If you’re familiar with Doctorow’s work, “Unauthorized Bread” may feel like a splendid mashup of Little Brother and For the Win.
“Unauthorized Bread” is classic Doctorow, a fun activist story about hackers that’s grounded in how computers actually work. The residents finally have control over their own homes, finally have the ability to buy “unauthorized” brands and save some money, and … they discover that because of this, they’re at risk for being evicted and/or prosecuted.
It’s a sweet taste of freedom, and Salima shares it with her neighbor’s son, Abdirahim, who in turn shares it with the other low-income residents of their building. After Salima’s dishwasher and toaster both stop working, Salima jailbreaks all the appliances in her apartment. She’s not allowed to throw them out, and she can barely afford to replace them. Why doesn’t Salima just throw it out and buy a new toaster? Perhaps one that isn’t so discriminatory? Salima is a refugee/immigrant who lives in low-income housing, and her toaster, her dishwasher (which only accepts authorized plates), and her washing machine (which requires Salima to buy compatible detergents) all come with the apartment. The company that makes her toaster just went defunct, and now her toaster refuses to toast anything. Have you ever had a printer that only accepts ink cartridges produced by the printer’s manufacturer? What about a toaster that only accepts bread authorized by the toaster’s manufacturer? That’s been Salima’s problem - only things just got worse. Since there’s so much to talk about here, I’m going to explore each story individually.
In a recent interview, Doctorow said that he “didn’t intend to write ANY of these - they got blurted out while I was working on another book.” The stories deal with refugees, police brutality, terrorism, preppers, and other elements of our increasingly dystopian modern world. However, I really enjoyed this structure, and I wish more authors would release books like this.Īlthough the novellas are unconnected and each stand on their own, their interweaving themes of technology, activism, politics, and society work together to make Radicalized a cohesive and powerful collection. Sure, sometimes they’ll release a standalone novella or include a novella or two in a collection, but I’m not sure I’ve ever read another book composed solely of a handful of novellas before. Authors tend to release either standalone novels or collections of short stories. Radicalized, the new collection of four novellas by Cory Doctorow, features an uncommon structure for a book.
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