My copy is a free download from Doctorow’s site, but you can also purchase a dead-tree version, just follow the links on the site.

Makers, a story set in the indefinite future, in a United States that has become like Rome, at the end of Empire, “Drowning in wealth and wallowing in poverty” (quote from the book), is about people who make things. Specifically, about two people, who at the start of the book, are making things out of discarded junk, particularly electronics. They come together with a journalist, via the intervention of a mega-corp whose CEO has decided to go post-modern. The book ends with the three of them back together, once again making things together because they want to.

Overall, I found this quite an enjoyable book. Not, Doctorow’s best work, but certainly excellent. He examines a variety of themes, including late-stage-capitalism, superabundance, and other economics, as well as social organising, the role of copyright, and various other social issues.

One thing I didn’t like about this book was the strange disconnect between sections. Doctorow jumps across time, and space, with little indication of how much time passes between each section.

Unlike Little Brother and For the Win (both admittedly “young adult” books), where Doctorow comes across very much as a left-liberal “status quoist”, Makers is more like his first work Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, in that it provides an alternative to broken capitalism. Indeed, my impression during reading Makers was that it was a pre-quel of sorts, to Down and Out. Whereas Down and Out is the end result, the anarchy of post-scarcity, Makers, is examining late-life capitalism, with the technology for mass consumer production (e.g. 3D printers) becoming widespread.

Anyway, I’m going to give this book four stars. (Down and Out, upon reflection would probably get five, though I have not written a review of it yet.) Yes I would, and will, read it again (and would even purchase a copy if I desired even more books in my travels). However, a few problems with the work prevent it getting the perfect five stars.

First published 1999 by Voyager.

Kim Stanley Robinson’s big trilogy of Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars are classics in the field of science fiction. They explore the colonisation of Mars from an initial settlement of 100 scientists and engineers, through revolution and independence. Chronicling terraforming, immigration, vastly extended lives, and various economic and social models, the Mars Trilogy is classic science fiction. The Martians is a book of short stories based on this universe (with at least one, “Michel in Provence” on an alternative version), and should really only be read after the trilogy. But, that trilogy is well worth reading, and if you liked it, The Martians should also tweak your brain. Not all the stories will appeal to everyone, of course. The book includes stories about individual lives, a discussion of the Martian Constitution (also included), veers to stories about rock, and the history of Martian areology, and dips into his created Martian mythology. One story looks at how baseball might be played on Mars, and how an American changes the game, and there are a large number of poems, collected as “If Wang Wei Lived on Mars and other poems” (though none of them are titled that). The final story seems to be autobiographical concerning a day in the life of an author, and as the final words the author writes are “the end”, it seems appropriate.

I own Red Mars, and if I found the other two for a good price, I would definitely buy them. However, The Martians is a different book. It is quite interesting for someone who found the trilogy worth reading, but it is a different kind of book. It fills in gaps in the story, or explores areas that the trilogy did not. I think I would purchase it, if I found it available for a good price, but I would not treasure it as much as the trilogy. Perhaps if the parts I did not enjoy as much were left out, it would be better? But, of course, it would not then be the same book. The included stories do vary in type, and character. I found many of the stories essential additions to the trilogy, while others could easily have been left out.

Despite being a book lover and, god forbid, a Librarian! I am NOT a big reader of Classics. In fact, I prefer it if they’re turned into films. I love a good costume drama!

However, there was just something about this book that made me borrow it. Perhaps it was the cover. I do like a book with a good cover. To be honest, in the beginning it was the cover, but then I read the blurb and met Flora Poste and her relatives the Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm. I took Cold Comfort Farm away with me over my Easter holidays and I meant to read it, classic or not.

Once I’d started the book and got used to the difference in language (it was first published in 1932) I really started to enjoy it. The characters were delightful, the plot wonderful and to my surprise, it was funny!

I’m wondering how many other great stories I have dismissed, simply because they are “classics”. It is time to broaden my horizons and challenge myself with my reading.

Cold Comfort Farm gets 4 stars from me.