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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Dec 8, 2021 • 36 tweets • 21 min read • Read on X
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This is more-or-less my last blogging day of 2021 (I may sneak a post or two in before the New Year, but I might not), so it's time for my annual roundup of my book reviews from the year gone by.

1/ A vast library.
I've sorted this year's books by genre (sf/f, other novels, graphic novels, YA, nonfic) a

nd summarized the reviews with links to the full review.

2/
As ever, casting my eye over the year's reading fills me with delight (at how much I enjoyed these books) and shame (at all the excellent books I was sent or recommended that I did *not* get a chance to read). 2021 was a hard year for all of us and I'm no exception.

3/
I ended up whiffing on *so many* astonishingly great and highly desirable books this year and I feel awful about it, to be honest.

4/
I know what it's like to launch a book in a pandemic (I had *four* books out in 2020, ugh), and I so want to get those writers' and publishers' books into your hands. I might actually start an aspirational "books I wish I was reading" monthly or quarterly list for 2022.

5/
On the subject of book publishing a pandemic: last year saw the publication of the paperback of my novel *Attack Surface*, the third Little Brother book:

craphound.com/homeland/2021/…

6/
There's still signed stock at @darkdel, and depending on the postal service, it's possible that if you order one (or the other signed books of mine they have on hand) that you'll get it in time for the Christmas break.

darkdel.com/store/p1840/Co…

7/
And speaking of 2022, I'll be publishing the first of *seven* planned books for 2022/3/4 in September: "Culture Heist: The Rise of Chokepoint Capitalism and How Workers Can Defeat It," comes out from @BeaconPressBks in September.

8/
It's a book on monopoly and creative labor exploitation that I co-wrote with @rgibli and it's *excellent*.

Now, onto the reviews!

* Science fiction/fantasy novels

9/
I. Situation Normal, by @leonardr

Richardson's second novel is a droll, weird, fast-moving space-opera with a gigantic cast, myriad subplots, and fascinating premises – a novel so brilliantly conceived that it runs like precision clockwork.

pluralistic.net/2020/12/14/sit…

10/
II. Rabbits, by @tkmiles

Mile's debut novel is a taut, conspiratorial thriller with overtones of PK Dick by way of Qanon and Dark City, a supernatural tale that illuminates the thrill and terror of ARG-like groups.

pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leo…

11/
III. The City We Became, by @NKJemisin

A magic realist novel of New York City that is both a fantastic contemporary fantasy novel and a scorching commentary on the infantile nature of the racist dogma of HP Lovecraft and his ilk.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/09/the…

12/ The cover of The City We Became
IV. When the Sparrow Falls, by @unshavedmouse

A tense dystopia about the unraveling of a paranoid hermit kingdom established as a final redoubt against humanity's ascent to the cloud. A claustrophobic nightmare of authoritarian antitranshumanism.

pluralistic.net/2021/07/01/bas…

13/ The cover of When the Sparrow Falls
V. King Bullet, by @Richard_Kadrey

The final #SandmanSlim novel - more than a decade in the making, and a triumphant capstone to a supernatural noir series that transcended the tropes of noir and the supernatural with a tale of transformation, redemption, revenge and sacrifice.
pluralistic.net/2021/08/17/kin…

14/
VI. Hench, by @NatalieZed

This debut novel is fantastic, funny, furious and fucking amazing. It is a profound and moving story about justice wrapped up in a gag about superheroes, sneaky and sharp.

pluralistic.net/2021/08/19/fai…

15/
VII. The Every, by Dave Eggers

The sequel to Eggers' 2013 techno-dystopian satire "The Circle," and it's a deeply discomfiting, darkly hilarious, keen-edged tale of paternalism and its discontents.

pluralistic.net/2021/10/05/mas…

16/ The cover of The Every
* Novels (not sf/f)

I. Scholars of the Night, by John M Ford

The first in a long-awaited, storied and fraught reissues of the works of the brilliant and versatile Mike Ford, a cold war thirller without match.

pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/mik…

17/ The cover of Scholars of the Night
II. This Thing Between Us, by @Uhhgus

Gus Moreno's debut novel, "This Thing Between Us," is a genuinely creepy supernatural horror novel, a book that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and got me to turn on the nightlight at bedtime.

pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-…

18/ The cover of This Thing Between Us
III. LaserWriter II, by Tamara Shopson

Tamara Shopsin's fictionalized history of Tekserve, NYC's legendary Apple repair store: a vivid, loving portrait of an heroic wea when computers transformed lives and captured hearts.

pluralistic.net/2021/10/29/nor…

19/ The cover of LaserWriter II
* Graphic Novels

I. Streamliner, by Fane

The story of a secret outlaw jalopy hotrod race that plays out with so much fucking noir it's practically vantablack,. It's clear why STREAMLINER and its creator Fane are giants of the French comics scene.

pluralistic.net/2021/03/15/fre…

20/ The cover of Streamliner
II. Cyclopedia Exotica, by @aminder_d

An alternate world shared with cylcopes (one eye/one breast). Told as a series of lighthearted gags that made me cry with laughter - an admirably sneaky and profound story about race, gender and class.

pluralistic.net/2021/05/11/uni…

21/ The cover of Cyclopedia Exotica
III. Bubble, by @Jordan_Morris et al

Comedy/sf story about outposts on a hostile planet where human colonists live under armored domes, protection against overpowered alien critters. An improbable artifact that turns podcasting into a visual medium.

pluralistic.net/2021/08/21/pod…

22/ The cover of Bubble
* YA

I. Permanent Record, by @Snowden

Snowden's sprightly prose, deep tech, superb explanations of complex matters, and ability to articulate principled action come together in a book that is, if anything, better than the adult version.

pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/per…

23/ The cover of Permanent Record
II. The Halloween Moon, by @PlanetofFinks

Welcome to Nightvale co-creator Joseph Fink brings his superb, unmatchable gift for balancing the weird and the real to a spooky middle-grades novel that echoes such classics as @NeilHimself's Coraline.

pluralistic.net/2021/09/23/rem…

24/ The cover of Halloween Moon
III. Victories Greater Than Death, by @CharlieJane

An exciting, engrossing tale with all that's great about YA tropes while deftly subverting the their problems. Full of majesty and sweep, good and evil, bravery and sacrifice, treachery and danger.

pluralistic.net/2021/11/08/tin…

25/ The cover of Victories Greater Than Death
* Nonfiction

I. The Data Detective, by @TimHarford

Could have been called HOW TO TRUTH WITH STATISTICS. Journey beyond debunking bad stats and learn how stats can be part of how we discover truth.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how…

26/ The cover of The Data Detective
II. Food and Climate Change Without the Hot Air, by @sarahbridle

Clear, nonthreatening, technical language, brilliant data visualizations, and examples grounded in our daily experience make a powerful read.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/06/met…

27/ The cover of Food and Climate Change Without the Hot Air
III. Competition is Killing Us, by @MichMeagher

A smart, fast-moving history of the neutering of monopoly law, by the Chicago School of neoliberal economists. The Chicago School put competition enforcement in chains. Meagher shatters them.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/08/com…

28/ The cover of Competition is Killing Us
IV. Monopolized, by @DDayen

Unpicks knots of bullshit and laying them straight to reveal them for the turds they are; showing how we're all drowning in crap. Pharma, aviation, newspapers, Big Tech, Big Funeral, all the scams that pick our pockets.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fra…

29/ The cover of Monopolized
V. Broad Band, by @TheUniverse

More than a celebration of the hidden woman heroes of the computing revolution – an epitaph for all the people whose talent, aptitude, dreams and contributions were squandered.

pluralistic.net/2021/02/13/dat…

30/
VI. Prisoners' Inventions, by Angelo

A carceral version of neo-neolithic Youtubers who bootstrap tools from raw materials. Prisoners treat the environment as a challenge, to be reconfigured, overcoming user-hostile designs and armed enforcers.

pluralistic.net/2021/06/09/kin…

31/
VII. Jackpot, by @MichaelMechanic

A pitiless, empathic look at the lives of the super-rich: the transactional relationships, the paranoia and greed, the pingponging between homes, the ruined offspring, the constant preoccuptation with accumulation…

pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/pub…

32/
VIII. Mutual Aid, by Peter Kropotkin, @DavidGraeber, and others

Debunking the fraud of "social Darwinism," the idea that hierarchy and exploitation are evolutionarily baked into our genes. A gorgeous illustrated edition with an intro by Graeber.

pluralistic.net/2021/09/22/kro…

33/ The cover of Mutual Aid
IX. Savage Love A-Z, by @FakeDanSavage

Come for graphic sexual content, stay for thoughtful and philosophy. Savage's latest is an illustrated, alphabetical tour through the concepts of his decades-long corpus of wisdom, humor and learning.

pluralistic.net/2021/10/04/avo…

eof/ The cover of Savage Love A-Z
ETA - If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2021/12/08/req…

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 16
We are about to get a "post-American internet," because we are entering a post-American *era* and a post-American *world*. Some of that is Trump's doing, and some of that is down to his predecessors.

1/ Uncle Sam staring into a funhouse mirror that has made him painfully thin. The reflection is wearing a Trump wig and has orange skin. He stands atop a map of the world that stretches to infinity. In the background is a shantytown with the TRUMP logomark rising in the sky over it.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/12/16/k-s…

2/
When we think about the American century, we rightly focus on America's hard power - the invasions, military bases, arms exports, and CIA coups.

3/
Read 86 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 13
Look, I'm not trying to say that new technologies *never* raise gnarly new legal questions. But what I *am* saying is that a lot of the time, the "new legal challenges" raised by technology are somewhere between 95-100% bullshit.

1/ A modified FBI badge. It now reads 'Federal Wallet Investigators.' It is made out to 'Timothy J Shotspotter.' It is held in the three-fingered, gloved grip of a cartoon character. Around its edges, we see a cartoon room from a public domain Betty Boop cartoon.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/12/13/unc…

2/
It's ginned up by none-too-bright tech bros and their investors, and then swallowed by regulators and lawmakers who are either so credulous they'd lose a game of peek-a-boo, or (likely) in on the scam.

3/
Read 68 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 9
I have a weird fascination with early-stage Bill Gates, after his mother convinced a pal of hers - chairman of IBM's board of directors - to give her son the contract to provide the operating system for the new IBM PC.

1/ A 1960s ad for IBM mainframes, featuring a woman in an office chair seated at a console, surrounded by large processing and storage units. It has been modified. A man in a business suit, impatiently checking his watch, looms out from between two of the cabinets. His head has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The woman's head has been replaced with a hacker's hoodie. Both the woman and the man have been tinted red. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommon...
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/12/09/tem…

2/
Gates and his pal Paul Allen tricked another programmer into selling them the rights to DOS, which they sold to IBM, setting Microsoft on the path to be one of the most profitable businesses in human history.

3/
Read 36 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 20
Well, this fucking *sucks*. A federal judge has decided that Meta is not a monopolist, and that its acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp were not an illegal bid to secure and maintain a monopoly:



1/ gizmodo.com/meta-learns-th…The classic Puck Magazine editorial cartoon entitled 'The King of All Commodities,' depicting John D Rockefeller as a man with grotesquely tiny body and a gigantic head, wearing a crown emblazoned with the names of the industrial concerns he owned. Rockefeller's head has been replaced with that of Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse avatar. The names of the industrial concerns have been replaced with the wordmarks for Scale AI, Instagram, Oculus and Whatsapp. The dollar-sign at the crown's pinnacle has been replaced with the Facebook 'f' logo. The chain around Rockefeller's neck sports the charm th...
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/11/20/if-…

2/
This is particularly galling because Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly, explicitly declared that these mergers were undertaken *to reduce competition*, which is the only circumstance in which pro-monopoly economists and lawyers say that mergers should be blocked.

3/
Read 55 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 18
Gary K Wolf is the author of a fantastic 1981 novel called *Who Censored Roger Rabbit?* which Disney licensed and turned into an equally fantastic 1988 live action/animated hybrid movie called *Who Framed Roger Rabbit?*

1/ The final scene of Disneyland's 'Roger Rabbit's Toontown Spin,' in which Roger Rabbit is deploying a pair of portable holes; the holes have been replaced with copyright symbols, which are partially cropped. Image: Ken Lund (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/16775732643/ CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/11/18/im-…

2/
But despite the commercial and critical acclaim of the movie, Disney hasn't made any feature-length sequels.

3/
Read 52 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 8
A blockbuster Reuters report by Jeff Horwitz analyzes leaked internal documents that reveal that: 10% of Meta's gross revenue comes from ads for fraudulent goods and scams, and; the company knows it, and; they decided not to do anything about it, because...

1/ A tuxedoed figure dramatically shoveing greenish pigs into a tube, from whose other end vomits forth a torrent of packaged goods. He has the head of Mark Zuckerberg's 'metaverse' avatar. He stands upon an endless field of gold coins. The background is the intaglioed upper face of the engraving of Benjamin Franklin on a US$100 bill, roughed up to a dark and sinister hue.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/11/08/fae…

2/
...The fines for facilitating this life-destroying fraud are far less than the expected revenue from helping to destroy its users' lives:



3/reuters.com/investigations…
Read 59 tweets

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