hardcover, 416 pages
Published Sept. 30, 2009 by HarperCollins Publishers.
What happens to America when two geeks working from a garage invent easy 3D printing, a cure for obesity, and crowd-sourced theme parks? Lawsuits against Disney are only the beginning in this major novel of the booms, busts, and further booms in store for America in the age of open source and its hero/hacker culture.
This book has not aged well, and there are a lot of things that just rubs me the wrong way. Weird, because I am a fan of Doctorow's.
Finished a bit over half before I decided it's just not worth it.
Flat characters and especially bad female characters.
Interesting ideas: massive lawsuits as business models, self-organizing companies.
I really like other Books by Cory Doctorow, and am interested on a lot of the ideas in this book. Yet for some reason I didn't find it as exciting or fun as other books of his.
I think it is still worth the read, and thoroughly enjoyed the story of the New Work, the effects of the popularization and the imminence of a new Industrial Revolution. Even the concept of theme park rides as works of art is fun and unexpected. But the characters seemed to be too one sided to be really engaging... the stakes never really seemed to matter that much.
Anyway, it was a fun and enjoyable read... and it raises many questions about DIY, about the ownership of all these products we surround ourselves with. And about the possibilities of humans as innovators and creators.
I love the three (or four) act structure with a time gap in between the parts of the story. Doctorow's characters grow during the interludes and the story does a real good job discussing what can be done by geeks with resources.
I'd read Little Brother and Homeland before this, and Makers is in the same theme. Doctorow definitely puts forth a proposed "Let the geeks at the free market" solution to a ton of what's happening today, even if the results aren't always the rosiest. Definitely an excellent book.
It is inspiring and depressing in similar amounts making it seem true to life.
A novel of ideas that includes well-developed characters and endless inventiveness. In a near future, large corporations begin to invest in small entrepreneurial operations. Two makers in Florida catch the eye of an investor and a Silicon Valley blogger. Each of the three has to decide how their work will fit with their values in a world where the US has huge Hoovervilles full of homeless folks. Lots of fun and lots to think about.
I initially rated this book three stars, for a couple reasons. For one, I had just rated a bunch of books 4 and 5 stars and felt like my rating scale was too narrow. But mostly - and this isn't something that I have changed my mind about - the writing isn't stellar. It's not really bad, but the craft of writing itself isn't something that seems to be Doctorow's strength, and at times that was pretty evident, and made it a little difficult to get into the book at first. Some of the dialog feels stilted or forced, character development is a bit awkward at times, and the writing/editing juts isn't as polished as I've gotten used to.
So why the upgrade and late review? Because over the past few year, this book just kept popping back into my head, because the ideas and characters were intriguing and …
I initially rated this book three stars, for a couple reasons. For one, I had just rated a bunch of books 4 and 5 stars and felt like my rating scale was too narrow. But mostly - and this isn't something that I have changed my mind about - the writing isn't stellar. It's not really bad, but the craft of writing itself isn't something that seems to be Doctorow's strength, and at times that was pretty evident, and made it a little difficult to get into the book at first. Some of the dialog feels stilted or forced, character development is a bit awkward at times, and the writing/editing juts isn't as polished as I've gotten used to.
So why the upgrade and late review? Because over the past few year, this book just kept popping back into my head, because the ideas and characters were intriguing and fascinating and - since it is set in the near future - increasingly pertinent to issues at hand today. Oh, and because I just recommended this book to a friend and realized I had never reviewed it.
Doctorow's strength is in his ideas and the way he explores them, and this book excels in delving into those interesting issues deeply and intriguingly. Makers is an exploration of what happens when corporations are increasingly possessive of more expansive copyright claims in a world where riffing on and building things with those copyrights is increasingly effortless and lines get murkier, thanks to the internet and ease of access to things like photoshop and, particularly in this near-future world, 3D printing. It's a window into a very plausible future, and its explorations of how corporations and individuals might either collide or work together is mind-expanding, and the characters that play out his story are well-written, even if they take longer than they should to really take form.
TL;DR: Makers is a book full of ideas and characters worth reading, and writing that is certainly good enough to convey them, as long as you can get past the initial bumpiness.
I initially rated this book three stars, for a couple reasons. For one, I had just rated a bunch of books 4 and 5 stars and felt like my rating scale was too narrow. But mostly - and this isn't something that I have changed my mind about - the writing isn't stellar. It's not really bad, but the craft of writing itself isn't something that seems to be Doctorow's strength, and at times that was pretty evident, and made it a little difficult to get into the book at first. Some of the dialog feels stilted or forced, character development is a bit awkward at times, and the writing/editing juts isn't as polished as I've gotten used to.
So why the upgrade and late review? Because over the past few year, this book just kept popping back into my head, because the ideas and characters were intriguing and …
I initially rated this book three stars, for a couple reasons. For one, I had just rated a bunch of books 4 and 5 stars and felt like my rating scale was too narrow. But mostly - and this isn't something that I have changed my mind about - the writing isn't stellar. It's not really bad, but the craft of writing itself isn't something that seems to be Doctorow's strength, and at times that was pretty evident, and made it a little difficult to get into the book at first. Some of the dialog feels stilted or forced, character development is a bit awkward at times, and the writing/editing juts isn't as polished as I've gotten used to.
So why the upgrade and late review? Because over the past few year, this book just kept popping back into my head, because the ideas and characters were intriguing and fascinating and - since it is set in the near future - increasingly pertinent to issues at hand today. Oh, and because I just recommended this book to a friend and realized I had never reviewed it.
Doctorow's strength is in his ideas and the way he explores them, and this book excels in delving into those interesting issues deeply and intriguingly. Makers is an exploration of what happens when corporations are increasingly possessive of more expansive copyright claims in a world where riffing on and building things with those copyrights is increasingly effortless and lines get murkier, thanks to the internet and ease of access to things like photoshop and, particularly in this near-future world, 3D printing. It's a window into a very plausible future, and its explorations of how corporations and individuals might either collide or work together is mind-expanding, and the characters that play out his story are well-written, even if they take longer than they should to really take form.
TL;DR: Makers is a book full of ideas and characters worth reading, and writing that is certainly good enough to convey them, as long as you can get past the initial bumpiness.
I initially rated this book three stars, for a couple reasons. For one, I had just rated a bunch of books 4 and 5 stars and felt like my rating scale was too narrow. But mostly - and this isn't something that I have changed my mind about - the writing isn't stellar. It's not really bad, but the craft of writing itself isn't something that seems to be Doctorow's strength, and at times that was pretty evident, and made it a little difficult to get into the book at first. Some of the dialog feels stilted or forced, character development is a bit awkward at times, and the writing/editing juts isn't as polished as I've gotten used to.
So why the upgrade and late review? Because over the past few year, this book just kept popping back into my head, because the ideas and characters were intriguing and …
I initially rated this book three stars, for a couple reasons. For one, I had just rated a bunch of books 4 and 5 stars and felt like my rating scale was too narrow. But mostly - and this isn't something that I have changed my mind about - the writing isn't stellar. It's not really bad, but the craft of writing itself isn't something that seems to be Doctorow's strength, and at times that was pretty evident, and made it a little difficult to get into the book at first. Some of the dialog feels stilted or forced, character development is a bit awkward at times, and the writing/editing juts isn't as polished as I've gotten used to.
So why the upgrade and late review? Because over the past few year, this book just kept popping back into my head, because the ideas and characters were intriguing and fascinating and - since it is set in the near future - increasingly pertinent to issues at hand today. Oh, and because I just recommended this book to a friend and realized I had never reviewed it.
Doctorow's strength is in his ideas and the way he explores them, and this book excels in delving into those interesting issues deeply and intriguingly. Makers is an exploration of what happens when corporations are increasingly possessive of more expansive copyright claims in a world where riffing on and building things with those copyrights is increasingly effortless and lines get murkier, thanks to the internet and ease of access to things like photoshop and, particularly in this near-future world, 3D printing. It's a window into a very plausible future, and its explorations of how corporations and individuals might either collide or work together is mind-expanding, and the characters that play out his story are well-written, even if they take longer than they should to really take form.
TL;DR: Makers is a book full of ideas and characters worth reading, and writing that is certainly good enough to convey them, as long as you can get past the initial bumpiness.
Although it starts out strong, the book loses steam about halfway through when it becomes too much a narrativized version of copyright law against shared creativity.
Agile digital transferred to the physical world, corporate greed, friendship, making stuff. A good book, with a nice resolution for the main characters; but would have liked to know what happened to three of the sub-major characters.
so far I am finding the book rather confusing and I've been at it for at least two months or longer. I am guessing I will not finish it.
A little heavy, but worth reading purely for Doctorow's depiction of the joy (and pain) of creating. Doctorow really Gets It, and lives the model, and my admiration for him continues to grow.
Quite a good bit of post-bubble second-guessing by Doctorow; some nice characters in this book, and a good piece of future-gazing. An enjoyable read.
