MARCUS, the narrator and hero of Little Brother, is a San Francisco high school student who just happens to be somewhere he shouldn't when the city suffers a terrorist attack, and is taken for questioning by the Department of Homeland Security. Marcus, who knows his rights, refuses to answer questions without an attorney present. His attitude gets him hooded and shackled, and worse, until he's willing to sign anything to be released from “Gitmo-on-the-Bay”.

When he gets out, he finds a city altered by fear, police stopping and questioning anyone displaying “unusual” patterns of travel or “suspicious” phone or internet use. Even his once-liberal parents consider loss of privacy a small price to pay for protection, agreeing with his DHS captors that the innocent have nothing to hide.

Marcus realises that it's up to him and other young hackers to fight back and proceeds to launch a guerrilla movement to bring down the DHS.

At a time when our Government is considering new legislation in regard to recording telephone and internet use, including a compulsory national register of all mobile-phone owners, Cory Doctorow's novel could hardly be more relevant, scary and eye-opening.

It is obvious that he wrote the book for US teenagers; there is much discussion of the Bill of Rights, and a didactic tone occasionally creeps in. Supplemental essays from a security technologist and a hacker, plus the author's bibliography, emphasise his serious intentions. Fortunately, it's also seriously entertaining.

Paul McAuley's latest novel, The Quiet War, is set two centuries in the future, after global warming and the death of billions. Humanity is divided into two camps: those who live on Earth, worship Gaia, and are dedicated to restoring the planet, and the Outers, who've created independent city-states and habitats in the hostile environments of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.

To the militaristic, ruling families of Earth, the independent Outers, now looking to colonise more of the Solar System, genetically altering their children to cope with new ecosystems, are a threat. A “quiet war” of espionage, politics and diplomatic skirmishing is heading towards open, total war to decide the future of humankind.

This is a rich and rewardingly complex novel. McAuley juggles his characters and plot lines skillfully. It has the sweep and energy of classic space opera, but the science and politics hit closer to home.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Harper Voyager, £7.99 Buy the book

The Quiet War by Paul McAuley
Gollancz, £12.99 Buy the book

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