Cory Doctorow ?

A young guy griend recommended weeks ago I download and read "Little Brother", by Cory Doctorow. I thought, "I don't have time for this", and half put him off, while at the same time writing down the name and visiting the author's web page and reading about his free e-book. I downloaded a couple of podcasts of his, listened to some, then deleted them I think, all a month or so again. Well, JC, now I'm reading little bits of it and agreeing that alothough the story is not to the liking of many people (see some Amazon.com reviews), the writing style and the fact that this guy wrote a novel in two months (several times average speed for an author, I am guessing), and due to the unusual writing style (not as bad as e.e.cummings, nor Shakespeare, but nevertheless rather long sentences), perhaps this guy was at least slightly manic at the time he wrote it (at 10,000 words per day for 8 weeks.)

The manic state is in a sense a hyperfocused state, yet unlike the tunnel vision of some hyperfocus states, awareness can be either larger or smaller, I think.... I could still walk or bicycle and talk on the phone, for example. What was strange was that I felt certain that others perception of me had changed very dramatically. For example, I have a bad habit of looking at women, and often they look back. Well, in what I deemed to be a hypermanic state yesterday, I felt certain that they were not just looking back, but smiling a lot as they did so. I had to disengage, and stop looking so much at faces. This was too scary, because I felt not in control of it.

My mind raced, as I considered all the possibilities, some of which are too embarrassinig to admit here, but perhaps the most embarrassing (not to me per say) and definitely the most horrific to me of all is the realization that it seems likely (if not inescapable) to me that my younger brother went to prison for some bad judgement calls he made (over a period of months) while in a hypermanic state led on by stress of overwork, combined with the stress of feeling that his wife didn't care about his needs and their combined financial needs (i.e. she was reckless, in his mind.)

In other words, he's in prison for 10 to 20 years due to a (temporary and highly treatable) mental sickness.

That isn't fair.