Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Picks and Shovels

Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow
2/18/25; 400 pages
Tor Publishing
Martin Hench Novel #3

Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow is the excellent, very highly recommended period tech novel and the origin story of forensic accountant and computer security expert Martin Hench.

Martin Hench flunks out of MIT, but while there he falls in love with the emerging computer technology and programming along with all of the possibilities it represents. He also meets his friend Art, joins a group of assorted people all obsessed with programming, works for a dubious business, obtains a 2 year degree in accounting, and eventually he and Art make their way to San Francisco. There he picks up odd jobs until he talks to a predatory computer business, Fidelity Computing. He ends up working for the start-up company that was started by three of their best former saleswomen who are actively opposing Fidelity's business practices.

This is a well-written, completely compelling, detailed period drama that captures the time period and the excitement over personal computers along with the atmosphere in San Francisco and the growth of Silicon Valley as a technology hub. The pace is fast and the plot is engaging so the pages just fly by. It also confronts the very real issue of computer companies trying to lock customers into their brand alone rather than making parts (and operating systems) interchangeable.

Hench is a fully-realized, complex character with both strengths and flaws. All of the secondary characters are equally fully developed as unique individuals. Readers meet Hench at seventeen and into his early 20's while he experiences growth and learns many life lessons that will make him who he is later on in life.

This is the third book in the series, but the series has been presented in a reverse chronology so this starts in the late 1970s and continues into the early 1980s. It can be read as a standalone novel. The first novel in the series is Red Team Blues followed by The Bezzle (set in the 1990s).
Thanks to Tor Publishing for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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