A couple of weeks ago I got an interesting email out of the blue. My correspondent, Leinad Zeraus, wrote to say he has written a novel that Dæmon News readers might be interested in, and would I care to review the book? He included a short capsule of the plot, roughly the same as the back-cover blurb. I was intrigued, but so far I've not found most techno-thrillers all that interesting. Most pivot around some relatively trivial point the author somehow thinks is a big idea, and the actual writing is often not that great.
I'm happy to say this book suffers from neither of these failings; Zeraus' writing is refreshingly good. I read mysteries and history recreationally, and Zeraus has accomplished a feat I've not seen to date in a novel written by a technologist: he creates characters I care about. He also manages to come up with a couple of quotes worth keeping at hand, a sign of a truly good author. My favorite, which was immediately added to the quip database in Bugzilla at work:
Her new boss was an undead automaton from Hell, true, but no job was perfect.
Zeraus patiently develops several related characters that I came to like and loathe while keeping up the pace of the story. We learn who these characters are as the story unfolds, without any of the long biographical asides that seem to plague many techno thrillers. The author treats these characters in a very even-handed manner, offering their fears and motivations without forcing judgement on the characters. This is first rate story telling, especially for a first novel.
The technology is also first rate, plausible and predictable, timed in the very near future. The technologies he brings to bear in the novel are tools that are being developed right now to spam us and control our lives in ways we can only begin to fathom. Zeraus presents these technologies in a way that is understandable and frightening, though my greater fear is that the same toys will be employed against us daily by a far less organized but no less insidious onslaught of amoral marketeers and vendors.
I read this novel only a week after having finished Michael Crichton's Prey, so I was already in the "Frankenstein creates monster which then proceeds to eat him" headspace, where this novel is firmly planted. I enjoyed the story and I actually agree with the observations on society and technology espoused by the main protagonist in the story, Matthew Sobol, who ironically is dead when the story begins. If Bill Joy had been a game designer rather than just the author of an oddly popular text editor, he might actually be Sobol.
I don't agree with Sobol's proposed "solution" to the problem, but it does make for page-turning reading. The success and drive of the cast of misfits recruited by Sobol is somewhat incredulous. We call people misfits because they just don't fit anywhere, they can't or won't take direction, are unable to work towards goals regardless of the goals or the rewards offered, and are just too likely to act randomly to count on. Zeraus presents this crew as outsiders who have been mis-typed as misfits by society, but I don't buy the idea of society being redeemed by this cast of hooligans.
Now if we could just combine Zeraus' technical insight with Crichton's ability to understand the limitless lack of foresight in humanity, and especially with the priests of the technology religion, we'd have the perfect techno-thriller. Right now, we have Daemon available to us, and it is a fine, entertaining read.
