I met Moru years ago at a WordPress meetup West of Toronto, in Oakville or something. We were both programming geeks of a certain vintage, and shared various other cultural touchpoints, so it was all but inevitable that we should fall into a pretty serious bromance.
Today I began telling him about the latest Martin Hench novel from Cory Doctorow, but Moru hadn’t heard of either. I found it incredible that I hadn’t talked his ear off about Cory, because that’s the sort of thing I do. More than likely, I had, and he just doesn’t remember. There’s that “certain vintage” thing kicking in.
Moru asked me to send him a link; but Cory’s site is a little bordélique (messy). Sorry, Cory. Ideally there’d be a Martin Hench section which would list the books in order, with links to the various versions of each (print, ebook, audiobook, etc). But none of the books in the series, now three strong, even have the name Martin Hench on the covers.
So, although I’m by no means an expert, I am a fan, I put together a little primer on all the Doctorow things I know and love. It is perforce incomplete and highly inadequate; but it’s a starting point, and I’ll update it as I discover new things, or remember old ones.
About Cory
Cory Doctorow was born and grew up in North York, a section of Toronto. His parents still live there. When I attended a panel discussion at the Hot Docs film festival in 2014, I sat in front of them. Yes, he writes science fiction, but he’s also a fierce activist for copyright reform, and keeping big tech on the straight and narrow. He’s a terrific booster of independent bookstores, and won’t sell his audiobooks on platforms which don’t support DRM-free content. (DRM = Digital Rights Management)
His latest crusade is against the “enshitification” of the Internet and our lives by Big Tech, Big Business and Big Government.
Martin Hench
This is Cory’s latest series. It’s about a forensic accountant, fighting the good fight. I know forensic accounting doesn’t sound like the most exciting profession; but trust me when I tell you these books are riveting! Here’s the list of books in order of publication:
The audiobook versions are read by television’s Wil Wheaton.
Little Brother
A terrific series about a high school student fighting the good fight. All the technology described in this book actually exists and is available mostly as open source software. So, you’re going to learn a LOT. Plus, they’re terrific stories. But don’t take my word for it: check out the Wikipedia article listing all the awards this book has earned.
- Little Brother, 2008
- Homeland, 2013
- Lawful Interception, 2013 (full short story)
- Attack Surface, 2020
Various & Sundry
The first thing I read by Cory was his first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I’m not sure how I came to it now, but I instantly fell in love with it. In a world where your basic necessities are taken care of by universal basic income, to get social cred you need to find projects to help the world or even your community. Our main character is killed off right at the beginning of the novel, but is brought back in a clone and a backup of his memories. Then it’s a whodunit.
Makers blew my mind. A couple of techno wizards with an entrepreneurial bent repurpose mountains of technological refuse into useful and artistic products. As with Down and Out, there are tons of interesting and surprising concepts here.
More to come.