I like Cory Doctorow's blog and share his politics. I backed The Lost Cause on Kickstarter. There are some cool things about the book, but overall I wouldn't recommend it.

It's shocking to read "MAGA" in fiction. Most sci-fi authors of today grew up on sci-fi written before 1980, and that is what we think sci-fi is. When those works were originally written, they probably referred to politics of the day. (Every book from that period seems to be a meditation on nuclear war.) But their settings and themes became the settings and themes of sci-fi. No history after 1980 can be included in a sci-fi, because it was never included in the books we grew up with.

It's fantastic that The Lost Cause breaks through this and more authors should do it.

It's clearly very political and that's great too. Sci-fi is supposed to say something.

The main ideological argument of the book is that leftists are hot brown chicks who cook exotic vegan dishes, while the conservatives are fat old white dudes. We can assume they cook bland dry burgers.

Oh, and the conservatives have a beloved sci-fi book that is a wish-fulfillment fantasy that makes them sound like the good guys. So silly to have a book like that, right? Haha!

In the conservatives' book they end up heroically gunning down leftists. While in The Lost Cause the leftists only almost end up heroically gunning down the conservatives. The two sides are not the same!

Both of these phenomena (appeal to hot chicks and claiming to act differently while acting the same) are so blatant. Maybe it's intentional? But to what end?

I have read a total two explicitly political sci-fi stories, The Lost Cause and William Morris's [b:News from Nowhere|189746|News from Nowhere|William Morris|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1172550120l/189746.SY75.jpg|13352231]. It's weird that hot chicks are also a core argument of Morris's.

The book has a few weird quirks. An unsettling amount of alcohol is consumed without any issue. Just non-stop drinking and pot. Is that normal? Am I just old? A significant fraction of the book is dedicated to food too. The dishes sound great and I would love to try them all. But I'm not sure all the detail about them helps the book. I think the argument is "We should let in more immigrants because they bring great food." Which I don't think is a great argument. (Should we reject immigrants that lack a tasty cuisine?) But it can also read as "Look at how many fancy dishes I know!"

Some of the leftist cultural markers are so over the top it's funny. Sex in masks! "Someone gave me a vegan empanada." "I was so ready to tear down my fucking house." As a 40+ Hungarian living in Hungary I can't directly connect with these tribal markers. I accept that tribalism is necessary for building a community. But I would have preferred a book that doesn't simply show that leftists are better and leave it at that. What if the conservatives were hotter? If they had better food? If they were nicer?