Review Summaries

• The novel is valued for turning technological guerrilla struggle into a story driven by passionate characters and social questions. Some readers may find its arguments and explanatory dialogue heavy, with the debate sometimes pressing harder than the plot.

• The book is praised for weaving contemporary technological issues into an entertaining adventure. Although accessible as young adult fiction, it also has the reach of provocative science fiction for readers beyond that audience.

• The novel is presented as a vivid portrait of street life in near-future London and of characters operating at the edge of the law. Its rebellious energy and critique of the media environment are central strengths, while the story also invites discussion about legality and ethics.

Reviews

• Excellent read

  Excellent read. Well written, quirky and unfortunately closer to fact than fiction

• Another great speculation on our times and where we are headed.

  Saturday, June 01, 2013 3:33 PM. I've been enjoying the works of Cory Doctorow since "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom". I always have to remind myself that he's British--he seems to know the voice of Americans as well as his own. I have very recently read his "Rapture of the Nerds", which is wild and crazy in the way only well-rendered `mad-cap' sci-fi can be. I unreservedly encourage anyone who reads sci-fi to add his name to your shopping list. Okay, so, I'm reading Cory Doctorow's "Pirate Cinema"--part near-future social sci-fi tale and part remonstrance against one particular bit of Corporate Inhumanity--the copyright laws that target anyone using downloads of Big Studio movies, music, and graphics to create something new, a `smash-up', if you will, which is a creative process, itself, as much or more than it is a criminal plagiarism. I see where he's going; he makes a great (call that `iron-clad') case for his argument--but I've always been a `big picture' guy--the copyright infringement legislation that Mr. Doctorow is so bothered by is shameful, but it is also just one, single symptom in Corporate Inhumanity's attack upon the humanities, individual rights, and even our safety. Monsanto is leading the fight to take control of the agricultural industry and trade concern with voters for concern with one corporation's bottom line. Financial institutions have carried on in the same way, unchanged since they threw the working-people-of-the-world into bankruptcies, repossessions, declining wages, less entitlements, bankrupt state and local governments, blasted education budgets and zero job opportunities--back in 2007. We are still digging ourselves out--but the big bankers and robber-barons are hard at work, trying to create the next big punch-in-the-face for the hoi-polloi. Big Pharma is using us as guinea pigs, doing their beta-tests across drug-store counters--and over-charging us for the privilege. The firearms industry is ruining our lives in their own special way--as are the rest of the military industry, insurance, advertising, publishing, automotive (and let's not forget petroleum, the king of corporate bastardy). The multi-billion-dollar entities run full-time lobby groups--people who go to work in Washington D.C. every day with the aim of changing our federal laws to benefit their industries' profits. We have no one going to work each morning on our behalf, because we, as individuals, haven't the means or the organization to match their efforts. We are left with protests and petitions, `occupations' and calls to our state's representatives and senators--millions of pea-shooters against heavy artillery. The legislation is being written by the fat-cats' lawyers, the elected officials are all bought and paid for, the heads of the corporations switch seats with their industry's government-regulatory body like a game of musical chairs. In short, we have lost our government. It has been suborned by money. Money is the only government left--and its disregard for right and wrong is part of its very nature. In summation, yes, the entertainment industry's tightening of questionable copyright protections, particularly its online, digital aspect, is shameful. But I doubt we can take the fight to the big-money-people by doing things one issue at a time--we have to go after the legislation that allows lobbying and PACs and television campaign ads. We have to return, legislatively, to a time when we thought our government to be above business concerns. We must get laws that force politicians to avoid any contact with industry beyond a regulatory oversight. We must outlaw corporate lobbies. We must reverse the law permitting PACs to claim legitimacy. We have to fight money--quixotic? Yes. Necessary? Even more so. Having said that, Mr. Doctorow's "Pirate Cinema" is exciting, engrossing, enlightening and imaginative--a great read--what they call a `page-turner'. Go ahead and buy it--you'll like it. He also has some wonderful stuff at craphound.com.

• Little Brother goes to the movies in London

  Well written, quick moving story with lots of culture references to London. Good YA novel, even though I am a grown-up (college English prof), I found it an entertaining way to address issues of copyright in society today. Eagerly awaiting his next.

• Five Stars

  Entertaining easy read

• A Topic We Should All Be Talking About

  Pirate Cinema is a important political manifesto masquerading as a great young adult novel. Critical issues that will determine how this century plays out are wrapped in a story that feels intimate and personal. While not Doctorow's most powerful prose, Pirate Cinema is a great exploration of a topic that has tremendous implications for the near future we will all live in. In the Information Society we're creating, copyright is way more than a symbol in a circle, it's the key to who has control over our lives. The consequences of this control are explored through the lead character, Cecil B. DeVil (aka Trent McCauley,) a teenage Briton with an obsessive talent for remixing video of his favorite movie star Scot Colford. After his family loses Internet access due to Trent's downloads of Scot Colford footage, the reality of how critical net access is strikes home. His father can no longer get contract phone bank work, his mother can no longer file for her disability, his sister can't maintain her studies at school. Trent runs away to London and manages one lucky break after another, becoming Cecil B. Devil, making movies and growing up fast in an underground culture of squatters, activists and artists. This could have been a trite coming of age novel filled with edgy bits of trademark Doctorow future shock, instead, the bohemian setting serves as an richly embroidered backdrop to a serious exploration of what's at stake with international copyright legislation. A subject that might induce yawns in the readers of other authors becomes a topic of dramatic interest for readers of Pirate Cinema. Fans of Little Brother and For The Win will definitely enjoy this novel. While all three are 'Young Adult' novels, that only means that they're written to include younger readers, not exclude older ones. All of these books explore topics that will dominate the lives of everyone for the next twenty years. Doctorow's enthusiasm for empowering younger readers with a vision of how they can change the world is equally engaging for adults.

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