He's watched them talk themselves into the most ghastly compromises and he's seen the people who didn't. He's watched people who shared both his trepidation and his enthusiasm. He understands the nuts and bolts of how technology works.

I think Marty is someone who has the praxis. How do you see this combination of traits in your protagonist? He's almost courtly at times, conversant in all manners of hardware, software, social media and then there's this kind of world weariness from the changes that he's seen in Silicon Valley. He's witnessed a lot of stuff, he's respectful in his relationships with women. It's those contradictions that really make this place so ultra noir. So there is something very noir about this place, especially contrasted with the blue skies, the palm trees, the ocean, the incredible pastoral vistas. The way that they get rich is by selling you defective shovels, defective picks and then charging your poor family back home to go and recover your corpse at the end of it. This is a place that people came to tell themselves the lie that they would be self-made people and it's really a stolen place where the people who welcome you in to sell the picks and shovels to go into the mountains and mine the gold are the only people who get rich. I mean think about the literature, right? Is there something about California that lends itself to those kinds of stories, do you think?Ĭalifornia's story, the story of the West, is the story of get rich quick hustles, expropriation and broken dreams. Martin knows all the secret histories of Silicon Valley's tech giants and quickly becomes enmeshed in a dangerous job that will require his lifelong skills.ĭoctorow spoke with Rogers about the dark and complex world in Red Team Blues.

Red Team Blues follows 67-year-old forensic accountant Martin Hench living in California. His novel Radicalized was a finalist on Canada Reads in 2020.Ĭory Doctorow and Akil Augustine discuss Canada Reads contender Radicalized Among his many novels are notable titles such as Walkaway and Little Brother.

Writer Cory Doctorow draws on his observations of the tech world in his new sci-fi thriller Red Team Blues.ĭoctorow is a Canadian science fiction writer, activist and journalist currently based in Los Angeles. The Next Chapter 21:16 Cory Doctorow on Red Team Blues Cory Doctorow talks to Shelagh Rogers about technology, class and the noir-inspired main character of his latest novel, Red Team Blues.

Homeland doctorow novel