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.

The copy I’ve read was published in December 1999 by Tor, but the stories are copyright 1977.

Callahan’s bar is on Long Island, New York, USA. It’s a special kind of bar, and has traditions such as “Punday Night” and similar. All the drinks cost 50 cents (these stories were written in the ’70′s), and are paid for using a dollar note. If you want change, leave your glass on the bar, and take a couple of quarters. Otherwise, you can make a toast and throw your glass into the fireplace.

The stories are not all 100% hard science fiction, but, that doesn’t matter. The nine stories have a variety of themes, a couple of aliens make a showing (one of whom played the part of Adolf Hitler in WWII), a women who is apparently effectively immortal (she was born in 1741 and looks in her 20′s), time travellers, one who came the hard way from the past, and two who came the easy way with a machine from the future, a fella who can read minds, and a telekinetic. Oh, and the bartender and owner? He’s certainly something special as well.

All sorts of folk come to the bar, the narrator, it transpires, lost his wife and kid in an accident, after the brakes he installed (to save money) failed in traffic. A Vietnam vet who realised that actually the war was wrong, and started speaking against it, and getting arrested for his troubles. A man with two wives, and many other characters.

They come for different reasons, seeking solace or absolution, or just a place where people won’t judge them for who they are. And, in the main, they find what they are looking for. Because Callahan’s place is a special place, perhaps because the barkeep is special.

I’ll give away the plot behind the second story. A fellow comes in, goes to the bar and starts waving a gun about. Funny thing, he used to be a man of god. However, 10 years in a Central American prison, where his wife died, his faith in god died as well. He’s the time traveller that came from the past the hard way. No contact with the outside world, ten years later, so much has changed. They were imprisoned in ’63, before the USA was involved in combat in the Vietnam War, ten years later, obviously much had changed. In 1973, the USA had been to the moon, and was ‘winning’ the space race. Ten years previously, the USA had barely been to space at all. In 1963 LSD was still legal, and was being argued about, by 1973, it was illegal (still with no evidence of it’s harmfulness). He gives other examples, and the other folk in the bar start giving further examples.

One warning, there are an unnatural number of puns scatter through the book, some good, some really bad. If you dislike such things, I suggest you seek your recreation elsewhere. Whereas, if you appreciate a story about Arab-Israeli conflict being referred to as “Zion friction” (‘science fiction’), you probably will like the puns.

Overall, I would suggest this book to someone else to read. There is not really any hard science in it, and it should appeal to a broader range of people than most science fiction. But, for that reason, it will also not appeal to some science fiction fans. Would I buy a copy? No, and neither would I probably read it again. In that sense, it is like a lot of good books I’ve read. They are good, but just not good enough for me to justify owning a copy when I have so many other good books that I will (and in most cases have) read again.
About eleven months after I originally wrote this review, I’m giving this book three 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.