Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow is similar in tone to Little Brotheror Makers in that there is a bunch of cool ideas surrounded by a mediocre story. The book moves along fast and furiously, but at the end there isn’t much there. I did enjoy the book, but was left with a feeling that the book could have been done much better by a different writer.

Art is a User Experience engineer who is loyal to his tribe (Eastern Standard from the name of the book). The tribe concept is that you find the people you want to hang out with and since they are usually gathered in the same timezone, that’s the timezone you structure your life around. It’s a silly idea, but it provides the structure for the characters. Art is in an asylum waiting for a competency hearing after being involuntarily committed because of his paranoid fantasy that his partner and his girlfriend are trying to screw him out of a business deal. Only it’s true and they’re trying to get him out of the way.

Doctorow would have found himself at home in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. I don’t necessarily mean that in a good way. His writing is similar to theirs. Everything revolves around the idea. The characters and plot are just there to hang the ideas on. So we’re left with a silly plot and cardboard characters roaming around with the cool ideas.

The big questions in this book is why and how does Art’s girlfriend get involved (or lead) the business takeover of Art’s idea? He never talks to her about it and his partner only meets her once before the plan is hatched. The idea of how she knows about the idea is never broached and neither is the idea of why she would want to do it. She simply exists to become his girlfriend and then try to screw him on a business deal. The other plot point of committing Art to an asylum is silly as well.

Overall it’s a thoroughly mediocre book that’s moves quickly and doesn’t make you actively hate it. But I wouldn’t recommend it.