It's hard to explain Cory Doctorow's new book Makers, but you might think of it as Wikinomics: The Novel.Doctorow shows his readers a future where the development of 3D printers allows virtually anyone to produce anything, anywhere. Manufacturing goes down the same road as software. A thriving open-source manufacturing community springs up. Average citizens collaborate in freewheeling communities to invent, recombine, and modify new ideas. Designs are swapped and downloaded via the internet. Wikis move off the computer screen and into the real world, as communities of devoted fans create their own evolving, user-programmed theme park--and eventually go to legal war with that corporate dinosaur of a previous age, Disney.
Doctorow is a skilled author, and Makers is a good novel. I was pleased to discover that, unlike too much science fiction, it is a deeply human story. It is about friendship, loyalty, and the struggle to find our place in a turbulent, fast-changing world. We meet characters like Perry Gibbons and Lester Banks, two junkyard inventors who turn trash into technological miracles and eventually create a national phenomenon. Suzanne Church is a tech blogger who covers the rise of this "New Work" and becomes a loyal friend and supporter. The story follows these characters and their community through a topsy-turvy future that is eerily possible.
Apart from the book's literary merits, why should it concern readers of this blog? It's a window into the near future. It shows possible economic and social ramifications of technologies that are right around the corner. In Doctorow's future individuals become even more empowered, the "crowd" thrives, and traditional corporations struggle to compete with networks. Profits are there for the taking, but only for fast movers who innovate rapidly. With 3D printing technology, manufacturing moves as fast as information technology does today. The United States is in severe decline, but communities of devoted optimists pioneer a new way forward.
Doctorow is committed to the radical principles in his books. He cares about readers and community more than money. His books are all online for free under a Creative Commons license. Download Makers today.
1 comments:
Calling Doctorow a "skilled author" might be a bit of a stretch. I'll accept him as a skilled storyteller, but that's it. He presents good ideas in "Makers" and his previous works "Eastern Standard Tribe" and "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" on what form capital might take in a future where most products can be digitized, but he needs to rub a little nuance on his prose to take the polemic off it.
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