For the win

This is an awesome book that deals with future economies, workers rights, transnational corporations, and unionizing in the face of thugs and oppressive governments.High recommend.

Interesting mingling of story with passages on economic futurism and labor theory. I like the style, although it does come off as a bit didactic. It definitely makes me want to read more Doctorow. Sort of a weak ending, but overall a great ride.

Like if Ready Player One went to Cornell ILR and got woke af

I enjoyed this far more than I expected to, and not entirely because of the timing with my new union employment.

This book has less technology focus than Little Brother and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and less government/corporate corruption than Little Brother and Pirate Cinema. The primary focus is abuse of workers around the world and unionization.

I’m not sure if I’ve just read a novel or had a lesson in economics. Cory Doctorow’s dystopian novel For the Win tells the story of the exploitation of an online role playing game’s economy. In the running of what could be classed as electronic sweatshops throughout Asia, gold farmers suffer from very poor work conditions in the effort to mine gold and find virtual treasure to sell to first world customers. The novel has a typical ‘unite and rise against authority to improve our lifestyle’ plot but add a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) this book makes for some interesting concepts. While this book is a book about slave labour, gangsters and forming a revolution, this book also dives into the world of global finance in a very educational way.

Full reveiw can be found on my blog;
http://literary-exploration.com/2012/05/01/book-review-for-the-win/

setting the story in China was very important to Doctorow. i feel he really wanted to make a statement about how important the most populous country in the world is. the story is an interesting modern take on union activism and government totalitarianism.

місцями надто наївно (втім, можливо так і треба, враховуючи аудиторію), але загалом доволі цікава, динамічна і актуальна повість для підлітків.

Doctorow's YA novel describes a not too distant future where the currency of MMOs (massively multiplayer online computer games) is heavily tied to world economic markets, and where sweat shops full of children farm gold for organizations described as almost mafia-like. The novel follows the story of several children all around the world, brought together by gold farming, and the gold farmers' attempts to unionize. If you have any interest in MMOs and know what gold farming is then this book will be a fascinating read. (The ebook is also a free download from the author's web site.)

A letdown after Little Brother. The disappointing thing about this book to me was that only the (highly unpleasantly stereotyped) corporate bad guys hacked. (In either the good or the bad sense.) So our gold farming / wage slave heroes were left with only quaint 20th century labor organizing.