I just finished reading Eastern Standard Tribe a novel by Cory Doctorow. It is a science fiction story set in the not too distant future. It is told in first-person from the perspective of Art, a UE (User Experience) consultant who is also a member of a “tribe” of chatters who allie with one another based solely on the timezone they live in. Hence the title Eastern Standard Tribe (EST). The story revolves around the work Art does for a ficitional future version of the Virgin corporation, his involvement with EST, a girl he meets, and an insane asylum in which he ends up.
The novel begins in the middle of the story, with Art explaining his current dilemma. Art is stuck on the roof of an insane asylum in his underwear. He then flashes back to the beginning of the story where Art explains how the whole mess began. After that the novel progresses by moving these two threads forward in alternating chapter. This method works effectively enough, with only the occaisional confusing inter-chatper transition for the reader. It is especially effective because Art is a member of EST; he lives his life on eastern standard time. But Art is physically in England with a day job. He lifestyle demands that he rarely sleep for more than an hour or so and he is living in the kind of blur known only to insomniacs. The back-and-forth flashback story telling puts the reading in touch with the feeling of never ending flow of events that the protagonist must feel.
The story is very entertaining and keeps the reading involved. It has only a few rough spots. The beginning is a bit confusing because it almost reads like commentary by the author. I was sure I reading an introduction to the text for the first 10 minutes, and then realized I was reading the actual first chapter. The end seems to drag out a bit but not painfully so. There also seems to be a missing chapter (how does Art get from the English train station back to North America at the end?).
I found this a bit reminiscent of the work of William Gibson but not overly so. Gibson’s style is more sophisticated. He weaves multiple characters and plots together chapter after chapter. This novel splits one plot into two halfs and weaves them back together and focuses on a single character but the effect on the reader is similar. You get the sense that you are re-meeting the character over and over. Another similarity to Gibson’s writing is the character is a lowlife/underworld figure that is still sympathetic partly due to a “super-power.” Art considers himself a double-agent trying to ruin business outside his beloved EST time-zone. He has two super-powers the first of which is his ability to argue and the second is his ability to identify new “user experiences” that can immediately become reality (probably the biggest stretch of science fiction in the entire story).
The novel is unbalanced in the portrayal of both of Art’s most defining qualities. At the beginning Art is a great arguer and set on his double-agent lifestyle. As the novel progresses we lose, in both the past and current threads of the story, the sense that he is good at argueing and that he is determined to sabotage the GMT time-zone. Instead he becomes a savior of the end-user confounded in most argument and reduced to clumsy neurolignuistic programming. This lack of change in character is quite continuous and not at all confusing probably due to the story being told in the two threads (past and current).
Overall this was an enjoyable novel. I take away no profound lessons or insights, but I do wish people would adopt Doctorow’s single word for phone, laptop, computer, email, etc. He calls it simple “comm.” As in, “can I use your comm?” or “did you comm him?”
Eastern Standard Tribe is available from your local public library, bookstores, or for free from Cory Doctorow’s website.
