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Title: Pirate Cinema
Author: Cory Doctorow
Genre: Near future SF
Thingummies 3.5
Synopsis: After draconian laws about media downloads ruin his family, a teenager takes on the entertainment industry through underground film festivals.
Thoughts: This is every bit as much a polemic as anything Ayn Rand ever wrote. The saving grace, though, is that Doctorow's characters are sympathetic people and Doctorow himself has an actual sense of humor.
While I don't agree with all of Cory Doctorow's positions, I do lean sympathetic to them. His personal hobbyhorse is the mess that is our current IP system. Here, he sets up a strawman of an entertainment industry with even more sweeping powers than it currently has, and then sets up his plucky protagonist to go tilt at the windmill he's made. There are speeches. A lot of speeches. I don't disagree with the content, but it does get a little wearisome.
But Trent is a remarkably charismatic character. Oh, he's an arrogant screw-up, in the way of teenage boys everywhere, but he does grow as a character and he does mean well. His supporting cast is equally likable. Their plotting is appropriately zany, not everything goes their way, and some of their hijinks are genuinely funny. The conclusion of the main plot is appropriately satisfying.
There are some additional rough bits. I got really tired of the heavy handed foreshadowing--we're repeatedly told that things are great, but that was just before it all went to shit. The thing is, I think something like three chapters end like this before it all actually goes to shit. Also, the way Doctorow wraps up Trent's relationship with 26 feels tacked on and completely inorganic--there was no reason to see it coming, and feels like it happens merely by authorial fiat because he wanted the book to end a certain way but didn't give any thought to getting it there until the last two pages.
But for all the flaws--I still liked it. The prose flows well enough and the characters are pleasant enough that I enjoyed the reading experience, even when I rolled my eyes a little. It's pretty deeply flawed, but nonetheless enjoyable.
Author: Cory Doctorow
Genre: Near future SF
Thingummies 3.5
Synopsis: After draconian laws about media downloads ruin his family, a teenager takes on the entertainment industry through underground film festivals.
Thoughts: This is every bit as much a polemic as anything Ayn Rand ever wrote. The saving grace, though, is that Doctorow's characters are sympathetic people and Doctorow himself has an actual sense of humor.
While I don't agree with all of Cory Doctorow's positions, I do lean sympathetic to them. His personal hobbyhorse is the mess that is our current IP system. Here, he sets up a strawman of an entertainment industry with even more sweeping powers than it currently has, and then sets up his plucky protagonist to go tilt at the windmill he's made. There are speeches. A lot of speeches. I don't disagree with the content, but it does get a little wearisome.
But Trent is a remarkably charismatic character. Oh, he's an arrogant screw-up, in the way of teenage boys everywhere, but he does grow as a character and he does mean well. His supporting cast is equally likable. Their plotting is appropriately zany, not everything goes their way, and some of their hijinks are genuinely funny. The conclusion of the main plot is appropriately satisfying.
There are some additional rough bits. I got really tired of the heavy handed foreshadowing--we're repeatedly told that things are great, but that was just before it all went to shit. The thing is, I think something like three chapters end like this before it all actually goes to shit. Also, the way Doctorow wraps up Trent's relationship with 26 feels tacked on and completely inorganic--there was no reason to see it coming, and feels like it happens merely by authorial fiat because he wanted the book to end a certain way but didn't give any thought to getting it there until the last two pages.
But for all the flaws--I still liked it. The prose flows well enough and the characters are pleasant enough that I enjoyed the reading experience, even when I rolled my eyes a little. It's pretty deeply flawed, but nonetheless enjoyable.
