Great book!

It’s not often that I’ll start out a blog review like that…but this book really surprised me. The story was extremely well thought out, the characters likeable (or not, as appropriate), and the action kept the story moving along.

Now, I have to preface this by saying that this is a Geek novel. There are very specific references to computer hardware and protocols that would probably turn off non-Geeks. Fortunately, I am a Geek (Badge #L33T ;-), and I appreciated this book all the more for the accuracy of the technical details. Suarez is himself a computer security-type Geek, and that comes through in the detail of the book. It was like he was talking both of my primary languages (English and Geek).

Would this book appeal to non-computer types? Maybe. My wife is interested in reading it based on the parts of the book I’ve described. She’ll probably just gloss over the technical stuff that she wouldnt’ find interesting, which is probably fine. It’s not critical to following the story. In fact, you could probably remove it and the story would be fine. I could easily see a movie being made from this novel and the writers/director leaving out the technical details to increase mass market appeal.

So what is so appealing? It’s a typical What If? scenario. What if a computer genius invented a program (the “Daemon”) that could evolve and adapt to new scenarios to meet whatever goal was programmed into it? What if that program was spread across the Internet and couldn’t be eradicated by virus cleaners? And what if the creator of the program was a mad genius bent on changing social norms based on advanced technology?

That’s what this book is. It’s an excursion into a computer doomsday scenario–the typical AI takes over the world–but with so much thought put into it that you find yourself wondering if the Daemon is such a bad thing. Of course, killing people, which the Daemon has no problem doing, is bad…but is targeting evil corporations that make millions by swindling others, is that a bad thing?

That’s the cool part here. Imagine an evil corporation that is run by several generations of a single family and has a small board governing it. Who’s to stop that company from preying on the poor, the weak, the gullible? If it’s a private company, there’s no way to buy youself in. The best way in the door is through the computer. Take over the company’s computers, hold all of its information–and therefore, money–hostage…and you can do what you want with them.

And now, what if the creator was dead so that there’s no legal repurcussions possible and noone to tell you how to turn it off.

On top of that, throw in some other really cool, geeky stuff:

• A virtual reality that controls the meatspace
• Self-driving and autonomous cars
• Secrets to accessing the daemon’s virtual world hidden in maps in First Person Shooter games.

All that raving being said, there are a couple of bad points…but are they really bad? One, there’s a twist at the end that was a bit annoying. Two, that twist–and a couple of other important points–sets up the forthcoming sequel. I’m thrilled that there’s a sequel planned, but it feels like this book is too dependant upon it. I wanted a more definitive conclusion to this book.

Some have compared this book to some of Michael Crichton’s work…I guess that’s fair. But the two things I like better about this book than I do most of Crichton’s work are that 1) the technology is more accurate/believable (which I’m sure some will dispute) and 2) I don’t get the technophobe/”the world is going to end if I use a toaster” feeling that I always get from Crichton (particulary Prey). Of course, I’ll keep reading Crichton since they fall into my favorite genre…but given two books on my nightstand, I’d pick up the Suarez one first!

Daniel Suarez is definitely on my NewBookAlerts list!