In Little Brother,<\/em> Cory Doctorow offers a powerful cautionary tale about threats to liberty from the National Security State. Doctorow focuses on the consequences and costs of the repression by government agencies in the aftermath of the attack as teen Marcus Yallow and four techno-geek friends are forced to defend themselves against the Department of Homeland Security’s attacks on the Bill of Rights when they\u2019re in the wrong place at the wrong time as San Francisco is targeted for a terrorist attack. Paying tribute to another Prometheus-winning dystopian classic about a mass-surveillance police state, Doctorow based his title on Big Brother and lets Marcus name his online self after Winston, the central character in Orwell\u2019s Nineteen Eighty Four<\/em>. Note: Doctorow has won two other Prometheus Awards for Best Novel, including Pirate Cinema\u00a0<\/em>in 2013 and Homeland\u00a0<\/em>in 2014.<\/p>\n Doctorow, a Canadian sf writer, also was nominated for Prometheus Awards for Best Novel for Makers<\/em>\u00a0(2010), For the Win<\/em>\u00a0(2011) and Walkaway<\/em>\u00a0(2018).<\/p>\n * Coming up soon on the Prometheus Blog:<\/strong>\u00a0A 40th\u00a0<\/sup>Anniversary Celebration and appreciation of the next novel to be recognized with a Prometheus Award: Dani and Eytan Kollin\u2019s The Unincorporated Man<\/em>, the 2010 winner for Best Novel.<\/p>\n * See related introductory essay<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0about the LFS\u2019 40th\u00a0<\/sup>anniversary retrospective series of Appreciations of past Prometheus Awards winners, with an overview of the awards\u2019 four-decade history.<\/p>\n * Other Prometheus winners:<\/strong>\u00a0For a full list of winners \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the recently updated and enhanced Prometheus Awards page<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0on the LFS website.<\/p>\n * Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards, join <\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit volunteer association of libertarian sf\/fantasy fans and freedom-lovers. Introduction: To highlight the four-decade history of the Prometheus Awards, \u00a0and make clear what libertarian futurists saw and see in each of our past winners that make them deserve recognition as pro-freedom sci-fi\/fantasy, we\u2019re continuing our series of weekly Appreciations of past Prometheus Award-winners, starting with our original category for Best Novel. Here\u2019s the latest … Continue reading The National-Security State and government repression: An Appreciation of Cory Doctorow\u2019s Little Brother, the 2009 Prometheus Award winner for Best Novel<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43,159,996],"tags":[58,400,151,401,59,402,399,396,403,398,397],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-best-novels","category-young-adult-fiction","tag-58","tag-bill-of-rights","tag-cory-doctorow","tag-department-of-homeland-security","tag-george-orwell","tag-government-abuse-of-technology","tag-homeland","tag-little-brother","tag-mass-surveillance","tag-national-security-state","tag-winston"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-nS","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1613,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions\/1613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nHis bestselling 2008 novel, now widely considered a modern classic in the coming-of-age and dystopian genres, revolves around a high-school student and his techno-geek friends who are rounded up in the hysteria following a terrorist attack.<\/p>\n
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\nRounded up and imprisoned in a general sweep, Marcus attempts to assert his rights but his efforts earn him harsh treatment. After being released, he works to undermine the terrorist state and build tools that make it possible for private citizens to communicate privately and to organize out of the government’s sight. The emphasis is on how people find the courage to respond to oppression.
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\nWith an eye on the past and the future, Doctorow highlights the perils of government abuse of technology\u00a0and its potential to safeguard liberty.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nLibertarian futurists believe cultural change is as vital as political change in achieving universal individual rights and a better world (perhaps eventually, worlds) for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"