Originally published in 2005 by HarperCollins, PopCo has been beautifully re-packaged and re-published by Canongate, and I for one am very glad they decided to do it. PopCo is a great book, and deserving of a wide readership: in part a fable for an era of focus groups, marketing to children and corporate cynicism; in part an affecting tale of an unconventional childhood; and finally a mystery of mathematics and code-breaking, reminiscent in some ways of Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.

Alice Butler is a toy designer for the gigantic toy corporation PopCo – she doesn’t know why they hired her, and she doesn’t feel an accepted part of the office vibe. Alice’s previous job was compiling crosswords, and her work for PopCo involves creating kits for kids who like code-breaking and espionage. Summoned to a slightly creepy PopCo corporate facility in the middle of Dartmoor for the annual corporate shindig, Alice is one of a select group asked to stay one and become part of a crack team whose job is to focus on creating a new product for that most difficult of all demographics – teenage girls. This leads to various interesting discussions and lectures about the tools of the toy manufacturer’s trade – including fascinating stuff like network theory, and the mechanics of idea generation (aka ‘ideation’).

There’s more going on though – soon after Alice arrives, she starts to receive enciphered messages – and that leads to an exploration of her childhood through a series of flashbacks. Abandoned by her father at the age of nine, Alice was brought up by her grandparents – with a mathematician who worked at Bletchley Park for a grandmother and a renowned puzzle-setter and code and cipher expert for a grandfather, Alice’s pre-occupations are thus understandable. Working with her grandfather to try and solve fiendishly difficult enciphered texts, she is also entrusted with a locket containing a fragment of code that even in the present day, at the PopCo retreat, she does not understand. Part of the charm of these sections is relating to Alice as she tries to reconcile her unusual life with the rigours of growing up – it’s difficult being a teenager at the best of times, but living with your grandparents and spending your evenings calculating prime factors instead of watching TV must make it that much harder.

The longer Alice spends at the PopCo retreat, the more her feelings of unease about its practices come in to focus – Thomas handles this very well, wanting us to arrive at the same conclusions as Alice at the same pace. When the contents of the mysterious coded messages turn out to have a connection not just to PopCo’s corporate tactics, but to the wider corporate world, Alice makes some interesting decisions about her future, and this provides the reader with plenty of food for thought. Later, the result of Alice solving the puzzle of the locket is revealed – but it’s done in such a way that those with the inclination (and a good scientific calculator) can still work it out for themselves before finding out how Alice did it.

PopCo is a great read, with Alice Butler a very engaging narrator – as you come to realise what an interesting and unusual person she is, I am sure you will warm to her as I did and share her parallel journeys of discovery with enthusiasm. The mathematical elements are presented in a way that’s easy for even innumerate people like me to follow, so don’t let them put you off – indeed, like me, you may even learn something. The only thing I would say is, read PopCo sooner rather than later. The subject matter is necessarily very driven by current technological and social trends, and what is very relevant now may mean those aspects of the book will feel rather dated in a few years time. Read PopCo now, while it feels as fresh and relevant as possible – I am sure you won’t be disappointed.

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