One Aging Geek

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow

I finished reading this about a week ago, also a freely downloadable book.

I can't do it any better so here's the author's capsule summary of the book:

Cory Doctorow: Hmm-- it's not an easy book to summarize. Alan is a serial entrepreneur who moved to Toronto to get away from his family. His father is a mountain and his mother is a washing machine. He has several brothers, including one who is an island, three who nest like Russian dolls, a precognitive, and a demonic savage. When he was a teenager, he murdered the latter brother, with his other brothers cooperating. And now that brother is back form the dead, stalking them all. Alan has fallen in with a gang of anarcho-info-hippies who are using dumpster-dived hardware to build meshing WiFi repeaters in a mad bid to unwire all of Toronto, or at least the bohemian Kensington Market streets. Meanwhile, his neighbors-- a student household-- contain a girl with wings and a mean-spirited guitar player/bartender, who, it appears, may be in league with the demonic brother.

This book reminded me of a Seinfeld episode. Odd but kind of interesting characters. Stuff happens. No idea how these characters came to be where they are (or even came to be). But ultimately it's a story about nothing in particular. OK, if there's some metaphor here, I missed it. Entertaining book in an odd sort of way, but not for everyone.