This review was originally posted at Goodreads and imported here later with next to no spell/grammar checking.

5/5 stars

I’ve loved everything I’d read by Cory Doctorow and this was no exception. I’m not sure whether this is officially a prequel to Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, but it could be.

The book gets dark. Not that Little Brother or Homeland were exactly light but Walkaway gets much heavier.

Despite the initial impressions, it doesn’t really have a protagonist. Every chapter switches the point of view to another person and while some get more space than others, after the sixth one it becomes obvious there’s no lead there. The plot is not particularly complex and it’s more "people react to stuff wot happens around", except that "around" always means a world with an interesting twist (in this case massive wealth inequivalence, incredibly powerful 3D printers and that awesome spoilery thing.

And that’s Cory for you — his fiction always feels like a possible extrapolation from the present, always full of philosophies the characters are happy to discuss for pages and always a gripping read.

by Tomas Sedovic on 27th May, 2017