"Makers" by Cory Doctorow (2009)

I like what Cory Doctorow is all about. He’s an advocate for file sharing and fewer and less stringent copyright laws. He is a prolific and acclaimed science fiction writer, a diplomacy expert and intellectual who never graduated university, a generally creative person and someone who seems to fight for what he believes in.

I like the fact that he (according to Wikipedia and based on the tone of his new book “Makers”) believes companies should own the rights to sell their products, but that anyone who wants to share them after purchase should be able to do so.

And I like that he seems to live this out, essentially giving “Makers” away as a serial.

I also like that he wrote a book ("Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town") that is set in Toronto’s Kensington Market and whose main character is the son of mixed parents – a washing machine and a mountain.

And he's Canadian too.

But I wasn’t crazy about his latest book – which is also the only one I’ve read. I was excited about the concept, though. It's set in the near future and focuses on two indie-minded inventor geniuses (Perry and Lester). They take the discarded tech junk the world has tossed out and turn it into cool, useful stuff.

I myself have a sometimes-bad habit of scavenging old junk from the ends of people’s driveways in order to turn it into other cool stuff, which I think might be partly why the concept resonated with me.

Their world, it seems, is a nightmare vision of what ours probably will become. Mass-produced consumer Wal-Mart culture has gone too far, and the thousands of ubiquitous strip malls, big box stores and fast food restaurants -- the byproduct of that consumerism -- have essentially imploded. By sheer volume, it seems, they have been devalued to the point where almost nothing is worth anything.

So Perry and Lester take the worthless junk, which is available by the truckload (Tickle-Me-Elmo’s are one such item) and hack it. They start a movement, inadvertently, that becomes known as New Work, and is documented by Suzanne Church, a tech reporter who joins their little rebellion.

Eventually, their movement morphs into something else. Now jaded, the two inventors create an interactive, almost amusement park-style "ride," where riders can add, change or remove features based on what they like and don't like. The more people that take part, the deeper the becomes, and a story begins to emerge in the ride that begins to develop a following all its own – and Lester and Perry once again become the unlikely, unwitting fathers of a massive, worldwide movement.

They also help give heart and vibrancy to a shantytown of castoffs from the soulless culture they live in.

And of course along the way they make enemies -- the main one being the Walt Disney Corporation.

Like I said, I really appreciate the concept here: A futuristic society that’s close enough that we can easily identify with it, a believable mixture of products, technology and terminology we know, and a selection of other stuff invented and imagined by Doctorow, most of which is both fantastical and believable all at once.

I also liked the clever inventions Perry and Lester create, and their organic style of inventing.

But I didn’t like everything. For one thing the book felt way too long. I really had to fight to get through the last third. It got to the point where I felt he had made his point, but just kept belabouring it, on and on and on until I found it hard to care.

Oddly, Goth culture plays into this story too. And I found his descriptions and understanding of that sub-culture group a little awkward.

For one thing, in the book Disney has dedicated an entire section of Disney World to all things Goth. And they come in droves to explore it and experience it. They love it. That just doesn’t sound realistic to me, but then I don’t know that much about the culture to say for sure.

Also, it can be argued that the heroes of the book sell out, big time, along the way, something that just didn’t seem to fit with the way their character had been portrayed for most of the book.

In the end this book is a great concept with smart ideas and pretty decorations, but with so-so writing and humdrum storytelling.