New Cory Doctorow novel: For the Win

[franceslievens]

Last Summer I read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother on my iPod touch. The young adult novel was such a great read, that I'm plugging Doctorow's latest novel without having read it yet.

"For the Win is an adventure story about kids around the world who work as 'gold farmers' (people who do repetitive tasks in games like World of Warcraft to amass virtual fortunes that are sold on to lazier players) who use the video games and other networked systems to organize a global trade union, called the Industrial Workers of the World Wide Web (or "Webblies"). It's a kind of novel-length expansion of the ideas in my short story Anda's Game, and it's full of technical details about economics (classical and behavioral), global politics, the labor movement, and the theory and practice of games."

As always Doctorow offers his work as a free download with a Creative Commons licence. Download, read, have fun, and wish this kind of stuff existed when you were thirteen.

Comments

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link!

I started Little Brother but then somehow didn't find the time to finish, but I've still got it on my hard disk somewhere.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Since you're an English teacher, you can always ask for a book donation. Very handy if you don't like to read on your screen and afterwards you can put it in your school library.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't feel comfortable about that, I think - our budget for books isn't that bad - there are many schools in other countries that actually need help.

(I might even get the two books ordered for our library. When Little Brother came out, I didn't have a group, but it's something I might want to read with my pupils in two years.)

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I don't feel comfortable about getting a book for myself either. I'd rather buy one for someone who really needs it. Unfortunately our book budgets aren't very big.

That's one reason I sometimes miss secondary school: I'd love to read these things, but my pupils are too young for it. The sixth graders might understand bits and pieces, but then I'd have to take time to translate the damn thing. Maybe another task for during my stay?

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

There is a German-language edition of Little Brother for sale, not that this would help you..

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Not really. ;-)

But wait, it is translated in Dutch. Maybe I should look into it...