I’m being hard on this book, so I want to emphasize that: I think it’s important, I pre-ordered it and have been looking forward to read it for a long time, there are parts of it that I deeply enjoyed, and it is likely to get cited in a couple of papers I’m working on.

That said, while I think there are a lot of good ideas and bits in here, it feels more like a collection of ideas than a cohesive book. I think a stronger throughline and more aggressive structure would have made it even better. I know it started off as essays/blog posts, and I think the individual components are great, but I’m not sure it’s more than the sum of its parts.

I also acknowledge that I read a lot of Doctorow and that his ideas tend to be repeated throughout his writing. Someone coming fresh to his ideas probably wouldn’t have the same nitpicks that I do, and that’s the main, well-deserved audience for this book, so I’m fine with a little bit of “meh” in my own reaction.

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