Jackson+S.

=﻿ JACKSON S = = Little Brother:written by Cory Doctorow = media type="custom" key="7799989" If you like books dont read this.Little brother is a poorly written book. It has too many words that anybody thats not in tech support would not understand. The science fiction genre is biological terrorism. The story is written in first person. I dont like the author at because the book is sounds realistic but would never happen. The department of Homeland Security would never torture its captives and wouldn't arrest people for doing nothing after a bridge bombing. The setting is modern day San Francisco which turns into a police state after the bombing and the police defy the rights of the people by monitoring where you get on the highway and which intersection you pass through a complex card in your window like an Illinois IPASS. There are too many techy acronyms that nobody knows. I think Cory Doctorow wrote this book in a hurry and carelessly. It is one of the worst books I have ever read.

The main character of the story is Marcus Yallow. He is extremely rebellious. He tampers with the tech systems in the school too mess it up. He is also the narrator. Darryl Glover is Marcus's best friend. During the bombing he gets stuck in a massive crowd and gets stabbed. When the DHS pick him up Marcus never sees him again. Van Pak is the ideas person of Marcus's posse. She is North Korean. Her parents managed to escape from North Korea. Jolu or Jose Luis Torrez is the most advanced with technology in the group. He works for an ISP or Internet service provider. Carrie Johnstone or Severe Haircut Lady as Marcus calls her, is the main interrogator who interrogates the group after the bombing. Ms. Galvez is the social studies teacher at Cesar Chavez High School which is Marcus's school. She is very dedicated and has many students who will have heated debates about ideas. The book has a good setting, being San Francisco, California. How Cory Doctorow explains it is very unique. Most authors do not go as in depth about the setting as Cory does. He writes that Marcus says "San Francisco is the take out center of the world." That is like calling Detroit as the automobile center of the world.

The book tells the story of Marcus, a 17 year-old high school student from San Francisco. A child of the digital age, Marcus is completely at home with all aspects of digital culture including MMORPGs and hacking. One day, Marcus and his friend Darryl use their technical skill to escape their heavily-surveilled high school, and meet up with some friends in order to track down a clue that is part of some online global treasure hunt. While the kids are out searching for the clue, terrorists blow up the San Francisco Bay Bridge. In the scrum to get to a shelter, Darryl is stabbed and the gang flag down a passing humvee only to be whisked off to a secret prison run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who question, abuse and threaten them for a number of days, before releasing them back into a terrified America that is looking to its government to protect them from future terrorist attacks, regardless of the cost to their civil liberties. Marcus realises how invasive these measures are and he starts to set up a secret, encrypted linux-only network known as the Xnet, which rapidly becomes the social focus for San Francisco's young adults when they choose to start disrupting the increasingly monolithic apparatus of America's security state. Marcus and his new girlfriend Ange attend illegal parties, jam detection systems and escalate the stakes again and again, inviting responses from the DHS until eventually mainstream America (in the shape of the governor of California) blinks and realises what it has become.

You would want to read this book if you reaaly enjoy computers and technology. This is also for kids who like to learn about government companies like the DHS. The theme of the story is that you cant trust anybody older than 25. I would not recommend this book to kids our age but maybe college kids. I think Cory Doctorow has some good parts in the book, but mostly bad parts. I give this book two stars.

