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Fantasy/SF Micro-essay #10: Doctorow
Friday, October 5th, 2012 06:03 pm[The last essay of the course. Little Brother was fun both to read and write about - go and read it if you haven't already.]
The creation of Xnet is the focal point of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. While less dramatic than the scenes of imprisonment and torture that start and end the book, and less colourful than the mass events like vampire flash mobs, Xnet crystallises the message of the book: that technology can be used to liberate as well as oppress. This message is not stated subtly. In the didactic style that makes readers love or hate Little Brother, we are told why the Xbox is such a suitable piece of hardware and how it was hacked by Brazilian favela kids, which is itself a message: "Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor." We are also treated to a detailed discussion of ParanoidLinux, "an operating system that assumes that its operator is under assault from the government," which is hypothetical but realisable. Finally, when the two come together to make ParanoidXbox, Marcus/m1k3y uses them to create Xnet, a secure network for his co-conspirators to communicate under the pretext of playing games.
To all of this, readers may respond "Wow, I want to do that!" or "So what?" depending largely on their level of technophilia (and hostility to the government). This is an unavoidable problem of writing a book exploring current and very-near-future technology. If you ignore the technical details, it's no longer a story about technology. If you explain the details, you might alienate the readers who just want a jolly story about government agents waterboarding kids, as well as irritating the geeks who already knew the things you are explaining. If you present the technology without explaining it, your story may go down well with the geeks and confuse everyone else. Given that we cannot set the difficulty of a novel like we do with a game, Doctorow does as well here as can be expected.
The creation of Xnet is the focal point of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. While less dramatic than the scenes of imprisonment and torture that start and end the book, and less colourful than the mass events like vampire flash mobs, Xnet crystallises the message of the book: that technology can be used to liberate as well as oppress. This message is not stated subtly. In the didactic style that makes readers love or hate Little Brother, we are told why the Xbox is such a suitable piece of hardware and how it was hacked by Brazilian favela kids, which is itself a message: "Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor." We are also treated to a detailed discussion of ParanoidLinux, "an operating system that assumes that its operator is under assault from the government," which is hypothetical but realisable. Finally, when the two come together to make ParanoidXbox, Marcus/m1k3y uses them to create Xnet, a secure network for his co-conspirators to communicate under the pretext of playing games.
To all of this, readers may respond "Wow, I want to do that!" or "So what?" depending largely on their level of technophilia (and hostility to the government). This is an unavoidable problem of writing a book exploring current and very-near-future technology. If you ignore the technical details, it's no longer a story about technology. If you explain the details, you might alienate the readers who just want a jolly story about government agents waterboarding kids, as well as irritating the geeks who already knew the things you are explaining. If you present the technology without explaining it, your story may go down well with the geeks and confuse everyone else. Given that we cannot set the difficulty of a novel like we do with a game, Doctorow does as well here as can be expected.
