Daemon - Hardcover

Suarez, Daniel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525951113 ISBN 13: 9780525951117

Publisher: Dutton Adult, 2009

Synopsis

In a near-future run by thousands of autonomous computer programs that control the world's wireless networks, a dormant program activates in the wake of a legendary game designer's premature death and launches a sinister effort to dismantle society and enforce a new world order. 60,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

DANIEL SUAREZ is the author of the New York Times bestseller Daemon, Freedom�, and Kill Decision. A former systems consultant to Fortune 1000 companies, Mr. Suarez has designed and developed software for the defense, finance, and entertainment industries. His fiction focuses on technology-driven change, and he is a past speaker at TED Global, NASA Ames, the Long Now Foundation, and the headquarters of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. An avid gamer and technologist, he lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Reviews

For now, Daniel Suarez will have to be content with the inevitable comparisons to Michael Crichton and Neal Stephenson; in the publishing world, there are certainly worse fates. To be sure, Suarez's ability in Daemon to push all the right buttons regarding technology and its potential for misuse suggests a writer with a bright future. If word-of-mouth publicity is any indication (there's already strong demand for the sequel, which is due in 2010), the rigors of self-publishing are already a distant memory for Suarez. Daemon is genre fiction meant to be devoured, not savored. "Henry James fans may shudder," the Dallas Morning Newspoints out, "but the result is an almost perfect guilty-pleasure novel that passes briefly through a pulp-bound larval stage before morphing into the Big Action Movie it was meant to be."
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Starred Review. Originally self-published, Suarez's riveting debut would be a perfect gift for a favorite computer geek or anyone who appreciates thrills, chills and cyber suspense. Gaming genius Matthew Sobol, the 34-year-old head of CyberStorm Entertainment, has just died of brain cancer, but death doesn't stop him from initiating an all-out Internet war against humanity. When the authorities investigate Sobol's mansion in Thousand Oaks, Calif., they find themselves under attack from his empty house, aided by an unmanned Hummer that tears into the cops with staggering ferocity. Sobol's weapon is a daemon, a kind of computer process that not only has taken over many of the world's computer systems but also enlists the help of superintelligent human henchmen willing to carry out his diabolical plan. Complicated jargon abounds, but most complexities are reasonably explained. A final twist that runs counter to expectations will leave readers anxiously awaiting the promised sequel. (Jan.)
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The homicidal computer program in this action-packed, cyber-thrill debut—originally self-published under a pseudonym by software developer Suarez—makes HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey seem as benign as the voice in your car’s GPS. The untimely death of brilliant computer-game-designer Matthew Sobol causes a software program, the eponymous Daemon, to be released onto the Internet, where it quickly propagates and begins to carry out his convoluted plans for humanity. The Daemon recruits disaffected techno-savvy slackers as its minions, steals cutting-edge technology (including remote-controlled motorcycles equipped with deadly rotating knives) from classified government databases, manipulates financial markets to raise the funds for its nefarious schemes, and cleverly uses the media to thwart the authorities (some of whom are just as villainous as the Daemon). This thrill-a-nanosecond novel is certainly faithful to the techno-traditions of the late Michael Crichton and should delight not only readers of the “science gone awry” genre but general adventure readers as well. Too bad it’s not being published in the summer; Daemon would certainly have qualified as a beach-read blockbuster. --Michael Gannon

Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525951113
• ISBN 13: 9780525951117
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448