CBR Bingo: White
I picked up Radicalized a short time after it was published in 2019, fully intending to read it, but for various reasons never got around to it.
I’ve read some of Cory Doctorow’s work before, both full length novels and shorter essays. I think he usually has really good ideas, but these don’t always translate well into stories, where his characters often feel like they are lecturing the reader. Radicalized isn’t a novel, but a collection of four short stories (I think? I’m never sure what constitutes a short story versus a novella?), and I think this format works especially well for Doctorow’s writing. It’s a long enough format to explore the ideas and themes, but short enough that I don’t expect more developed characters and plot.
The stories include Unauthorized Bread, about an immigrant who illegally modifies her toaster, Model Minority, about a superman-like figure who struggles to find the right path when dealing with fighting racism and the corrupt justice system, Radicalized, about a group of men who commit violence against health insurance companies, and The Masque of the Red Death, about a doomsday-prepper dealing with an actual societal collapse.
The stories are all pretty unique, and, for being published in 2019, some of them are weirdly prescient. Radicalized features characters whose loved ones were denied health insurance claims for life-saving cancer treatments, who are hurting enough that they decide to take vengeance on the healthcare companies by killing employees. It’s a more extreme version of Luigi Mangione killing the CEO of a health insurance company last year. And The Masque of the Red Death (a modern version of Edgar Allan Poe’s story by the same name) has major celebrities-singing-“Imagine”-in-their-mansions-while-the-rest-of-the-world-has-to-get-on-with-their-lives energy.
While I enjoyed all of the stories and would recommend reading these, part of me is actually glad I didn’t read it back in 2019, as I’m unsure if it would have had the same impact.