Our Books, Our Shelves: Bookish Activism and Rejecting Fatalism in Favor of Hope With Cory Doctorow

The cost of security is everything you believe in.

Author Cory Doctorow returns with Attack Surface, a standalone novel set in the world of New York Times bestsellers Little Brother and Homeland.

Join Cory as he discusses bookish activism and rejecting fatalism in favor of hope.

Most days, Masha Maximow was sure she’d chosen the winning side.

In her day job as a counterterrorism wizard for an transnational cybersecurity firm, she made the hacks that allowed repressive regimes to spy on dissidents, and manipulate their every move. The perks were fantastic, and the pay was obscene.

Just for fun, and to piss off her masters, Masha sometimes used her mad skills to help those same troublemakers evade detection, if their cause was just. It was a dangerous game and a hell of a rush. But seriously self-destructive. And unsustainable.

When her targets were strangers in faraway police states, it was easy to compartmentalize, to ignore the collateral damage of murder, rape, and torture. But when it hits close to home, and the hacks and exploits she’s devised are directed at her friends and family–including boy wonder Marcus Yallow, her old crush and archrival, and his entourage of naïve idealists–Masha realizes she has to choose.

And whatever choice she makes, someone is going to get hurt.

Cory Doctorow is a regular contributor to The Guardian, Locus, and many other publications. His award-winning novel Little Brother was a New York Times bestseller, as is its sequel, Homeland. His novella collection Radicalized was a CBC Best Fiction of 2019 selection. Born and raised in Canada, he lives with his family in Los Angeles.

Don’t forget to check out the other excellent additions in our exclusive Our Books, Our Shelves column with Tor Books!

• A.K. Larkwood & Tamsyn Muir in Conversation, by A.K Larkwood and Tamsyn Muir
• BE A QUITTER, or HOW TO WRITE THE NOVEL OF YOUR HEART, by K.M. Szpara
• Down with Literary Snobbery, Long Live Genre, by Sarah Kozloff
• Bestselling Author John Scalzi Talks the End of Everything with John Scalzi
• A Billion Thoughts at Once by TJ Klune
• RIP, IRL: Fandom Has Always Lived Online by Camilla Bruce and Kit Rocha
• Alaya Dawn Johnson on Writing and Book Advocacy with Alaya Dawn Johnson
• On Persistence, Nearly Giving Up, and Writing On by Martha Wells
• The Piss Problem: The Politics Behind Peeing in Space by Mary Robinette Kowal
• What Can Gender Swapping in Stories Tell Us About Ourselves by Kate Elliot
• An Exclusive First Look Behind The Scenes of Bestselling Author V.E. Scwhab’s New Novel, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue with V.E. Schwab
• A Celebration Of Chaotic Good with Andrea Hairston, S.L. Huang, S.A. Hunt, and Ryan Van Loa
• The Fallacy Of The Universal by Mark Oshiro
• Our Books, Our Shelves: Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston

(featured image: Tor)

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