This review originally posted at More Than Just Magic 
 In Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow addresses a lot of very real concerns, especially for today's younger generation. Illegal downloading, internet monitoring, increasingly Orwellian laws being passed with little debate in government. I think a lot of readers will be sympathetic to the characters in this novel and their rebellion against the system. Doctorow goes into a lot of detail about how certain laws come into being and what their effect will be on society - not surprising since he himself is a vocal activist for similar causes in real life. 
 It's not without it's flaws however. At times I felt a little dragged down by the amount of legal and technical detail in the book. He didn't always find that balance between informative and preachy. Also many of the characters were homeless and I found he depicted their life through rose coloured glasses. Other then a few occasional troubles, their life of the streets didn't seem to bad - in fact it often seemed better then my own. They were a very colourful and charming bunch of characters, however, and given that it was based in London it had a very Charles Dickens feel to it (just much more cheery). 
 Pirate Cinema is a timely and informative and most of all important book. It's not perfect by any means but if you can get past all the legal and political jargon I think you'll feel better informed having read it.