Book: Pirate cinema
Jun. 16th, 2013 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Cory Doctorow
Details: (c) 2012 Cory Doctorow; Pub 2012 Tor Teen; ISBN 9781429943185
Verdict: Pirate cinema is pure distilled Doctorow.
Reasons for reading it: It happened to be on my e-reader when I had a long plane journey with not quite enough reading material and not quite enough brain for anything more challenging.
How it came into my hands: It was in the humble ebook bundle with a couple of other things I was more excited about.
Pirate cinema is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from Doctorow if you've read any of his blog or previous books. It's pretty much a polemic against draconian regulations of the internet aimed at protecting big media's copyrights. I largely agree with Doctorow on this issue, and I find his rants on the topic entertaining, but I found the book excessively heavy-handed in its Message. I don't think the fact that the book is aimed at teens is any excuse; I wouldn't have enjoyed being preached at any more when I was a teenager! Though to Docotorow's credit the message he is hammering is somewhat anti-establishment rather than encouraging teenagers to conform.
The plot also feels recycled, a drop-out teen discovers hacker culture and uses his geek skills to save the world kinda deal, and the parallels with Oliver Twist are almost painfully blatant. But that said, I did care about Trent and his countercultural vidder friends. Some of the characters are just types, but they are vividly drawn, even if the characterization is somewhat spoiled by having too many people who deliver classic Docotorow blog talking points which break voice badly. If Doctorow was trying to win points by including highly competent female supporting characters, he rather loses them by making their lives revolve around Trent, constantly informing the reader of their attractiveness, and naming one of said girls after himself. The ending also seemed bizarrely bathetic; ok, the vidders save the day but understand that the battle against draconian copyright enforcement still continues, fair enough, and then randomly Trent breaks up with his implausibly perfect girlfriend? I didn't mind the breakup being there, and it was quite well done, but having it as the ending of the book really detracted from what should have been the climax.
I wasn't particularly bothered by the ways the portrayal of squatting and freeganism are over-romanticized. It all feels like part of the larger-than-life setting, people have zany adventures and save the world, and even though it's going over old ground, it's exciting to read. But that romanticism did somewhat detract from the factual messages, and also made the long passages of exposition explaining how random stuff that interests Docotorow works seem even more shoehorned in. There's also quite a lot of exposition about English law and parliamentary process, which I think is supposed to be informative, but in the context of a totally over-the-top setting didn't seem quite trustworthy.
It's also almost painfully ironic that the first page of the book is Tor's standard boilerplate dire! warning! about how ebook piracy is OMG THEFT!!!!eleventy!, considering that the main text is pretty much demolishing such dire warnings. Still, at least Tor have started selling ebooks without DRM; it would have been too much to have to break badly implemented copyright protection in order to read a book about how annoying it is to have to break copyright protection to access media.
Details: (c) 2012 Cory Doctorow; Pub 2012 Tor Teen; ISBN 9781429943185
Verdict: Pirate cinema is pure distilled Doctorow.
Reasons for reading it: It happened to be on my e-reader when I had a long plane journey with not quite enough reading material and not quite enough brain for anything more challenging.
How it came into my hands: It was in the humble ebook bundle with a couple of other things I was more excited about.
Pirate cinema is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from Doctorow if you've read any of his blog or previous books. It's pretty much a polemic against draconian regulations of the internet aimed at protecting big media's copyrights. I largely agree with Doctorow on this issue, and I find his rants on the topic entertaining, but I found the book excessively heavy-handed in its Message. I don't think the fact that the book is aimed at teens is any excuse; I wouldn't have enjoyed being preached at any more when I was a teenager! Though to Docotorow's credit the message he is hammering is somewhat anti-establishment rather than encouraging teenagers to conform.
The plot also feels recycled, a drop-out teen discovers hacker culture and uses his geek skills to save the world kinda deal, and the parallels with Oliver Twist are almost painfully blatant. But that said, I did care about Trent and his countercultural vidder friends. Some of the characters are just types, but they are vividly drawn, even if the characterization is somewhat spoiled by having too many people who deliver classic Docotorow blog talking points which break voice badly. If Doctorow was trying to win points by including highly competent female supporting characters, he rather loses them by making their lives revolve around Trent, constantly informing the reader of their attractiveness, and naming one of said girls after himself. The ending also seemed bizarrely bathetic; ok, the vidders save the day but understand that the battle against draconian copyright enforcement still continues, fair enough, and then randomly Trent breaks up with his implausibly perfect girlfriend? I didn't mind the breakup being there, and it was quite well done, but having it as the ending of the book really detracted from what should have been the climax.
I wasn't particularly bothered by the ways the portrayal of squatting and freeganism are over-romanticized. It all feels like part of the larger-than-life setting, people have zany adventures and save the world, and even though it's going over old ground, it's exciting to read. But that romanticism did somewhat detract from the factual messages, and also made the long passages of exposition explaining how random stuff that interests Docotorow works seem even more shoehorned in. There's also quite a lot of exposition about English law and parliamentary process, which I think is supposed to be informative, but in the context of a totally over-the-top setting didn't seem quite trustworthy.
It's also almost painfully ironic that the first page of the book is Tor's standard boilerplate dire! warning! about how ebook piracy is OMG THEFT!!!!eleventy!, considering that the main text is pretty much demolishing such dire warnings. Still, at least Tor have started selling ebooks without DRM; it would have been too much to have to break badly implemented copyright protection in order to read a book about how annoying it is to have to break copyright protection to access media.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-02 06:57 pm (UTC)Not that that is impossible, but it was so depressing to see all the bad moves being, or having been, made, just so that you could get to a Doctorovian dystopia that he can then fix.
I read boingboing. I don't need to read this as fiction as well.