(em português → sol2070.in/2024/10/conto-spill-cory-doctorow/ )

‘Spill’ (2024, 111 pgs.) is a contemporary cyberpunk novella set in the universe of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother series.

As a fan of the trilogy(1), I was delighted to have hacker-activist Marcus back, as well as protest organiser Tanisha, a character from ‘Attack Surface’ (2020), the third volume.

Over the course of the series, Marcus grows up - the first two volumes are aimed at young people, and in the third, he's already an adult. In ‘Spill’, in his spare time between freelancing as a digital security consultant, Marcus sets up a mighty personal server in a hacker friend's datacenter, which ironically ends up hacked and hijacked as a vector for ransomware attacks.

In a parallel story that intertwines, a civil disobedience movement protesting the fossil fuel corporations wreaking havoc in California is being accused of terrorism and cyber-attacks, suffering brutal violence and repression.

It's a page-turning thriller about activism, climate emergency and hacking, intelligently, engagingly and inspiringly reflecting the dystopia we're entering.

Read online: reactormag.com/spill-cory-doctorow/ Buy: torpublishinggroup.com/spill/

(1) In addition to the Little Brother Trilogy, there are three other smaller stories that I haven't read yet: Lawful Interpetion (2013), Force Multiplier (2020) and Vigilant (2024).