Cory Doctorow offers downloadable editions of his latest book, Little Brother, under a Creative Commons License. There is also a website for the book.

FWIW, I’m about 200 pages into a physical copy of the book and all the hype, so far, is justified. Here’s a brief excerpt to whet your appetite:

Then the world changed forever.

We felt it first, that sickening lurch of the cement under your feet that every Californian knows instinctively — earthquake. My first inclination, as always, was to get away: “when in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.” But the fact was, we were already in the safest place we could be, not in a building that could fall in on us, not out toward the middle of the road where bits of falling mortice could brain us.

Earthquakes are eerily quiet — at first, anyway — but this wasn’t quiet. This was loud, an incredible roaring sound that was louder than anything I’d ever heard before. The sound was so punishing it drove me to my knees, and I wasn’t the only one. Darryl shook my arm and pointed over the buildings and we saw it then: a huge black cloud rising from the northeast, from the direction of the Bay.

There was another rumble, and the cloud of smoke spread out, that spreading black shape we’d all grown up seeing in movies. Someone had just blown up something, in a big way.

There were more rumbles and more tremors. Heads appeared at windows up and down the street. We all looked at the mushroom cloud in silence.

Then the sirens started.

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