The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by KP:

It took me a little while to get into it (70-odd pages) -- the Japanese references threw me at first since they weren't always on target. No official game is going to require that you download doujinshi to play (generally speaking, this is against Japanese fan culture) and if you know what a doujinshi is, you probably wouldn't use 'toon' to describe the characters in them. A friend suggested that this might be down to the tight first-person narration and I also considered that this might be due to it being set in the near-future when things have changed. Having said that, I was laughing to myself at the way Japan is a shortcut for cool in this book; I read about "Harajuku Fun Madness" as I was on the train to Harajuku.

A few typos and renaming errors, but I'm one of the lucky readers who got the ARC and it's probably nothing that won't be fixed in the final print run, I'm sure. To be honest, it added to the "I'm reading it FIRST mwahahaha" feeling. *ahem*

Marcus, the main character, was far too cocky at first. I really started to like it once he was not-arrested and he wasn't as smart as he thought he was. Then the book really started to pick up and I fell in love with it. The pacing and voice really come together to really make everything work. Doctorow has a great way of mixing what you know about recent events, retelling them, then throwing a little bit of his own world's history into it to make this near-future come alive. He references real tech and LB tech in the same sentence to great effect.

There are some great pieces of information in this book, and I hope they are true. I want to know if that spy camera detection light actually works and what DOES happen if you put a frozen grape in the microwave. The Google, it does nothing.

One thing I was wondering -- they're all worried about the arphid cards, but aren't their mobiles (cell phones) more traceable?

There are some moments I thought that a teenager would never say. For example, I don't think teens would actually describe what they do "teen culture" and I think there's too much emphaisis on teenagers. I can't believe that some of the events were only attended by teens and under-twenty-fives. I have to confess that it irritated me slightly when he described as LARP as something for teens only -- all the LARPers I know are adults. Perhaps I'm a bitter twenty-something. :)

I wasn't quite sure about one aspect of the ending... Van likes Marcus, but ends up with Daryl just because he liked her? The rest is good -- good doesn't entirely win out over evil and Marcus is still in trouble with the law.

So what does it say about freedom? It doesn't spend much time on 'The current situation is bad', because it assumes you already know this. If you don't, this book will do nothing for you. What it does do, is highlight specific areas of concern and methods of fighting back alongside some cool trivia.I should point out that I tend to pick books apart when I like them -- and I really liked this one.

Jim: I'm in Tokyo. A little far from Yamaguchi, I'm afraid.

Wendy: Welcome to my world. I live in Japan! :)

Like anyone else, I just thought it worth a try. *crosses fingers*

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