Makers
by Cory Doctorow
When you've spent the first 150 pages of a book trying to determine exactly what it is about the author that makes you want to punch him in the face, it's time to give up. Technically a DNF---but I skimmed the rest and there was nothing that made me think the first 150 pages was not representative.
My thoughts boil down to:
- smugness
- neoliberalism, even stronger than the usual Maker "movement" variety
- pathetic veneer of feminism: women are a minority in his boys' club, and when he makes a periodic stab at inclusion they are either non-Makers or the vaguest of NPCs. There's a similar issue with characters of color, and a different and weirder set of issues around his fat characters that I can't parse except "this is icky and really, really mean."
- palpable disgust for "most people," who are fat, hideously ugly (yes really), vapid, greedy, derivative, badly dressed, etc.
- obsession with Disney. Perhaps unfair, but he's hung up on Disney, and I am hung up on his hangup on Disney. Creepy.