Le grand abandon

Qué rabia los libros que sabes que tendrían que haberte encantado y que te llegan en un momento complicado que no te permite dedicarles la atención que merecen. Este libro está lleno de ideas poderosísimas y me resonaba a muchos niveles. Pero he tardado mucho en leerlo porque apenas he podido sacar tiempo para él. Las veces que he podido me enfrascaba en él y devoraba las páginas. Pero luego igual se me juntaba una semana sin abrirlo. Y es una lástima, porque el mundo utópico/distópico que plantea es interesantísimo y un tanto aterrador por lo plausible que resulta. Una gran novela de ciencia ficción que me ha llegado en el peor momento. Una pena.

Started out great, engaging with big ideas. Very relevant topics were raised and weaved into a futuristic world - technology, unemployment, greed, capitalism, meritocricity, abundance, diversity, post-humanism. However, it got harder to read somewhere along the way. The plot was poor and the storytelling disjointed and longwinded, with too much going on. I also couldn't really identify with any of the characters.

I have to say Doctorow's writing seems much improved since Eastern Standard Tribe. Walkaway is a nuanced exposition of another way to think about how our society might operate. It has interesting characters, plots that move along, and lots of possible near-future tech. it was a great read and had important things to say.

Probably my favorite Cory Doctorow book yet. A powerful future based on the idea of people living like they were in the beginning of the world they wanted to see.

This book veered into being more of a way of working out a political argument on paper than a work of fiction per se, and was a little cloyingly clever at times (which, to be fair, is kind of Doctorow's thing). I also don't know whether I want to critique it for being overly idealistic or myself for being too cynical to believe in its utopia. As with all transhumanist fairy tales, I know that I want to believe it too much to really have a rational opinion of it. But it may have convinced me to go to Burning Man?