Radicalized

This book contains four separate novellas: - Unauthorized Bread (my favorite) - Model Minority - Radicalized - The Masque of Red Death

The stories started out very promising but they kind of deflated halfway through. They could have been shorter too (specially the first one), and there wasn't a lot more to tell. I expected more, to be honest. I feel it doesn't deliver anything new. For the most part I felt that each of them ended without providing a satisfying ending.

When this book was first published on 2019 I guess the themes and concepts within it would have been more impactful but right now, as I write this in 2025, reality has surpassed fiction in all fronts and few things surprise me anymore.

I give it 3 stars because they're well written pieces of fiction and I'm sure people getting started with science fiction or those who don't read a lot of it can definitely enjoy these stories.

Las distopías y la ciencia ficción pecan a veces de hacer relatos catastrofistas y horribles de futuros posibles. No es el caso que Radicalizado, donde Cory Doctorow nos habla de diversos aspectos de la sociedad actual que pueden acabar mal, pero con un toque optimista que deja buen sabor de boca.

El que menos me ha gustado, quizá por ser el menos realista, es el segundo relato, que trata un tema interesante (el racismo) pero se acaba liando y parece un capítulo de The Boys. Los otros tres me han parecido más claros y directos, que juegan bien con la metáfora y los símbolos sin perder credibilidad. Sorprende especialmente Radicalizado, el tercer relato, que ya hace 5 años predecía un giro violento de la privatización de la salud que leído hoy probablemente suene menos distópico que la intención inicial, pues tiene similitudes con actos que ya han ocurrido en la realidad. Sin embargo, el que más he disfrutado es Pan no autorizado, donde se habla de sociedad de clases, migración, propiedad intelectual, construcción de comunidad y hackeo en un texto que fluye solo y que uno desearía que durara más.

Doulle tres estreliñas ⭐ e non catro porque as dúas últimas historias parecéronme algo máis frouxas, pero déixanse ler mentras presentan escenarios non tan improbables.

As dúas primeiras parecéronme mellor compostas, con máis profundidade no relato e os personaxes mellor debuxados.

Fun comentando individualmente cada relato, mira na cronoloxía.

Si, o máis inquientante é que son historias que adquiren verosimilitude hoxe, non a medio prazo.

El subtítulo de "cuatro distopías muy actuales" de la portada no miente. El denominador común de estas historias es que, independientemente del nivel de fantasía que se proponga en cada una de ellas, todos son unos futuros terribles de los que desgraciadamente se pueden trazar sus orígenes hacia las miserias del mundo actual. Me quedo especialmente con la historia que da título a la colección. La más real, la más verosímil. Una historia sobre el sufrimiento causado por la privatización de la sanidad. Una historia que está en nuestras manos que sea sólo un relato de anticipación y no una profecía.

This is a collection of four short stories (or is it novellas, between 60 to 100 pages each) whose main theme you can see on the cover.
Each story extrapolates into the not-so-distance future a set of worst-case scenarios.
The first story will be familiar with to those of us who followed the hilarious saga of the $400 juicer that could only be used with the by-subscription pre-juiced juice. In this case, the culprit is a toaster that can only be used with brand bread, which is more expensive than regular one. But the twist here is that subsidized apartments in a luxury condo are loaded with such locked appliances which allow the landlords to recoup the cost of being forced to provided subsidized housing, by getting a cut of the money generated by the locked appliances. In the tradition of much of Doctorow's characters, a few young people then start jailbreaking the appliances, which is when things go South. [There is a whole additional refugee angle to this which matters as well.]
The second story could be renamed "Superman [I mean, in the book, The American Eagle] tries to solve racism" but fails because some problems cannot be solved individually, even by a superhero. More than anything else, the superhero fails at being an ally (whereby his white membership gets revoked, as it was always contingent, as the black man he's trying to help tells him... but he didn't listen).
The third story, which bears the title Radicalized, feels like Reddit meets the insurance industry, and has garnered some praise for showing that "violence works". Kill a few health insurance execs, get Medicare-for-All, as long as it's white guys doing it.
The last story involves a hedge fund wiz, who clearly read Ayn Rand, who has built himself a compound to wait out the collapse of civilization and invited 30 other people he selected to join him. Once they all hole up, obviously, things go downhill.
Doctorow is not a subtle writer. He is rather heavy-handed about the points he tries to make. However, except for the first story, the ideas underlying the other ones are not new (the old Twilight Zone series had a few on the same themes). And the first one is very similar in template to previous work from him as well. So, it's a quick read but the stories, though short, tend to be repetitive, and again, the point of each story becomes clear rather quickly.