Written by Cory Doctorow.
Website here, buy it here (UK) or here (US), currently hardcover only.
Download it legally for free here.

So here I am, hopped up with way too much caffeine. Writing my first review in months whilst my arms shake themselves out of their sockets. It's the perfect state to be writing in, particularly when writing about a work of near-future science fiction. Eastern Standard Tribe is the first novel of Cory Doctorow's that I've read but the second he's written (amongst other shorter works). This is no giant space opera, nor is set in a time where robots question their existence and struggle against three laws that bind them. This is near future sci-fi (I would say like Neuromancer but it's much nearer to present day than that) about people. It's also a bastard to give an overview of without basically revealing the entire story. All I'm really able to say is that it's about Art, a member of the Eastern Standard Tribe, and a strange period of his life that revolves around two others. See? Not only was that terrible writing on my part, it's an abysmal description. It's about people and the future, but people first.

As you'd expect in all good science fiction, Doctorow uses his vision of the future to great effect without turning into the focus of the story. Whilst the story could essentially be told in any period, the future setting makes the telling unique. As someone raised on tales of a distant and fantastical future of one kind or another, I'm appreciating near future work more and more as something fresh to me and, perhaps more importantly, something much easier to relate to. Doctorow creates a convincing world that any nerd, be they full time or part time, can see growing today. Again I don't want to give things away because each glimpse into his future world was a delight to read, but War Driving has to be the most interesting extrapolation of the peer-to-peer filesharing movement I've come across so far and the "comms" appealed especially to my handheld-loving heart. One danger of any work set in the future is to find ways in your storytelling to spend time at the expense of character and narrative detailing every little aspect of your new world. Doctorow neatly avoids this, giving us enough glimpses of the whole as to make it feel real, whilst keeping the more in-depth explorations of specifics to a tantalising minimum.

His writing style is one I very much enjoyed. He writes in a fashion that has you gallivanting through his story without really noticing how much ground you're covering. It's easily accessible, and by that I don't mean it's aimed at the less developed reader but rather that it thumps along in a slightly sparse fashion and yet still engages the adult brain (like a good Chuck Palahniuk novel for example). His dialogue writing sometimes didn't quite come across as believable speak to me but I found I adapted as I got further into the novel. The characters all have their own voices, nonetheless, and I found the character work to be solid. Eastern Standard Tribe is a book that hinges on the characters involved rather than the story and they are all interesting enough to shoulder this responsibility.

Eastern Standard Tribe then. A very enjoyable read indeed. I've written a pretty poor review of it here (partly due to my rustiness and partly due to my generally abysmal review-writing style) but I hope I've triggered at least some interest. As enthusiastic as I have been about the book, make no mistake that this is not one of the top books I have ever read. I have read a lot, however, and this is certainly good. It has flow and the flitting between past and present in the tale, whilst a common technique, works well to structure a tale that is focused very much on one man (Art) his interactions. It is a short book. Amazon weighs it in at just over 220 pages but it didn't feel that long when reading it on my handheld. The length fits the story but you don't come out of it feeling like you've read a full novel as much as a long short story. This is probably mainly due to his writing style which, as I explained, is very easily digestible and makes for a quick reading speed.

Despite being free I would happily pay for this book (and probably will do when it comes out in paperback). As well as being a good story itself it shows great promise for Doctorow's future writing. I see him producing even better fiction than this in years to come and very much look forward to reading it. I recommend buying this when the paperback is out and there really is no excuse for not at least reading it in electronic format. It will appeal more to the science fiction fan (even more so to the "nerd" in fact, science fiction fan or not) but I don't see any reason why those more dismissive of the genre will not still enjoy it.