I initially rated this book three stars, for a couple reasons. For one, I had just rated a bunch of books 4 and 5 stars and felt like my rating scale was too narrow. But mostly - and this isn't something that I have changed my mind about - the writing isn't stellar. It's not really bad, but the craft of writing itself isn't something that seems to be Doctorow's strength, and at times that was pretty evident, and made it a little difficult to get into the book at first. Some of the dialog feels stilted or forced, character development is a bit awkward at times, and the writing/editing juts isn't as polished as I've gotten used to.

So why the upgrade and late review? Because over the past few year, this book just kept popping back into my head, because the ideas and characters were intriguing and fascinating and - since it is set in the near future - increasingly pertinent to issues at hand today. Oh, and because I just recommended this book to a friend and realized I had never reviewed it.

Doctorow's strength is in his ideas and the way he explores them, and this book excels in delving into those interesting issues deeply and intriguingly. Makers is an exploration of what happens when corporations are increasingly possessive of more expansive copyright claims in a world where riffing on and building things with those copyrights is increasingly effortless and lines get murkier, thanks to the internet and ease of access to things like photoshop and, particularly in this near-future world, 3D printing. It's a window into a very plausible future, and its explorations of how corporations and individuals might either collide or work together is mind-expanding, and the characters that play out his story are well-written, even if they take longer than they should to really take form.

TL;DR: Makers is a book full of ideas and characters worth reading, and writing that is certainly good enough to convey them, as long as you can get past the initial bumpiness.