‘Although ostensibly set in a near-future setting of Boston and London, circa 2022, Eastern Standard Tribe overtly collapses the distinctions between the imagined technologies of the fictional spaces and the existing technologies of the contemporary world. Reality is (science) fiction; (science) fiction is reality. In other words, the issues Doctorow explores in the novel — issues of creative licensing and control, peer interaction, and a new technologicity — are extensions of the issues Doctorow tackles in the various facets of his professional career and the very production/distribution of his work.’

— Graham J. Murphy, 2006, ‘Somatic Networks and Molecular Hacking in Eastern Standard Tribe’, Extrapolation, Vol. 48 (1), p. 122