Homeland

In Cory Doctorow’s wildly successful novel Little Brother, young Marcus Yallow was arbitrarilydetained and brutalized by the government in the wake of a terrorist attack onSan Francisco—an experience that led him to become a leader of the wholemovement of technologically clued-in teenagers, fighting back against thetyrannical security state.

A few years later, California’s economy collapses, butMarcus’ hacktivist past lands him a job as webmaster for a crusading politicianwho promises reform. Soon his former nemesis Masha emerges from the politicalunderground to gift him with a thumb drive containing a WikiLeaks-stylecable dump of hard evidence of corporate and governmental perfidy. It’sincendiary stuff—and if Masha goes missing, Marcus is supposed to release it tothe world. Then Marcus sees Masha being kidnapped by the same government agentswho detained and tortured Marcus years earlier.

Marcus can leak the archive Masha gave him—but he can’tadmit to being the leaker because that will cost his employer the election.He’s surrounded by friends who remember what he did a few years ago and regardhim as a hacker hero. He can’t even attend a demonstration without beingdragged onstage and handed a mike. He’s not at all sure that just dumping thearchive onto the Internet, before he’s gone through its millions of words, isthe right thing to do.

Meanwhile, people are beginning to shadow him, people wholook like they’re used to inflicting pain until they get the answers they want.

Fast moving, passionate, and as current as next week, Homelandis every bit the equal of Little Brother—a paean to activism, tocourage, to the drive to make the world a better place.