So, I read Cory Doctorow’s novel Little Brother, a long time (holy crap it’s been 12 years) ago. It remains one of my favorite books of all time. It changed me like how 1984 changed me. I’ve never looked at a RFID tag the same way since.
I wrote about Little Brother on my old blog. When I was done reading it, I sent Cory an email and he responded. I wrote about that too.
Well, now he is publishing a third book in the Little Brother series, titled Attack Surface. Here is a synopsis of the book I found on the web:
Cory Doctorow’s Attack Surface is a standalone novel set in the world of New York Times bestsellers Little Brother and Homeland.
Most days, Masha Maximow was sure she’d chosen the winning side.
In her day job as a counterterrorism wizard for an transnational cybersecurity firm, she made the hacks that allowed repressive regimes to spy on dissidents, and manipulate their every move. The perks were fantastic, and the pay was obscene.
Just for fun, and to piss off her masters, Masha sometimes used her mad skills to help those same troublemakers evade detection, if their cause was just. It was a dangerous game and a hell of a rush. But seriously self-destructive. And unsustainable.
When her targets were strangers in faraway police states, it was easy to compartmentalize, to ignore the collateral damage of murder, rape, and torture. But when it hits close to home, and the hacks and exploits she’s devised are directed at her friends and family—including boy wonder Marcus Yallow, her old crush and archrival, and his entourage of naïve idealists—Masha realizes she has to choose.
And whatever choice she makes, someone is going to get hurt.
So Cory is putting out a third book in this series. He’s also doing a kickstarter to publish the audiobook of the novel. He’s doing this because Audible aka Amazon refuse to let him publish his audiobooks DRM free.
To recap (this is straight from Cory Doctorow but sums things up nicely):
* Attack Surface is the third Little Brother book
* It aims to radicalize a generation of tech workers while entertaining its audience as a cracking, technologically rigorous thriller
* The audiobook is amazing, read by the fantastic Amber Benson
If you pre-order through the Kickstarter:
* You get a cheaper price than you’ll get anywhere else
* You get a DRM- and EULA-free purchase
* You’ll fight monopolies and support authorship
Fight the power that is Amazon and get a DRM free audiobook of what I’m certain will be an excellent book in return.
A new partnership between Penn State and the convenience store chain Sheetz will provide education benefits to the company’s employees, an initiative aimed at helping the employees complete their college degrees.
