[bksvol-discuss] Next Meeting of the Science Fiction Club, Thursday, October 11, 2012
- From: "Evan Reese" <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Bob Acosta" <boacosta@xxxxxxxxxxx>, "SF list" <scifi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:28:20 -0400
Hello Folks,
We had another good turnout at our most recent meeting. The reviews of our
book, Crossover by Joel Shepherd, were decidedly mixed.
For our next book, we've chosen something much closer to home in both space and
time than our last two books, Daemon by Daniel Suarez.
The next meeting of the Science Fiction club will be on Thursday, October 11,
2012.
Place, Book Nook at:
http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs7867a2369e0e
Time: 9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central, 7 PM Mountain, 6 PM Pacific, and 01:00 UTC..
Our book, Daemon by Daniel Suarez is available from both BARD and Bookshare.
The link to the BARD version is at:
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.68916
and the Bookshare version is at:
https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/92951
Here's the NLS synopsis:
Thousand Oaks, California. A computer-game
designer's death launches a powerful program that wreaks
havoc on CyberStorm Entertainment. After a few deadly
mechanical accidents occur on the company's grounds, lead
detective Peter Sebeck races to prevent further destruction
and save lives.
The Bookshare long synopsis is as follows:
EXPERIENCE THE NEW WORLD ORDER. It controls almost everything in our modern
world,
from remote entry on our cars and the flight controls of our airplanes to the
movements
of the entire world economy. Thousands of simple and autonomous computer
programs,
or daemons, make our networked world possible, running constantly in the
background
of our lives. Daemons traffic e-mail. Daemons transfer money. Daemons monitor
power
grids. These daemons are pervasive and, for the most part, benign. But the same
can't
always be said for the people who design them. Matthew Sobol was a legendary
computer
game designer-- the billionaire architect behind half a dozen popular online
games.
His premature death depressed millions of gamers around the world. But Sobol's
fans
aren't the only ones to note his passing. When his obituary is posted online, a
previously
dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events that may unravel the
fabric
of the hyperefficient, interconnected world Sobol left behind. With Sobol's
secrets
buried along with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed at every
turn,
it's up to an unlikely alliance to decipher his intricate plans and wrest the
world
from the grasp of a nameless, faceless enemy--or learn to live in a society in
which
we are no longer in control.
Finally, here is what Robin Cook says about the book, taken from Amazon's page
for Daemon:
Daemon is an ambitious novel, which sets out not only to entertain, which it
surely does,
but also to challenge the reader to consider social issues as broad as the
implications
of living in a technologically advanced world and whether democracy can survive
in
such a world.
The storyline portrays one possible world consequent to the development of the
technological
innovations that we currently live with and the reality that the author, Suarez,
imagines will evolve, and it is chilling and tense (on www.thedaemon.com the
reader
can find evidence that the seemingly incredible advances Suarez proposes could
in
fact become real).
Daemon is filled with multiple scenes involving power displays by the Daemon's
allies resulting
in complete loss of control by its enemies, violence with new and innovative
weaponry,
explosions, car crashes, blood, guts, and limbs-cut-off galore.
As far as computer complexity, Daemon
will satisfy any computer geek's thirst. I was thankful for Pete Sebeck, the
detective
in the book whose average-person understanding of computers necessitates an
occasional
explanation about what is going on. I came away from the novel with a new
understanding,
respect, and fear of computer capability.
In the end, Suarez invites the reader to enter the "second age of reason," to
think
about where recent and imminent advances in computer technology are taking us
and
whether we want to go there. For me, it is this "thinking" aspect of the novel
which
makes it a particularly fun, satisfying, and significant read.
Sounds like a good one on multiple levels, so I hope that lots of you will come
to our next meeting to talk about this exciting and thought provoking book.
Evan
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