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The book tells the story of Art, a member of the Eastern Standard Tribe, a Friendster-like society made up of people who share the same sleep schedule. Art works undercover for EST in England, performing various acts of corporate sabotage, but his life is changed when he falls in love with Linda, a woman who steps into the path of his car to earn some insurance money. Along with Fede, a paranoid EST co-conspirator, they get caught up in an intrigue involving music file-sharing, which eventually results in Art being committed to a sanitarium, where he narrates the book in flashbacks.
Eastern Standard Tribe is a hyper, caffeine jolt of a book, as biting and satirical as it is hopeful and utopian. Doctorow depicts a world that, like Schrödinger's cat, is caught in a moment of impossible simultaneity, torn between two possible futures. Will the profit motive continue to rule the world? Or will society embrace new technologies that serve the masses rather than the corporations? You'll have to open the book to find the answer. --Peter Darbyshire --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
I once had a Tai Chi instructor who explained the difference between Chinese and Western medicine thus: "Western medicine is based on corpses, things that you discover by cutting up dead bodies and pulling them apart. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Too bad it isn't twice as long . . .,
By Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Eastern Standard Tribe (Hardcover)
It's a horrible thought, but "cyberpunk" is getting a bit long in the tooth, for all that Gibson and Sterling and Stephenson keep writing great books. In his first novel, _Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom,_ Doctorow (who is no relation to E.L. that I know of . . .) showed that he was well on the way to reinvigorating that subgenre. This time, he turns his attention again to the very near future, to a world where the personal computer, the Internet, and the cell phone have all come together in the "comm" -- the ultimate communication, information, and security appliance. The society constructed around the comm, though, is much more difficult to describe. A "tribe" is less than a nation (in the traditional geographic sense) but much more than an affinity group, a societal segment of like-minded people pursuing common ends -- more or less. And because of the inescapable circadian rhythms of our lives, these groups become defined by the time zones in which they primarily reside, even though they're all linked instantaneously by their comms. Art Berry, a loyal member of the tribe based on the U.S. east coast (though it extends all the way to his hometown of Toronto), is a talented user-experience consultant who spends his time and talents in the laborious search "to find the obvious way to do things." But beyond that, he's also a secret agent of the ESTribe working for (and undermining) a conglomerate in the UK. He has a friend and business partner who is also his handler, and he has a semi-flaky girlfriend from L.A. whom he ought not to trust. Actually, I'll stop there since it appears that an adequate description of this very readable, very fun book would require a review longer than the original text. And you can even download it (and all Doctorow's other work) from the author's website!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sharp writing, good plot, excellent read.,
By
This review is from: Eastern Standard Tribe (Hardcover)
If you read the author's debut novel, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom," then you already know that he is an immensely talented writer - quirky, humorous, edgy and brimming with the kind of future ideas that are keeping the genre fresh. His sharp writing and creativity have produced another superb novel in "Eastern Standard Tribe." Borrowing a few tricks from Wm. Burroughs, and inventing a few of his own, Doctorow tales a magnificently complex tale of humanity in the deceit-ridden near future, where instantaneous wireless communications and omnipresent computer systems are the warp and weft that make up the fabric of everyday life.Art, the protagonist, is brilliantly portrayed as the interface designer who is on one hand a defacto industrial spy - screwing those he works for in the name of his Tribe. Unfortunately, what goes around, comes around in the karmic way his partner and girlfriend make use of Art's revolutionary ideas. One last comment, the gifted way Cory Doctorow portrays Art as he sits atop the sanatorium, contemplating homebrew lobotomies and the difference between being smart vs. being happy - well, it is some of the most vivid writing I have read this year, bordering on genius, and ringing true to those of us who have also had the hamster wheel spinning in our head. Highly recommended.
5.0 out of 5 stars
High Speed Connection!,
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This review is from: Eastern Standard Tribe (Hardcover)
Art is some kind of really wired techno-geek, from Toronto but working in London. Linda is his new girlfriend (they met when he knocked her down with his car), exciting but emotionally unstable. Fede is his boss. Art and Fede have come up with a really far out scheme to make money by pirating music from the computer systems of cars on the Mass. Turnpike. They stand to make millions, but now the deal is unraveling. Is Fede trying to doublecross him? And what about Linda? Who can you trust? Especially when you find yourself committed to a mental institution. Worse yet, trapped on the roof. I can't explain it any better than that. You'll just have to read the book. Author Cory Doctorow writes a fast paced, adrenaline-soaked novel of a world like ours but faster, more driven, more wired, more sleepless. People are constantly interacting with communication devices but hardly anyone really communicates. Author Doctorow creates a kind of cyber-babble language full of odd abbreviations and acronyms that is perfectly suited to such a world. You may not understand it but you keep reading. This is a frenetic page-turner. You may not understand all the intricacies of the plot, or the snip-snap, slangy cyberspeak, but you will find yourself quickly engaged with this quirky, entertaining story. I can recommend this one for an entertaining read. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber
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