Wednesday, June 28, 2017

44:120 Walkaway by Cory Doctorow

We are in a possible (probable future) where we can manufacture things so simply and easily that there should be no need for people to go without the basic necessities but the uber rich (zottas) have continued to try and keep things as the status quo (default).  Now there are parties where people find abandoned warehouses with manufacturing capability, play the music, drink, and make the stuff that people need for them to come take for free.  It is at one of these parties that Seth has dragged Etc. and they meet with a zotta girl, Natalie.  The party is broken up by drones and death which leaves them back at Natalie's house feeling very despondent when the idea gets floated about to go Walkaway, to join with those who have eschewed the Default society to try and create a more egalitarian society without want of basics and without money and zottas.  The three new friends go and find more than they ever thought they would but life is not easy as even among the Walkaways, there are those who want to impose their will upon others and there are those doing research that the zottas from default will stop at nothing to try and get their hands on.  Besides, Walkaway shows others from Default that the zottas are not needed to run things and challenges their whole way of life and sense of self, something they just cannot allow to continue.

I enjoyed the beginning of the book immensely and the end was good but the middle was much more of a slog and there were several jumps of many years that was quiet disorientating.  The book itself was definitely dystopian and scary in how easily I could see our world heading that direction.


Page count: 384p/9,780p ytd/283,799p lifetime

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