Homeland
by Cory Doctorow
In Doctorow's wildly successful "Little Brother," young Marcus Yallow was arbitrarily detained and brutally murdered by the government after the terrorist attack in San Francisco — an experience that made him the leader of the entire movement technologically united with young people by fighting against a brutal security state. A few years later, California's economy collapses, but Marcus' hacktivist background gives him a job as a webmaster for a textbook politician promising reform. Soon after, his old nemesis, Masha, ventures out of the political underground to give him a flash drive containing a cable dump containing concrete evidence of Wikileaks-style corporate and government betrayal. These are provocative things, and if Masha goes missing, Marcus must release her into the world. Later, Marcus sees that Masha has been kidnapped by the same state agents who had detained and tortured Marcus years earlier. Marcus can consolidate the archive that Masha gave him, but he can't admit that there was a leak because it would cost his employer a choice. He is surrounded by friends who remember what he did a few years ago and see him as a hacker hero. He can't even attend the show without being dragged onto the stage and given a T-shirt. He's not at all sure it's right to leave the archive online before getting rid of millions of words. Meanwhile, people start to hide it, people who seem to be used to getting hurt until they get the answers they want. Transient, passionate, and as up-to-date as next week, Motherland equals Little Brother — having activism, courage, a desire to make the world a better place. For more information about this name, visit the official Cory Doctorow website.
