This book was all kinds of awesome… and for so many reasons. The basic premise is that Marcus and his friends ditch school and head to downtown San Francisco to play an alternate reality game. In the midst of the game, terrorists attack the city, and Marcus and friends are picked up by the Department of Homeland Security as suspects. After being interrogated and tortured, the teens are released, and Marcus decides to take on the DHS.

This story pays homage to one of my favorite books, 1984. What makes it so much more creepy is that its easy to see this plot happening in the world right now – from the methods DHS uses to monitor citizens to the false sense of security Marcus’s dad feels to the ease with which the teens break the system. It also using LARPing and even makes it look cool, which is nigh-impossible.

Several of the quotes on the cover encourage people to make this book required reading – and I agree. I love a book where I end up learning about and enjoying something I would never voluntarily read about. This book is chock full of history lessons about the U.S., political movements, and technologies ranging from cryptography to RFIDs to the xBox. Doctorow takes the time to explain the tech his characters use to break the system, showing that nothing is hack-proof and that we need to be aware of it. I wonder, though, if someone who has no experience with tech would get all of these explanations – I know I felt a little lost with the tunneling bit. However, if you’re feeling out of sorts with the Xnet and jamming and gait-recognition, you’ll still understand the sense of outrage and desperation that Marcus feels as he watches the Bay Area become a police state where teens and minorities are always suspects.

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very exciting book. i loved the technical explanations, the historical background, the references. if you are a boingboing.net reader you can almost see where cory got all the stuff from, but there is even more to it. although the book is aimed at younger readers there is a point where even hard s.f. aficionados will enjoy it (just give it some chapters). i liked the way in which a lot of arguments around 9/11 are presented and meditated upon. it’s not simplistic, it’s not just the view of a lefty activist that hates (rightfully so most likely) what has happened, but there is a lot of empathy; empathy for the suffering and the loss and the incertitude and where that can take you as a human being. yes, there are a lot of emotions and difficult arguments presented in the story.

i got a hardcopy of the book because i wanted to support the author and the fact that he released it online for free and under a creative commons license, i also want to pass it around. yes, buy it (or download it), read it, and pass it to young people in your life.