Hubert, better known to his friends as Etcetera, has been dragged to a pop-up communist party. His friend Seth wants to be a part of any on-trend scene he can find that will keep him feeling on the younger side of 25. But off-grid parties like this one can sometimes attract the attention of the law if you are lucky, or the vigilantes if you are not. The vigilantes attack the warehouse and start killing partygoers on sight. Racing to escape the carnage, Seth and Etcetera run into Natalie, the host of the party, and they escape to her family compound. Natalie is the child of one of the uber-rich capitalists, the zottas, who run what’s left of the world and treat everyone and everything as parts in the machinery of their empire. She has a secret dream though – she wants to become a walkaway.
Walkaways have chosen a high-tech, low-impact lifestyle. They utilise all that they can scavenge from the wrecks of the old cities, using 3D printing to make everything they can’t buy, hack or steal. But Natalie’s father will destroy anything in his attempts to bring her home.
Cory Doctorow’s work as an activist and journalist addresses issues such as freedom of information, maker culture and how privacy and copyright are changing in the 21st century. This is an intricate and engaging novel of a plausible near future that may prove to be more true to life than we wish it to be.
Reviewed by David Johnson
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