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.)