Makers by Cory Doctorow ****

What do you want from Science Fiction? Do you want an expansive and optimistic view of future science and technology? If so, Makers, a new novel by Cory Doctorow, is perfect; a 21st century showcase for better living through engineering. Inheriting the visionary mantle of Asimov, Clarke and Niven, Cory Doctorow paints a near future where technology changes the world, reformulating the opportunities for self-expression, community, and work, with solutions to big problems like poverty and homelessness, and small problems like messy roommates and amusement parks.

All this accomplished within a very human (love) story and enough humor to prevent the anti-corporate attitude from becoming too heavy: "It's like an emergent property. Once you get a lot of people under one roof, the emergent property seems to be crap. No matter how great the people are, ... the net effect is sh*t."