I stayed up much too late last night, and for that I blame Cory Doctorow. I parked myself on the couch yesterday evening with the partial first draft of a new short story and a copy of Cory’s new novel, Little Brother. I figured I’d read a chapter of the book as a way of unwinding before setting it aside and diving back into my story. But I found that once I started the novel I could not stop.

I’ve probably read every word of Cory’s which has ever seen print, going all the way back to “Craphound,” his first professionally published short story, which I bought for the March 1998 issue of Science Fiction Age magazine. (Has it really been ten years?) I enjoy his work, and knew that I’d get to Little Brother eventually, but I wanted to read it while it was still fresh to market, so I shoved it to the top of my to-be-read-next list. The buzz surrounding the novel about wronged kids taking on the Department of Homeland Security made it sound as if this book had taken a great leap forward from Cory’s other works, as if it was not just a good book, but a great book, one of those novels that demanded to be read.

So I started reading it, figuring I dip my toes briefly in his story and then get on with what I’d really planned to do that evening, my own writing. But once in, I couldn’t get out. The story was compelling, funny, tense, heart-rending, and a real page-turner, all those often-used adjectives, but as I read on, as I was dragged on, I knew it was more than that. It’s also an important book, and my skin occasionally tingled during certain passages as that realization coursed through me. Accuse me of having drunk the Doctorow Kool-Aid if you will, but I honestly believe that when it comes time for people of the future to figure out who we were and what we went through during these crazy times at the beginning of the 21st Century, Little Brother will help them puzzle it out.

Even as I write those words, I realize that I may be putting off some of you with my claims of significance. But please, don’t be scared away. Little Brother may be a manifesto, but it reads like a thriller.

While reading the book, I couldn’t help but think back to one of my favorite novels from last year, Harm, by Brian Aldiss, which is also about destroying the village in order to save it, or the cure that’s worse than the disease, or whatever other similar metaphor you’d care to toss in. The two works are so thematically connected that I could see them published together, back to back, as a modern Ace Double, with the words “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” printed along the spine.

I recommend that you get a copy of Little Brother, either as a printed object or as a free download under a Creative Commons license. (Note that even though the full text of the book can be had at no cost, the dead-tree edition is currently in its fourth week on the New York Times bestseller list, the implications of which I’m sure will be debated throughout the blogosphere.)

By the way, when I got to the Acknowledgments section on the final page of the book, and unexpectedly saw my name there being thanked as a mentor, I literally choked up. I’ve been name-checked that way before, and while I’ve always been grateful and pleased, it’s never before affected me as strongly, and I can only blame that on the strength of the work itself. Having just experienced what I felt was a truly important book, all I could think was, you done good, Cory. Real good.