it and make you think about how these ideas could apply today in the age of smartphones and apps).Finally, if I've convinced you to read this book (and you should), Cory is not one to make a claim and not back it up with his own material. By which I mean, you can download it for free (completely legally) from his website, in PDF, txt, html or any e-book reader format you want. A wild book appears!