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1[[quoteright:256:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Little-Brother_6368.jpg]]
2
3''Little Brother'', and its sequels ''Homeland'' and ''Lawful Interception'', are PostCyberPunk novels by Creator/CoryDoctorow. They follow the story of Marcus Yallow, a high school student who forms [[LaResistance a movement]] against the San Francisco [[PoliceState Department of Homeland Security]] [[ItsPersonal for kidnapping his best friend]].
4
5''Little Brother'' can be downloaded or read online [[http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/ here]], ''Homeland'' can be downloaded or read online [[http://craphound.com/homeland/download/ here]]. ''Lawful Interception'' can be read online [[http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/08/lawful-interception here]].
6
7A spin-off novel set in the same universe, ''Attack Surface'', was released in 2020.
8
9Not to be confused with the AlternativeRap group of the same name.
10
11----
12!! This novel provides examples of:
13
14* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture:
15** Though never explicitly stated, ''Little Brother'' is supposed to take place a few years into the future (as of 2008, when it was published). As the author noted in an interview, 95% of the technology in the book already exists, and the other 5% could be developed within five years.
16** ''Homeland'' makes reference to issues very relevant as of its release (early 2013), with political commentary that tends to be critical of [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama a "progressive" president who allows torture and unlawful imprisonment.]]
17* AdultsAreUseless:
18** Invoked: "DON'T TRUST ANYONE OVER 25". This is actually a ShoutOut to a hippie slogan, which was [[ConversationalTroping discussed within the novel]].
19** Ultimately subverted, [[spoiler: after Marcus finally tells everything, Barbara solves the plot in a matter of days]].
20** Also in RealLife there are shitloads of people over 25 who would have heard of that, for the simple fact that they go on the same sites and feel the same way.
21* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: [[spoiler: Marcus gets away with lots of terrorism-related charges]] at the end of ''Little Brother'', [[spoiler: but gets sentenced for stealing a mobile phone. From the woman who kidnapped and tortured him. Repeatedly]].
22* AuthorAppeal:
23** To the point of [[{{Anvilicious}} anvilice]]. Lampshaded in the introduction.
24** ''Homeland'', which is the sequel to ''Little Brother'', devotes plenty of space to cold-brewed coffee.
25* BigBad:
26** ''Little Brother'' has the entirety of the DHS, or more specifically, [[spoiler: Carrie Johnstone]].
27** ''Homeland'' has [[spoiler: the return of Carrie Johnstone, this time working for shadowy PrivateMilitaryContractors Zyz]].
28* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Barbara saves Marcus at the last minute]] in the end of ''Little Brother''.
29* BittersweetEnding: ''Homeland'' ends up taking this path. [[spoiler:Marcus gets "fired" from his job with idealistic "perfect senator" Joseph Noss and gives up on "his little fantasy of democratic change" and on trying to work within the system altogether. It is unknown whether Joe Noss won the election in the end, and he gets dumped by Ange (although they re-unite and get back together in the Epilogue).]]
30* BlondeRepublicanSexKitten: [[spoiler: The replacement Social Studies teacher]], Mrs. Andersen, is described like this in ''Little Brother''.
31* BrokenAesop: So, in order to combat the government invading people's privacy, Marcus uses hacking, a skill-set that's primarily used for... privacy invasion.
32* ChekhovsGun: The photo of Marcus and his friends cutting class.
33* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler:Masha, the girl with the pink hair from the beginning of]] ''Little Brother''.
34* ComingOfAgeStory: ''Little Brother''.
35* ConversationalTroping:
36** The social studies class is basically this.
37** Actually a monologue, but Marcus researching Jack Kerouac's biography can also count.
38* CrapsackWorld: A pretty realistic one, at that.
39* DemotedToExtra: Van and Darryl arguably take on ''much'' less important roles in Homeland. Former minor characters like Masha play a bigger role in the story in the second book.
40* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Immigration_Station,_Angel_Island Angel Island]], another island in the San Francisco Bay, served as detention center for Asian immigrants. Immigrants were usually jailed for '''years'''. In the book, it is implied that Marcus is the only Caucasian detained by DHS.
41* EiffelTowerEffect: Averted as it is [[spoiler: the Bay Bridge that gets blown up by terrorists, instead of the Golden Gate; the narrator lampshades this; the Golden Gate is for tourists, people actually living in San Francisco use the Bay Bridge]].
42* EnhancedInterrogationTechniques: Several, including waterboarding and LyingToThePerp, are used by the [[PoliceState Department of Homeland Security]].
43* {{Expospeak}}: Doctorow seems to love stopping the action to put a few paragraphs here and there. To be fair, some of them are not-so-widely-known TruthInTelevision:
44** There are a few fairly accurate, LaymansTerms descriptions of the workings of the Internet.
45** The story of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing Alan Turing]].
46** The crypto court case mentioned in chapter 17 was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States an actual case]].
47* EverythingIsOnline: The ubiquitous RFID tags, used to track books and supplies in the school, and later vehicles all over the city.
48* FourTemperamentEnsemble:
49** Sanguine: Vanessa.
50** Choleric: Marcus.
51** Melancholic: Jolu.
52** Phlegmatic: Darryl.
53* GraffitiOfTheResistance: This is done particularly in the Mission, with the "Don't Trust Anyone Over 25" slogan.
54* HappyEnding: ''Little Brother''. [[spoiler: The police arrive and arrest Carrie Johnstone and the rest of the DHS personnel running the HellholePrison on Treasure Island at the very last minute. Marcus is implied to end up living a happy life with Ange.]] Until the sequel, of course...
55* TheHero: Marcus, in his ARG team.
56* HollywoodHacking: Thoroughly averted. The fact that the author clearly has in-depth knowledge of and experience with technology and hacking really helps things.
57* KarmaHoudini:
58** Most of the people behind or involved in the detentions.
59** [[spoiler:Carrie Johnstone (known for most of Little Brother as "severe haircut lady") essentially is exposed as this]] in ''Little Brother'' and even further becomes this [[spoiler: once Marcus decides to not release Johnstone's d0x to the internet]] at the end of ''Homeland''.
60* LastMinuteHookup: The last few pages of ''Little Brother'' imply both [[spoiler: Darryl/Van and Masha/Zeb]].
61* LeetLingo: Both of Marcus' nicknames (w1n5t0n and m1k3y).
62* LewdLustChasteSex: The most explicit actions get the least explicit descriptions in both books.
63* LoveTriangle: [[spoiler: Marcus/Vanessa/Darryl and Vanessa/Marcus/Angela]] in ''Little Brother''.
64* MadnessMantra: [[spoiler:Darryl takes to muttering "I'm sorry" repeatedly after being held in Gitmo-by-the-bay]] throughout ''Little Brother''.
65* MoodWhiplash: Done masterfully with the first few chapters of ''Little Brother''. When it begins, it's all about Marcus, the smart kid surrounded by stupid adults and teachers who has the system around his fingertip, and his small band of cool, funny friends and their Alternate Reality Games and their geeky hobbies. Then, just when you start seriously wondering if you might have accidentally picked up one of those young adult books, in a few terrifying and confusing paragraphs everything changes and suddenly Marcus is in prison and his friend is gone and his parents are alienated and the world is changed. Essentially, the reader experiences the same MoodWhiplash Marcus does.
66* NextSundayAD: The 17-year-old Marcus mentions being into Platform/{{Dreamcast}} games when he was 7. To be fair, he doesn't say the Dreamcast was ''new'' at the time, but the Xbox Universal and Paranoid Linux are the only blatantly futuristic elements.
67* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed:
68** The Xnet seems to be based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(network) Tor]].
69** Interestingly, Tor itself takes on a larger role in ''Homeland''.
70* NoNameGiven: Severe Haircut Woman. [[spoiler: Actually subverted, as it is revealed in the epilogue of ''Little Brother'' that her name is Carrie Johnstone.]]
71* NonIndicativeName: ''Homeland'' has very little to do with the Department of Homeland Security, [[spoiler: considering they were dissolved in the end of the previous book.]]
72* ObliviousToLove: [[spoiler: Marcus to Van]] in ''Little Brother''.
73* PoliticallyMotivatedTeacher: [[spoiler: Two social studies teachers, on very opposite sides of the political spectrum]].
74* PreClimaxClimax: Subverted in ''Little Brother''.
75* ProductPlacement: [[ExaggeratedTrope Entire chapters are dedicated to (mostly publishing) companies.]]
76** The freely available online copies of the sequel, Homeland, is littered with Doctorow's own advertisements for various publishing companies and bookstores.
77* QuoteMine
78** XNET LEADER: I COULD GET METAL ONTO AN AIRPLANE
79** DHS DOESN'T HAVE MY CONSENT TO GOVERN
80** XNET KIDS: USA OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO
81* TheRevolutionWillNotBeVillified
82* SatelliteLoveInterest: Ange exists pretty much so that Marcus would be able to have some booty after Van left him. She falls madly in love with him at first sight, never disagrees with him on anything, is pretty, smart, and [[spoiler: sleeps with him after knowing him for about two weeks]].
83* ShamelessSelfPromotion: Marcus drops a few times into short monologues about the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Cory Doctorow was a high ranking manager of said foundation.
84* ShoutOut: the title, to the [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Big Brother]] of Orwell, of course. Marcus' former alias "[[LeetLingo w1n5t0n]]" is an another one.
85** There are also mentions of things like {{LARP}}, {{doujinshi}}, [[ElegantGothicLolita gothic lolita]], Harajuku Bridge, {{meido}}, etc...
86** ''Homeland'' devotes several paragraphs to cold-brewed coffee, and the first few entire chapters centre around the Burning Man Festival.
87* ShownTheirWork: Both in the text and in the afterwords.
88* SinisterSurveillance
89* {{The Smart G|uy}}irl: Vanessa for the Harajuku Fun Madness game, [[InformedAttribute according to Jolu]].
90* [[TheWarOnStraw Strawman]]: Pretty much every adult other than Marcus's Mother, Ms. Galvez, and Trudy Doo [[spoiler: and eventually Marcus's Father and Barbara Stratford]] in ''Little Brother''.
91%%* TeenSuperspy
92%%* WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture
93* WhatTheHellHero: [[spoiler: This is how Vanessa and Marcus' friendship ends]] in ''Little Brother'', [[spoiler: for a while.]]
94* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler: Carrie Johnstone]] and her coworkers are perfectly fine with [[spoiler: waterboarding a minor]] in the climax of ''Little Brother''.
95* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters
96* [[YourTelevisionHatesYou Your Radio Hates You]]
97-->Tonight I couldn't laugh. Most of the callers wanted to ask what to do about the fact that they were having a hard time getting busy with their partners ever since the attack. Even on sex-talk radio, I couldn't get away from the topic.

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