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wombat929 's review for:
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
by Cory Doctorow
GoodReads says I've been reading Someone Comes to Town since 3 April. That's when I discovered and downloaded the back-episodes of Cory Doctorow's ongoing reading of his novel. It finished last week and I'm pleased.
The book tells the story of a man in a magical family of oddities: his father is a mountain, his mother a washing machine. He's got a bunch of magical brothers, including an evil one. The main character also undertakes crazy maker projects, like sanding his entire house and filling it with bookshelves. And helping a dumpster-diver build a citywide free wifi network.
It's an enchanting book with major drama and a good arc, but it's in the little details that it really succeeds. The sections about network philosophy could be excised from the magical horrorshow and be their own thing. A few other thoughts:
* More than some of Doctorow's other books, I feel like there are a lot of tangents or threads that weave in and out of the story but don't get resolved. Under that umbrella of real-life's unexplained and unrelated events, the magical elements of the story stay in bounds, and the story doesn't feel like a cheat.
* There's an amusing twist in the idea that Alan (the main character) and his other brothers are each named ordinally, using the alphabet for their first initials. The names themselves are less important, so the narrator and characters refer to Alan by any random A name. It's a little disconcerting early on but it works later.
* That the audio-book is being performed by the author gives the interpretive elements a distinction and value that are just great. The down side, however, is that the timely updates on Doctorow's status will seem odd and annoying in archived versions of the book. I also tired of the cuckoo clock. I like it, but Doctorow commented about how he liked it every darn time it went off.
* I mentioned the book shelf project above, but I wanted to quote the relevant passage below. It's the bibliophile's fantasy.
* I've pondered the title, which doesn't have the utilitarian title like Eastern Standard Tribe or the jaunty zazz of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Zazz aside, I don't understand it. It could refer to Alan's brothers, who interrupt his wacky life in his polished-wood bookshelf house. He could be both, the person who comes and the person who leaves.
Anyhow, worth a look or listen if you're into his books or this sounds interesting to you.
The book tells the story of a man in a magical family of oddities: his father is a mountain, his mother a washing machine. He's got a bunch of magical brothers, including an evil one. The main character also undertakes crazy maker projects, like sanding his entire house and filling it with bookshelves. And helping a dumpster-diver build a citywide free wifi network.
It's an enchanting book with major drama and a good arc, but it's in the little details that it really succeeds. The sections about network philosophy could be excised from the magical horrorshow and be their own thing. A few other thoughts:
* More than some of Doctorow's other books, I feel like there are a lot of tangents or threads that weave in and out of the story but don't get resolved. Under that umbrella of real-life's unexplained and unrelated events, the magical elements of the story stay in bounds, and the story doesn't feel like a cheat.
* There's an amusing twist in the idea that Alan (the main character) and his other brothers are each named ordinally, using the alphabet for their first initials. The names themselves are less important, so the narrator and characters refer to Alan by any random A name. It's a little disconcerting early on but it works later.
* That the audio-book is being performed by the author gives the interpretive elements a distinction and value that are just great. The down side, however, is that the timely updates on Doctorow's status will seem odd and annoying in archived versions of the book. I also tired of the cuckoo clock. I like it, but Doctorow commented about how he liked it every darn time it went off.
* I mentioned the book shelf project above, but I wanted to quote the relevant passage below. It's the bibliophile's fantasy.
* I've pondered the title, which doesn't have the utilitarian title like Eastern Standard Tribe or the jaunty zazz of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Zazz aside, I don't understand it. It could refer to Alan's brothers, who interrupt his wacky life in his polished-wood bookshelf house. He could be both, the person who comes and the person who leaves.
Anyhow, worth a look or listen if you're into his books or this sounds interesting to you.