Cory Doctorow is one of the better YA science fiction writers being published today. His books are intelligent, thoughtful and do a great job capturing youthful thoughts and actions. The characters come across as actual teens, instead of miniature adults. And this is the root of why his books consistently piss me off. The writing and characters are so good and the plots so interesting, that the book just grinds to a halt when characters climb up on Doctorow’s soap box and rant. This problem happened, again, in Doctorow’s latest novel Pirate Cinema. The story gets completely derailed by Doctorow’s rant (which he inserts into the various character’s mouths) and makes the story a lot less interesting. It’s almost as if Doctorow doesn’t trust his writing to get the point across without ham-handedly inserting rants that distract from the narrative and do a worse job getting the point across. Let’s see what happens.

Trent is a video maker. He spends almost all his free time in his suburban London town making videos. But not the type that most people would think of. Trent makes video mashups of Scot Colford, a long time actor who appeared in dozens of movies, TV shows, etc. and has a huge amount of video available of him. But when the copyright police come and disconnect his family’s Internet for a year, Trent feels like he’s destroyed the famliy. His parents have trouble getting jobs or applying for help and his younger sister’s grades suffer. So Trent runs away to London. While there he comes across Jem, an older homeless man who shows Trent how to survive on the street. They repurpose dumped food and electronics and Jem teaches Trent about squatting in a house (or in their case, a pub) legally.

After a few setbacks, Trent has a group of new friends in the house and an online community that they interact with that love his movies. Trent also comes across a love interest, 26 (yes, that’s her name). Along with a real relationship, 26 is politically active and gets Trent to be more active. The object of their political hatred is a new law that makes copyright infringement a crime, not just a civil matter. The opponents threaten, bribe (allegedly) and push the bill through and the rest of the book is spent fighting this evil.

However, that is the least interesting part of the book. The Pirate Cinema itself (movie festivals shown in abandoned buildings with homemade movies) and Trent’s involvement in that movement is wonderful and exciting. The idea that cutting people off from the Internet is horrible in a future where all necessities are available only via the Internet comes across loud and clear in Trent’s discussions with his family. And the soapbox rants end up making the argument weaker, not stronger.

The characters and the Pirate Cinema part of the book are wonderful. These are fully realized people who aren’t just going through the motions (except when the author’s rants are placed in their mouths) for the sake of the plot. You feel like they have real concerns, real feelings and real ambitions. I would love to read more about Trent’s movie making or Jem’s freegan ways. But all that interesting stuff is pushed aside for the rants and soapboxes. Recommended for the good stuff and try to ignore the author getting in the way of his story.