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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
They came, they saw, and then they went away again, 8 Oct 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
This was a major slog. At 416 pages, I reckon it's at least 150 pages too long. And, ultimately, there was not a lot of point to it.
The story appears to be about a new 'work ethic' of small-time entrepreneurs co-operating in a distributed form of corporation. But it self-destructs early on in the novel in a similar way to the dot com bubble, and the parallels are duly drawn. The story then meanders about a bit until the 'bad guy' appears in the form of an exec from a more traditional corporation. Finally, it all works out and they do or do not live happily ever after. But finally, we don't really care. Nothing has changed, no-one seems to have learnt anything, there's nothing new in the world.
So what about the characterisation? Yes, what about the characterisation. There really isn't any. All the characters are more or less interchangeable. Character-full dialogue is rare - every time anyone opens their mouth for more than a sentence, it feels more like a lecture on some aspect of new technology than any attempt at actually holding a two-way conversation.
The style is deliberately and, at times, almost painfully informal. Scattered throughout are four-letter words and technical type abbreviations. I don't have a problem with this per se, but it came across as forced and artificial; a sort of 'we all know what we're talking about' chumminess that just got irritating.
It is almost totally centred around the US. Russia gets a look-in in the form of a 'mafiyeh' entrepreneurialism and as a haven for Swedish doctors escaping the 'horrors' of socialised medicine. There is a Brit in the mix - Rat Toothed Freddy, a tech blogger from the seamier end of the blogoshere, there is a one sentence reference to Africa and that's it. No climate change, no politics, no 'real life' in here anywhere.
Every time a new idea is presented, it ultimately ends up being demolished. Finally, everything is pretty much back where it started. For tech-speak and an attempt at looking at where current trends may lead, it was no more effective than Daniel Suarez' 'Daemon'. Actually, 'Daemon' had a much stronger story line. But neither this novelisation of current technical trends nor 'Daemon' gets anywhere close to writers such as William Gibson.
Why does it take 416 pages to do this? Answers on a blog please.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Future Imperfect, 28 Sep 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
'Makers' is the (unrelated) follow-up to Cory Doctorow's anti-establishment thriller 'Little Brother'. Although also deeply rooted in a technological counter-culture, this is a considerably different novel to its predecessor. Set in the near future, 'Makers' deals with emerging technologies and the influence they might have on the world's economic markets.
The two main characters, Lester and Perry, are two hippyish inventors, whose panoply of innovations dominate 'Makers' opening section. Doctorow clearly knows his subject well, and the two men create many wonderful and excitingly plausible pieces of technology out of other peoples waste. As a by-product of this creative output, 'New Work', a new type of economic model is born. It is here that the novel doesn't quite work for me.
Where 'Little Brother' was hi-octane, 'Makers' is more pedestrian; new economic models are not as exciting as terrorist attacks. 'Makers' is a long, measured novel, which unfortunately becomes bogged in the protracted details of the new economy. Nearly all of 'Makers' is interesting to read, but drags if you read too much in one sitting. It feels as though Doctorow wanted to write a non-fiction piece on his pet inventions, but his publisher felt that a novel would sell more copies. This problem is compounded by the story being all but non-existent, with a weak plot that revolves around nebulous law suits.
Apart from two excellent villains, Doctorow's characters feel flat. Some traumatic stuff happens to them, but its impact seems negligible - half the time they seemed to be anaesthetised against reality. That said, after the strong, pathos-filled epilogue, I found that I cared more for Perry and Lester than I had first realised.
'Makers' is solid, well-informed speculative fiction, but the quality of the ideas are let down by the weak plot. Like his lead characters, Doctorow seems happiest when he's inventing. Techno-geeks will enjoy this book, but where 'Little Brother' transcended the genre, I don't think 'Makers' will appeal much beyond the sci-fi community.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A 500 word blog post expanded into a book., 27 Sep 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
I wanted to like this, I really did. Doctorow has tried to re-write Vonneguts 'Player Piano' for the 21st century. He describes a near-future world where traditional manufacturing is taken over by small teams of entrepreneur geeks, reusing exisiting technology by use of hacking, reverse-engineering, and rapid-prototyping techniques (3D printers). The basic premise is that even the most disposable of our junk purchases contains more computing power than anyone could ever need, so lets resuse it.
The problem for me was that the story is so naive. Doctorow has his protagonists come up with a cool idea, build a prototype, and then within half a page it's sold millions. Who made them? The geeks with the idea? Factories tooled up? Ah, perhaps it was all done with 3D printers? Where? Who has the printers? What about approval from the FCC and various safety organisations? Patent problems? DRM complaints? Shipping? Marketing? Distribution? For Doctorow it seems the idea is enough and all the bureaucracy of getting a product to market is wonderfully missing from his future vision.
Doctorow also makes the same basic mistake in his premise that Vonnegut made in 'Player Piano' - if everyone is reusing existing tech for new products, eventually no new developement will take place. It's like buying a lego set and limiting yourself to only being able to make things from that lego set - no new bricks ever. If you can't make it from the bricks you have, it's impossible. I found myself asking similar questions at the page as I was reading this, but no answers appeared.
Doctorow has obviously used this novel to write an essay of his future ideas of manufacturing and product development instead of writing what might have been a dry technical paper. His enthusiasm and ideas are infectious, but he seems to think RP techniques are the future of manufacture. They're not. Like old-fashioned lathes, mills and grinders, they are simply another manufacturing technique with strengths and weaknesses, to be used depending on the process. Similarly, it takes more than enthusiasm and a in-depth knowledge of linux to produce a product. This book gives you the impression that all you need is a mastery of the command line, a copy of Solidworks, and several hundred thousand pounds worth of 3D printers and you're sorted.
Aside from all that, the story isn't particularly well-written. It bounces along a speed, throwing ideas out, but the characters are simply there so that these ideas can be stated out loud. They are rather two-dimensional and there is no depth of character.
There is nothing here that couldn't be stated in a series of blog posts. A shame, and dissapointing.
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