Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 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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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Change? Or no change?, 5 Oct 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
I opened this book with great expectation, having heard much about the author and his previous hit Little Brother.
It starts well, and I found myself enjoying the ride as the characters came to life, but then it staggers to a grinding halt, and he changes horses in mid novel, bringing forward a different plot and shifting the focus onto different characters. It could almost have been two books, although here it is presented as three parts.
This chop and change took some getting used to, and the central portion where he is feeling the new ground is definitely not as good as the beginning and the end. I lost interest in the middle for the best part of a week. But seeing the unfinished book staring back at me reproachfully, I took it up again and read the last half at a single sitting. I'm glad I did, it was worth the effort.
I'm carefully not saying anything specific about the plot or characters, but I think the focus and development could have been better managed. The opening premise is very good and I was immediately reminded of the classic old SF novel by Damon Knight A for anything (Four Square books) and then later I could feel resonances with Terry Pratchett and his imps doing things in boxes. However, Doctorow neatly avoids falling into the trap of repeating others ideas, and convincingly bends his own interpretation of a couple of common themes in modern SF.
He charts an alternative culture struggling through beneath a bloated and stagnant near-future America, and how they might interact, and the consequences of brilliant new ideas or technology placed in a few altruistic hands being freely released for the benefit of the masses. Coupled with this is the scale of the economics involved, and how multiple small changes can be just as influential as a single gigantic catastrophe. Sadly, there is a bit too much about the technology, and it is just enough to expose the technical flaws in his story. Less is more when postulating a 'What If?', which is why Damon Knight's entirely non-technical book still works so well fifty years later.
The real weakness is that Makers is very good in parts, but very boring in others, and lacks a proper structure. I don't like the way he drifts seemingly aimlessly between characters and effectively abandons them for much of the novel. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic, except perhaps the reporter, and the corporate villain in the spotlight for the second half, or is there actually a real villain?
Hence I've only given it three stars because while the two central plot ideas are excellent, it feels over-long and disjointed, and the main characters deserved to have been better developed. If you are a fan of Doctorow I expect you will still want to buy this book, and you will probably enjoy it, but personally, I will scan his next one more carefully before buying it.
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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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