Radicalized: Four Tales of Our Present Moment

Four short stories by Cory Doctorow.

Unauthorized Bread (4 stars)
This one was the most fun to read, harkening back to like early/innocent/fun Cory Doctorow: namely, refugee hacker girl figures out how to un-brick her Corporate Toaster (that only allows “authorized” bread from authorized bakers to be toasted). She liberates her other appliances and those of her similarly poor neighbors.

Fun, empowering, social critiquing, progressive. This made me want to hack my own appliances.

Model Minority (1 star)
Ooh, this one felt clunky and painful. Briefly: a Superman parody where Superman decides to intervene in the attempted murder of a Black man by some American police officers. This, obviously, triggers all sorts of disasters - with the story driving home that individual action will never be sufficient to undo the structural racism built into America.

I appreciate that message - and I appreciate that Doctorow's underlying progressivism is always couched in collective action - but this felt, ooooh, so painful to read. First, I just do not connect with midcentury modern comic books. They are an immediate turn-off. Second, the portrayal of race felt so clumsy (if well-meaning). Third, the writing felt kinda lazy - at least, I've read a bunch of protests by Doctorow, and this one felt like a copy+paste?

Radicalized (555555 stars!!!)
Oh wow. The last two stories in this collection BLEW. MY. MIND. They were both incredibly unsettling, fun, clever, and provocative.

In the titular story, we follow a Basic Middle-class White Guy who becomes, ahem, radicalized in his rage against the American healthcare system. If your immediate reaction is: well, fair. INDEED?! In the story, his wife is diagnosed with late stage cancer and their insurance refuses to pay for an experimental treatment that offers a slim (but real) chance of survival.

Ayyy. I found the portrayal of parenting, of mundane suburban existence, of rage at healthcare - IT WAS ALL VERY CONVINCING. Which made it particularly unsettling when terrorism enters the chat. Holy shit.

The Masque of the Red Death (5555555 stars as well, V GOOD)
I was pretty mind-blown from the previous story, but saw that people were saying the final story was “the best”. I... kinda agree? Without going into details (since it works better if you come in fairly uninformed), this story is basically a near future take on preppers and how preppering would play out, like, in reality. Honestly, I laughed and laughed. Doctorow makes such obvious points, it's - ugh - chef's kiss. I want to post this as a reply-comment to all those mainstream (NYTimes, New Yorker) concern-troll articles about preppers. Like, it's not just that the rich are building little fortresses... it's that they think this'll give them an advantage? Really, really enjoyable. And hopeful!