Daemon

Tl:dr;I sat down with this book after a rave review from a friend and was ready for a realistic technological murder mystery. And the first few chapters definitely started out alright. It had this wonderful Ready Player One vibe going for it. And then the plot b-lined off a cliff and careened into a canyon. It may have been the worst book I've read in the last 5 years, given I've only ever been motivated to write such a negative review once before in that time frame.## The characters.Are so flat and stereotypical its not even funny. You've got GI Joe, Barbie, Asian Scientist Woman, and Old Detective. But just for fun, lets call out these few in particular...Brian Gragg: is just despicable. And I don't mean in a "guy you love to hate" sort of way. He is literally just bad. I think he is meant to appear psychotic and deranged so that we clearly know who the "bad guy" is in the book. Ultimately giving us some catharsis when he's beaten at the end. Maybe even add a little bit of flare, for us to realize at the last second he was just misunderstood and we've made a big mistake. Nope. He's just "evil" and in fact he isn't beaten. Instead He is rewarded and somehow given power, fame, money, and control. Its a strange choice to put so much focus on this unlikable character and then do nothing with it.Charles Mosely: The token black guy. Yep, its as bad as you think.The Daemon: Is presented as both simultaneously the simplest script and most complex AI at the same time. That is, it can only understand binary "yes" or "no" input and works based on scraping RSS feeds, yet at the same time can navigate and control thousands of autonomous vehicles with near millimeter precision racing 100 miles per hour through a busy city. Tip to the author, that's not how to make a round character. That's just being inconsistent. At least the daemon has a goal. Kinda. Destroy and rebuild society - you know, exactly what a deranged computer game designer would want from the world. It accomplishes that goal by murdering thousands, destroying the lives of thousands more, and to top it off pretty much enslaving all the rest of humanity. We are actually expected to be rooting for the virus at the end of the book, I know. I couldn't believe it either.## The plot.There is a computer virus. It is bad. None of the good guys can stop it. But maybe its actually a /good/ virus. Whoa ho ho, surprise! The end. That is precisely the extent of story line. There is no mystery to uncover, nor any part of the book that leaves you guessing on the edge of your seat. There is no complexity in the interaction of characters, nor any reason they would be working for/against one another. The cause and effect of events are incredibly limited in scope. Overall what a bore to get through.One of the defining factors of this book is how "realistic" its supposed to be. How our own society could be overrun by a rampant computer virus written by a genius. That our consumption of 24-hour news streams, or lauding of video games, or dependence on the internet will be our own downfall. But I couldn't buy into the belief for even 5 minutes. Sure, our current technology landscape has weaknesses, but come on.- People aren't going to just start killing each other at the first sign of trouble, people actually /don't/ want civil war.- The FBI/CIA/DOD all working together aren't a bunch of dawdling idiots, they could come up with better solutions than "just turn off the internet."- "Because the stock market would crash" is not an acceptable answer to the (repeated question) "why can't we stop the daemon?"- Video games don't train you to be a covert assassin or teach you how to manufacture explosives.- Encryption can't be cracked like /that/.- Driverless motorcycles can't wield katanas like ninjas.That last one actually happened. The last third of the book really jumps the shark.There are so many dumb plot points I could go into as well, but I wanna focus on my favorite. In the final chapters there is a metaphor of rebirth. Dunno if you caught that. You know, after detective Sebek /died/ and then was /reborn/. And the daemon appears in front of him like a god. Just making sure that wordplay didn't go over your head. The chapter was titled rebirth too, in case it wasn't clear. This is the turning point, when one of the main characters (psst, and the reader!) are supposed to realize the truth of everything. Lay it on thick. Maybe that will make it more convincing. Wait, it won't? Oh.## The author.Did he do /any/ research at all before writing? I mean, I can excuse some of the technical blunders if he has a background in the military, or visa versa, or whatever. But this reads like someone who has watched too much TV decided they wanted to write a book. Immediately they sat down in front of a word processor, pumping out page after page, until about 4 days later with no sleep they finally finished and shipped it off to a publisher. Which, okay, fine, have some fun and write what you want. But don't try to sell it off as a realistic technology murder mystery, if it has none of those elements!Last and probably most importantly, this book is clearly full of dog whistling. The "natural" hierarchy of society. The Nazi sympathizing. The focus on the economy as power. Racism, sexism, and fascination with guns. The author tries to hide it by making the characters, gasp, atheists. But wow there is a lot buried in there that speak volumes about what this author thinks - and it isn't pretty.## Wrap upThere is so much more wrong with this book. I didn't even get into the red herrings regarding Russia, the fascination with drugs/hypnosis/mind control, or the dumb "romance" sub plots. But unlike this book, I know when I've gone on too much. So all in all, don't bother reading.

The technical details are very well researched, thought out, and realistic, but the characters are very flat and remind me a bit of the type of characters in a 70s cop TV show. Unfortunately I could not care about them, with the laudable exception of Agent Roy "Tripwire" Merritt during his ill-fated stay at the mansion. Well, coming to think of it, Brian Gragg was a well-developed character, although obviously no one can care about *him* :-).I stuck with the book for quite a while, and then one day I realized I hadn't opened it for longer than a month... that's when I realized I wasn't going to finish it.

Had I stopped reading this book at about the halfway mark, I would have given it 4 stars, maybe even 4 and a half. Good premise. Many of the things were plausible and I could go with that. AI has made great advances from the days I worked in it. But then, the last part of the book just got crazy. First, it was how much destruction can we put in. It was like one of the movies where they put in as much carnage, destruction, crashes and explosions as the budget will allow. Action. Then, hundreds of cars that can be directed to seek out individuals and kill them. And all of this preplanned by the ultimate gamer who died early due to cancer. Read the first half of the book and then quit. You'll have a good read and miss all the foolishness.

Five stars are really not enough for a book like this. The plot and character development are not outstanding, but the story idea is so original that it alone is worthy of a Hugo or Nebula award. There are plenty of science fiction scenarios about a computer taking over the world; this story explores the more realistic and plausible scenario of not an actual computer, not an actual artificial intelligence, but simply a cleverly written program that can infect the world's computers and take them over. It's also a story that makes you stop and think about how every aspect of our lives is now impacted by computerized technology, and how easy it is for rogue actors to control that technology and thus control us. If that happens, will we resist, or will we submit to the Daemon? Before you answer, consider the technology that controls your bank account, your medical and employment records, your very identity. You might be surprised at how quickly you surrender to the Beast.

Here is technologically elaborate story by a reasonably good writer, which is marred, in my opinion, by a climax so over-the-top as to be ridiculous. Readers can make up their own minds, of course, but I would say the story could have retained its integrity far better if Suarez had resisted the urge to pen another Mission: Impossible-esque Hollywood finale that eclipses much of what went before. Will I read the sequel? I haven't decided yet... P.S. Ok, now I've decided: Having read the meager "sample" granted by Amazon, I have to say thumbs down on the sequel. Oh well...

Daemon is a great read, grounded in real technology stretched to a foreseeable horizon. Suarez clearly knows his way around modern computer systems and never relies on the wizardry as science so often seen in modern post-cyberpunk cyberpunk.This book reads like a darker, more grounded "Ready Player One", soaked in the modern era rather than the eighties. It asks a lot if the reader, first and foremost to care that bits are agency in our society but also to contemplate the morality of automated decisioning and the abdication of control we often take for granted.All summed, the story has its cliches and hickups but they are more a comforting spoon of sugar to help swallow the fact that Daemon is, in many ways an allegorical tale of the world we are building. This book is not for you. It is about you. It is about a plausible direction the world we are building could go.More importantly, it is fun.

This book was a complete surprise, an excellent read. When I read this originally the technology described was in early stages of development and had limited use in the modern world, but now loads of it used to this day.The book was almost foretelling events to come!The story was interesting and kept me reading, which I found especially impressive as I usually read high/ epic fantasy.If you are into modern style SciFi and technology novels I do recommend this, even if you aren't this is worth a read or at least a try.

Again, I was surprised by the condition of this book which came in the same package as my previous purchase. Very disappointed - especially as the other ones I had just received from Brit-Books were in such good condition - as again it was not as described and was in a scruffy state with very creased covers. As with my previous purchase, this was intended to be a Christmas present but giving a book in such a bad state would have been an insult, so have had to buy something else. Disappointing, as I had always had good service from this seller in the past.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book (and the sequel), I was gripped from the first chapter.The first three quarters of the book use current-day technology, with a lot of the gadgets, AI scripts and plot devices being very plausible indeed. They're used in refreshingly novel ways too - sci-fan fans will have seen some of the ideas before but there is an abundance of fresh ideas too.The plausibility can be demonstrated well by some of the predictions already coming true - the recent emergence of Google Glass being an obvious example. Did Suarez invent the concept of augmented reality linked to the web? Of course not, but the use of such devices within the context of this technothriller is smoothly done.Do you have to be a geek to enjoy this book? I'm pretty sure you don't - but gamers and readers with more than a passing interest in IT are likely to get more out of it. The way Artificial Intelligence is portrayed for example, is dealt with using current state of the art (at least earlier on), rather than the more usual super AIs of sci-fi set further into the future, which is refreshing.Towards the later chapters, modern-tech takes a back seat and some of the gadgets and powers of the Daemon border on the silly (I can't see the Razorbacks being in any way practical for example) but by this time you're having far too much fun to care. Partly this is because of the exciting and thought provoking plot, but it's helped immeasurably by interesting, amusing and engaging characters.This is a book that adopts a biting, cynical view of the Western US-centric world, which will either ring very true or potentially offend depending on your sensibilities. Either way, it will make you think, which is always laudable.By the way, there are no problems with the Kindle formatting. I shouldn't really have to say this, but sadly it's not always the case even with modern books.I don't know if I will review the sequel, but in case I don't, I'd give that five stars too - favourite characters get even more interesting and the ending is truly satisfying (how often can you say that?!).

This was an interesting story and started off very captivating, there were however several techie speak sentences which were not explained and assumed you knew what TCP/IP was for example. But it's not too tech heavy to maybe confuse non-tech readers. I found the last section to be a little bit far fetched to an otherwise good storyline. The story however does not end so you will need to continue on to the sequel books.

The plot is amazing and the themes explored are quite interesting. The technological descriptions were great, and I loved the fact that the book remained tech-focused to the end. Towards the end it started to feel like science fiction, but I think it suited the plot, so I did not mind it. People who are not tech-savy should be prepared to have to lookup concepts used in the book, since a lot of times the author assumes the reader has knowledge of the technology or event being described. I did not find this as a disadvantage, but other people might.The only thing I did not like were the cliches - a lot of the interactions and scenes in the book felt overused already, like pulled out of a boring TV series.Overall a very interesting concept, realised in a captivating way.