I am an avid follower of the BoingBoing. I was aware that one of the authors there, Cory Doctorow, also writes science-fiction stories and novels. So when I saw in my local public library his Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town I did not hesitate borrowing it.
I have to admit though that having read and enjoyed the whole book I still do not know what it was about. I guess Doctorow had all these ideas that he wanted to put down. If he had a single main point in mind when writing it that eluded me. But the ideas and their exposition I thoroughly liked. Including (SPOILER alert),
- Set in Seattle – made me feel familiar, because I live there for a year
- Mesh-networking – covering a city with freenet
- Punk ethics and mixture of subcultures
- Angel wings, getting regularly cut off – seen it in Konstantin (and somewhere else that I do not recall)
- Meticulous description of fixing a house – one of these days I want to learn woodwork like that
- Forest creatures
- A/B/C/D’s parents
I cannot resist spoiling this point even further. The idea of having a mountain as a father and a washing machine as a mother fits so nicely in the tradition of Latin-American magical realism. I think this book would fit much more into that genre, than into science fiction. This single idea was worth reading the whole book, even if I did not get a deeper message.
Oh, and just for the record all of Doctorow’s books can be downloaded from his site free of charge, under GNU license. Someone is here.