Akiva Reads

by Cory Doctorow

I was torn between two and three stars here. On the one hand, halfway-decent world building, okay sci-fi. On the other hand, I found Doctorow deeply annoying---to be precise, I found his writing most deeply annoying in the moments where I suspect he was letting his personality shine through. It would be running along somewhat interestingly, and then he would bust out with a fanboy moment (e.g. the gratuitous Snow Crash reference) and I would go "arrrrrrggggh, whyyyyy."

I'm also lost as to how the Bitchun society is based on 'Disney's principles,' but I suspect it's some stupid fanboy thing and I almost don't even want to know because oh my fucking god I really do not give a shit about fucking Disney. I didn't read this book for some dude's Thoughts On Disney, I read it for the stuff about aging and cyborgs and memory and death. And it sort of delivers, a little, but only if you suffer through a LOT of bullshit about Disney.

As a weird juxtaposition to the Disney-worship, there's a lot of rather shaky anarchist-utopia BS. I just find it hard to believe that when you cure death and scarcity somehow everyone starts banding together to maintain roads and airlines. I need to be convinced, neh?

Bottom line: if you think Disney is unsentimental capitalists making a killing selling you drippy nostalgia, don't read this fucking book. My first mistake was reading it because it was free; then I caved and decided I wanted to finish it. Dumb.