Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been a fan of Cory Doctorow for many years now. He has a blog and is involved with the frontier of real hacking, technological exploitation, and how we are encroached upon. Not only that, but he's also focused on how we can protect ourselves.

In fact, I've been a huge fan ever since Little Brother. It was timely then and it's more timely now to see how tech is used to spy on us. I have yet to read as good a novel that spells out the dangers, the ACTUAL tech, and the consequences... from conception, application, to possible solutions.

And I'm not even talking about tech-based solutions, but real social reform

That takes me to this novel. Attack Surface takes place a decade after Little Brother and while it has Marcus (from LB) as a side character, the main character in (AS) is a fully-fleshed continuation of one of the best side-characters of the original. And she was on the wrong side. :)

Add ten years of updated tech, modern social reform issues INCLUDING racial injustice, riots, police states, how tech turns our current society into a playground for those who would spy and give action points for those already in power, and give us a hard-hitting story of ethical ambiguity, survival, and the BIG QUESTIONS... and THEN give us a novel that out-performs and out-scares me even when propped up against Little Brother.

I'm not joking. This is not a lightweight dystopia. This is our modern world with real tech and yet it reads like an exposé AND a hard-SF novel.

I don't know. I'd have to do a serious comparison between LB and AS to be sure, and this one is definitely an adult read because it deals with all the real complications of living as an adult, but I think this one might be better.

It's certainly timely as hell. The riots in here ARE BLM. The extra complications are the same kind that WE should all be considering.

And so is the solution.

I totally recommend this book.

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