Neil Gaiman on Little Brother

Neil Gaiman gave me an unexpected Christmas present this year -- a stellar review of my forthcoming (May '08) novel Little Brother (a YA novel that pits hacker kids in San Francisco against the DHS in a bid to restore the Bill of Rights to America) on his blog. He has a few quibbles with some of the plot elements, but closes with this:

I'd recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I've read this year, and I'd want to get it into the hands of as many smart 13 year olds, male and female, as I can.
Because I think it'll change lives. Because some kids, maybe just a few, won't be the same after they've read it. Maybe they'll change politically, maybe technologically. Maybe it'll just be the first book they loved or that spoke to their inner geek. Maybe they'll want to argue about it and disagree with it. Maybe they'll want to open their computer and see what's in there. I don't know. It made me want to be 13 again right now and reading it for the first time, and then go out and make the world better or stranger or odder. It's a wonderful, important book, in a way that renders its flaws pretty much meaningless.

Link

Update: One of my writing students from this year's Viable Paradise workshop has a hell of a review of the book up, too.

Update 2: Here's Tim O'Reilly on the subject -- w00t!

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Book • Civlib

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

Cory Doctorow

Many thanks, Pip!

Of course the text will be free online.
Fortyseven

Steven Levy’s “Hackers” had that effect on my own childhood, as he describes.

Can’t wait to check that out. :)
Jeff

As much as I like the Doc’s stuff, I fear reading anything that might have the power to make me want to be 13 again. What a horror that would be! Of course, being 13 with access to a world of porn might not be so bad.

Jeff
Iskander

I was lucky enough to read a proof of Little Brother and I could only describe it as incendiary — in the best possible way. It rocks hard!
Halloween Jack

I wouldn’t mind being thirteen again–I’d invest my allowance in Apple stock, so that I could be a lazy bastard now. I think I’d want to be the opposite gender, though, so I could see what puberty is like from that side.
cyenobite

April!? I thought this was out now. ugh.
Great cover too.
coaxial

@3

I’m sure puberty sucks just as hard, but in a somewhat different way.
Jeff

C.D. Can I ask what your favorite Y.A. novel is/was? I think mine might have been Heinlein’s Podkayne of Mars. Maybe it’s not my favorite, but the first book that made me cry, so I just remember it well.

Jeff
David

Deep Fritz

Hmmm, thought I saw that graphic somewhere else before.
Spherical Time

Thanks, Cory. Kudos on the book.
Cory Doctorow

Jeff, I have a zillion favorites, naturally. But Daniel Pinkwater’s Alan Mendolsohn, the Boy from Mars, is very near the top of the stack.
Pip_R_Lagenta

I am looking forward to this book. I have already ordered two copies from Amazon. I work at a group home (half-way house) in San Francisco for teenage boys coming out of Juvenile Hall. One of the copies will go on the shelf at the group home for the boys to find. Many of them do like to read… from time to time.
Lee

Not very well written.
Jeff

Interesting. I think that book was one of my early introductions to occultism. Gosh, I’d forgotten about that one until now. Thanks.
Carl Rigney

I h
Carl Rigney

I had high hopes for Little Brother after hearing Cory read the first chapter at a convention, but it exceeded my expectations. I just finished the advanced reading copy I won in the icommons auction, and it was worth every penny. I feel pretty safe in saying it’s the best book I’ll read this year. It’s a gripping story about likable characters being pushed hard and pushing back smartly.

But I’m over 25 so don’t trust me, read it for yourself when it comes out in May. I’ll be buying extra copies then to give to friends so they can pass them along to others.
Eben

Will the text for this be available online? After paying actual money for Eastern Standard Tribe, I’d definitely want to try before I buy.