#unrestrained nerdery

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Review: Walkaway

Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.:

The walkaways' idealism is supported by nearly miraculous technological achievements--they live in a "post-scarcity" society where questions of food and shelter are more or less solved by printers capable of manufacturing almost anything at a moment's notice. Drones and zeppelins inhabit the skies while humans can use exoskeletons to lift large objects and imbibe a wild variety of drugs in order to manage their mental state. The walkaways even seem to have cracked a problem that Default's hyper-rich "zottas" have failed to solve for years: how to live forever. That discovery prompts a vicious crackdown from Default, escalating quickly into a war pitting hacktivist egalitarians against tyrannical robber barons. Walkaway is awash in unrestrained nerdery, including what has to be the best description of the psychology of watching a progress bar ever put to digital paper. Doctorow is teaching, but he's also having fun, and it's a pleasure to watch him twist the two together. The novel is given velocity by its embrace of love: love for technology, love for science, love for nature, Earth and the human race. Walkaway is a running argument with a fun, funny nerd looking at the future with a mix of fear and hope.

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=2964#m35848