Daemon 395
stoolpigeon writes "Have you ever been reading a book or watching a film and as the plot moves to involve some use of technology you begin to brace yourself, and the cringe as you are ripped out of the story by what is an obviously ignorant treatment of matters you know well? Do you find the idea of creating a "gui interface using visual basic" to see about tracking an ip address as more fit for a sitcom rather than crime drama? And if so, have you ever wondered what it would be like if one of us, a geek, wrote a techno-thriller? What if someone who grokked our culture and understood our tech wrote something? Would it be great, or would it just get bogged down in the techno babble?" Keep reading for the rest of JR's review.
It is not necessary to wonder any longer. Database consultant, geek and now author Daniel Suarez has stepped up to the plate with his effort Daemon and he does not disappoint. This is a techno-thriller with a healthy dose of techno but absolutely zero let down on the thrill. The story gains momentum rapidly and then never lets up. I had a terrible time trying to put it down, eventually just giving up and plowing through in an all nighter. It was worth it. Daemon | |
author | Daniel Suarez |
pages | 448 |
publisher | Dutton Adult |
rating | 10/10 |
reviewer | JR Peck |
ISBN | 978-0525951117 |
summary | A techno-thriller with a healthy dose of techno but absolutely zero let down on the thrill |
The story of Daemon's beginnings has already been documented by Wired. Suarez had Daemon finished in 2004 but literary agents found it to be too long and complex. Rather than give up, Suarez pushed ahead on his own and took the self publishing route. The book slowly built up a following and began to be trumpeted by the likes of Feedburner's Rick Klau and Google's Matt Cutts. And sales of the book grew and now it is available via traditional publishing channels with a hard back release in January of 2009.
The book introduces us to Matthew Sobol, genius software engineer and creator of one of the world's most popular MMOs. Sobol is dead when the book begins, having succumbed to brain cancer. But it quickly becomes apparent that while Sobol has moved on out of this life, his code has lived on and his death has triggered events that rapidly take a life of their own. Sobol's code is working so some unknown end and murder is part of the program.
Suarez may push the envelope at times but his deft handling of current tech and the possibilities is at times frightening. There isn't really much here that isn't very possible right now. At no point will a child sit down at a terminal where the operating system is run by flying through a bunch of 3-d buildings surrounded by network traffic that looks like it is flying about. But there are young people, capable and knowledgeable of current tools and vulnerabilities. People who may not fit into society but who are willing to engage in activities that they believe will build a society of their own.
Of course this is fiction and there are some leaps. But the story is so skillfully woven that the reader is never jarred out of it by some glaring error or lapse in understanding. It's easy to slip into what is an incredibly energetic ride all the while thinking, "This could happen." In fact the only real issue I had with the plot was as I thought about the book after I had finished it. Things work out so well for Sobol's software, and that is the biggest stretch for me. I've worked for and with some extremely bright people, but none have ever engineered systems that could achieve such complex goals unattended. That aside, this is an amazing story.
This book really brought back to me the sense of joy I felt in the 80's when I first began to work with personal computers. It was that sense of infinite possibilities brought on by this new technology. I've grown a bit jaded to it all over the years since then. Daemon brought a lot of that rushing back.
And while all the tech aspects of this story are solid, they do not make the story itself. The whole crazy adventure is pushed along by solid characters. These are well written, very real human beings. They are fully fleshed out people with strengths and weaknesses spread out between protagonist and antagonist alike. There are no super heroes and really no super villains, though at times it comes close on both accounts. These characters are locked in an extraordinary series of events that are at times pulling them along and at others they are the ones pushing things forward. Dialogue is believable and well written. All of that is what ultimately makes this such a satisfying and fun read. The tech trappings are just the bonus payoff for the true geek that has been waiting for a story like this.
People who are on the outside, the non-techie types may find this book confusing and hard to understand. That relative that calls you and asks what happened to their toolbar in word that seems to have disappeared may not really get this book. But anyone who spends an appreciable time in our world on-line and plugged in may just find this to be the most entertaining book that they have read in a very long time.
You can purchase Daemon from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
CSI NY (Score:5, Informative)
Do you find the idea of creating a "gui interface using visual basic" to see about tracking an ip address as more fit for a sitcom rather than crime drama?
In case you were wondering, that happened in CSI NY recently. Truly cringe-worthy.
Some other examples (Score:5, Informative)
There is already some other fiction written by authors with in-depth knowledge of computers.
* In Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson computers and computer hackers are portrayed pretty accurately.
* Atrocity Archive by Charles Stross is obviously written by someone who knows computers and most of all sysadms very well. Although I really hope that he doesn't know what he is talking about when it comes to using computers to summon demons from the fractal dimensions... :)
Re:Some other examples (Score:2, Informative)
Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll
Re:Review or Advert? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm an IT guy - and I like to read. I really enjoyed this book, more than I've enjoyed anything like it in quite a while. So I wanted to share that enthusiasm.
It's not cut and pasted from anywhere - I wrote it myself. I don't have a 'hard-on' for the author. I've never met him but he did do a good job with this book. I probably am sympathetic to the path he took to gaining a broad audience with self publishing.
So I'm not really sure just what you want to say - but hopefully this helps you to better understand where I am coming from since you seem unsure.
Re:CSI NY (Score:5, Informative)
Well yeah, because they'd already put a lot of attention to detail into it! For instance if you recall, at the beginning of the movie his bat costume was bullet proof, but not dog proof, and he had to make the very realistic sacrifice of mobility to gain the all-important dog-proofing.
Re:Nope. Never. (Score:5, Informative)
Never go full retard (again).
Re:Nope. Never. (Score:5, Informative)
Or the more common reason.. book publishers, just like movie and music, are highly risk adverse. They want more of the same, books that read exactly like the books they have already published. So if you have something geared twards a small group or there is something else unusual about your book your chances of getting published are pretty low, esp since as pointed out there will be 99 other writers who do write books that mimic older ones. Quite a few of the best authors got turned down by publishers over and over because they were not following some trend or assumption, until some small (or self) publisher was willing to take a risk on them.
Re:Some other examples (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Nope. Never. (Score:3, Informative)
Halting State was a terrific little crime novel with Really Cool stuff in it. But all the Cool Kids are reading The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. A hacker is recruited by British Military-Occult Intelligence after his new fractal rendering program almost summons Nyarlathotep.
Here's A Colder War [infinityplus.co.uk] which recasts the Cold War era with weaponized Eldritch Horrors and such. It's sort of a prototype for the Atrocity Archive series.