Sunday, October 21, 2012

Book Review: Daemon

Daemon is an amazing techno-crime thriller by Daniel Suarez, himself an IT consultant, that packs cutting edge gaming and networking with superb real world action to leave the reader breathless and hungry for more.

After legendary games developer Matthew A. Sobol dies of cancer, his brainchild, the Daemon, unleashes a war-by-proxy on the world, harnessing the collective power of millions of gamers playing his massively multi-user online game, to recruit his foot soldiers, and infiltrate thousands of corporate networks.

Detective Peter Sebeck is called in to investigate the death of two programmers working for the game developer CyberStorm Entertainment. When initial investigations into the murders-by-Internet point to Sobol, the FBI sends in a team to search his mansion. But Sobol's daemon unleashes a wave of terror on the team, killing all but one, using a deadly unmanned Hummer, and cutting edge weaponry the FBI has no idea how to control.

As government and security agencies flounder, the daemon takes over thousands of companies and provides financial and computing resources for creating AutoM8s (computer controlled driverless cars), Razorbacks (sword-wielding robotic riderless motorcycles, specifically designed as weapons) and other devices, terrorizing the world.

How do you catch and bring to justice a criminal who is already dead?

The Hummer scene is so beautifully written, you can visualize it in such vivid detail! The way the daemon executes its recruitment process, the description of the game play, both in the MMOG and in real life, is spot on, and leaves you hungry for more.

Daemon is a must read for fans of crime thrillers, and will be enjoyed and truly appreciated by IT-savvy readers, for it's clarity and authenticity when dealing with bits and bytes. An excellent subject for a movie, with potential of some truly amazing acion sequences that will thrill for years to come.

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