The Doubt Factory

This is a story that reads for all the world like a horrible dystopia, but is based on facts that are all too real. Bacigalupi credits the 2008 article by Michelle Nijhuis, called “The Doubt Makers” for the inspiration of the story, and for much of the non-fiction content. In essence, Nijhuis exposes how businesses systematically cast doubt on scientific studies that might interfere with their profit-making enterprises, allowing many dangerous commodities to stay on the market long after they should have been banned.

[This process still goes on, of course. As scientist Seth Darling, author of a book on climate change, writes, in spite of an overwhelming consensus among scientists that our planet is warming and that we are primarily show more to blame, mainstream news outlets still provide substantial airtime to skeptics. In a July 31, 2014 op ed for the Chicago Tribune he wrote: “Because the mass media have propped up a false debate, the general public is understandably confused.” Many of these so-called skeptics are actually paid for their "testimony," and it is this manipulation that is the focus of Bacigalupi's novel.]

The author does a good job of weaving a compelling plot out of this disturbing practice. He creates a group of talented teenagers, each of whom has experienced a death in his or her family because of unsafe products that should not have been allowed to stay on the market. Calling themselves “2.0” and led by Moses Cruz, they are working together to try to stop further risks to public health. They have targeted the biggest enabling PR firm, Banks Strategy Partners, where Simon Banks and his business partner George Saamsi help put together reports, testimony, and controversy for companies with potentially lethal merchandise, in order to delay punitive government action. The 2.0 group wants to convince Alix, Simon’s daughter, to help them get into her father’s records so they can (hopefully) interest the media. It is not an easy job: Alix has no idea what her dad really does, but she loves him, and has a hard time believing he would help companies put so many lives at risk for the sake of greed.

And Alix isn’t the only one needing convincing. “Status quo is easy to sell,” one of the 2.0 group says. “You can’t con someone who doesn’t want to be conned, and you can’t wake up someone who doesn’t want to wake up.”

But Alix is drawn to Moses, and also wants to know what the truth is about her father. What she doesn’t realize is that the power and money behind these corporations could threaten her life, as well as the lives of others in the group.

Bacigalupi previously tackled the nefarious side of corporate greed in his story for middle graders, Zombie Baseball Beatdown, but that book ended on a more upbeat (and unfortunately more unrealistic) note than this book for older readers.

Evaluation: Bacigalupi successfully integrates his info-dumping into an interesting and suspenseful scenario. He is a consistently intelligent and compassionate writer.

In addition, I really like the fact that this is a very diverse group of teens, but the focus is on what unites them rather than their physical or gender-related differences. show less

'The Doubt Factory' is a thriller with the soul of an uncompromising investigative journalist, leavened by youthful optimism and presented with the dash and flair of a Vegas magic show.

It tells the story of a diverse group of talented young people who take on the 'Product Defense' firm that has helped to obscure the actions of big companies whose sometimes lethal products have broken their lives.

The hook into the story is the trap that they set for Alex, the daughter Simon Banks, the man who founded and runs the Product Defense firm. She is young, bright, privileged and thinks her father makes his living helping big companies tell their side of the story.

I liked the imagery at the start of the book when the young man leading the show more group has Alex under observation as she attends her posh school and hangs out with her friends by the pool at her expensive house. He imagines her as fish swimming in a tank, unaware of the hammer that is about the shatter the glass it doesn't know defines its world.

A little later, after the hammer has fallen, Alex has her father's work explained to her. She's told that Simon Banks' clients call his firm 'The Doubt Factory'

'It's a good name, right? Because, really, that's what your dad produces. He doesn't make products, he makes doubt. If you want everyone to ignore those FDA studies that say you're killing people with your drug, you go to Simon Banks and buy a little doubt. You sprinkle it all over the issue. You spread it around. Pretty soon, the Doubt Factory has everyone so confused that you can go on selling whatever the hell it is for just a little longer."

If you're as old and cynical as I am, then there's nothing new here except the outrage that it keeps happening and the focus on the enablers and not just on the big companies they enable. If you're the young adult audience this book is aimed at then there's a lot here that may make you look again at how you think the world works.

I liked that the people doing the Product Defense work aren't painted as evil. They're nice people, who love their kids and go to Little League games and support charities. They're just doing their job. But their job gets people killed.

I also like the idea of a 'gold standard for the truth'. Documented facts on which decisions can be taken. In the six years since this novel was written, Doubt Factories have become mainstream. Divisive doubt has been weaponised. Truth has been turned into a unicorn only fantasists believe in. Science has been relegated to crazy-cult status and experts have been either silenced or marginalised in the name of a better narrative. 'The Doubt Factory' at least provides some hope that we might not need to accept this. That it can be challenged.

'The Doubt Factory' was the fourth piece of fiction I've read by Paolo Bacigalupi. 'The Windup Girl', 'The Water Knife' and 'Shooting The Apocalypse' are all vivid, hard-edged, uncompromising visions of the brutal realities of a near future in which climate change has started to bite. Knowing that 'The Doubt Factory' was targetted at the Young Adult reader, I was intrigued to see how his style would change.

Obviously, the brutal violence had to go. The bleak do-what-you-need-to-to-survive-but-don't-expect-anything-but-trouble tone of those apocalypse-in-slow-motion-progress books is also absent here. But then, 'The Doubt Factory' is set in the present day when, perhaps, there is still room to hope.

It turned out that the biggest difference in style was that this is a real page-turner thriller with at least three I-didn't-see-that-coming twists that propel the story forward.

What 'The Doubt Factory' has in common with Paolo Bacigalupi's previous books is that the story is founded on a well-researched understanding of how the powerful protect themselves at the expense of the rest of us and how that lets us continue to slide towards avoidable disaster.

I listened to the audiobook version of 'The Doubt Factory', narrated by Emma Galvin. Normally, I like Emma Galvin's style but I had difficulty settling into her narration at the start of the book. She reads in a very emphatic way that works well once the action of the story starts but which I found jarring in the first part of the book, which is more reflective.

Click on the SoundCloud link below and decide for yourself if the audiobook version is for you.


https://soundcloud.com/penguin-audio/the-doubt-factory-by-paolo-3 show less

Excellent if at times didactic thriller about teens who are determined to reveal the misinformation campaign that has enabled companies to develop and sell products that have caused multiple fatalities. Alix first meets this crew when they grafitti-bomb her posh private school. Soon she realizes her beloved father (and all of the luxuries his salary provides) may be a professional liar. She has to choose between a father she loves and a mysterious and attractive leader of the rebel group of teens committed to exposing the truth. What I liked best about this book was the way it desribes the thrill of research when the outcome really matters.

I read The Wind Up Girl by this guy and really enjoyed it. He conjured up a coherent world with a history out of nothing so when I saw The Doubt Factory I grabbed it.

It is not the same animal at all and I guess it was silly of me to think it might be. But it was excellent none the less.

Set in the very much here and now it is a gripping story about how the world is presented to us by others and what they do to maintain that view especially in the light of unfavourable events. Like everything set in the here and now it is about money and bad people or how good people become bad because of money. Unfortunately there is a lot of that shit to write about now.

The characters start out a bit clunky but actually pull it all together as it show more goes on. The story is gripping and well told and flies along at a good clip. The writing is cinematic and the plot just gets thicker. Was it believable? Yes, only too believable.

The main characters are all young adults so I have come to take that as my marker. The age of the main character is the target audience(?) So was it a YA novel? Probably.

Could someone take this great book and make a terrible movie out of it. It is probably in production as we speak :-) show less

A successful failure.

While well written with believable characters and an interesting setting, this is not a success. The failure comes in two different places in the relationship between the protagonists and the motivation of the antagonists. But having said that, it is a well drawn picture of the morality of information. Specifically, the responsibilities of people consuming information to suss out the facts behind the presentation. It goes to some pains to make sure that we understand that money is corrupting and that information-massage is evil. Maybe a bit too broadly painted, but given the point of the book, it is understandable. I wouldn't call it preachy which is a ever present danger in a YA title.

The relationship between the show more main protagonists is quite sketchy, bordering on creepy. It reminds me of the porn actresses who are convinced they are feminists because they are taking control of their sexuality. Color me skeptical. There are one or two places where the main character simply acts completely against her nature which makes it even more creepy. That's the exact word: creepy.

But the main failure of the book is precisely in its success of drawing very three dimensional antagonists. They are contradictory enough to cry out for resolution but are largely left a cipher. Why would a loving man do the heinous things that he does?

Everyone comes into this life in media res so it is natural to take the grownups around us- our parents, aunts and uncles as givens. But while this works if you leave them as simple obstacles whose voice is like the peanuts comic adults: wah,wah,wah, it falls flat if you give them enough life to cause us to question their motives. Why do they act that way? Why would they not attempt to change if they are causing such grief to their loved ones? I understand that in some ways that is the point of the book: breaking away. But there has to be a reason! We are left with a mystery. I hate mysteries that are not answered. show less

Shades of Cory Doctorow....this is a book about truth and lies and the manipulation that takes place when big companies want to hide or distort what is really happening. Our story begins with Alix who has just started her final year at school. She has a small group of friends including a new girl called Cynthia who has seamlessly slotted into her life. She goes to an exclusive private school, is a straight A student, is wealthy and her life is perfect. Until one day she looks out the biology lab window and sees a young black man smiling up at her. The smiling guy is confronted by the Principal so he punches him and then Alix's life is never the same. A huge prank with paint bombs, rats and swat teams a few days later finds her next to show more the same man in the gaping school crowd. He calls her by her name and Alix realizes that she is the target - the guy is a stalker - or is he? He asks her to speak to her father as she will find answers with him.
Suddenly Alix and her ADHD younger brother have bodyguards and there are security people watching the house...what is happening?
Meanwhile Alix is being watched on hidden cameras in her house and her every conversation tracked and listened to....all with a spectacular kidnapping in mind.

This is a story about trust...who can you trust to tell the truth? The story is told in 2 parts. The first part where Alix is kidnapped and told what is going on and the second part where a type of Stockholm Syndrome kicks in and she falls for her kidnapper and betrays her family.
The ending is a little too James Bond drifting into happily ever after for me but it kept me reading. show less

The constant brow beating about how diabolical and Machiavellian "business" is got a little old, along with flat, completely unbelievable villainy. Also, three-to-five minute lists of company names do not make for great audio book material. The plot had promise, but veered off into the ridiculous and the author's preaching too obvious. I felt even Bacigalupi realized how absurd the love story was and tried to justify it with Alix's inner monologue half heartedly wondering what was wrong with her.

I loved The Windup Girl and enjoyed Shipbreaker, but this was a swing and a miss by an otherwise good writer.