Hey there all, well, hope to see you all at our next Science fiction book club meeting. the book we are reading is very thought provoking.
the times and place is mentioned below Original message:
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 <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 <http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.68916> and the Bookshare version is at:https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/92951 <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 whichwe 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 insuch 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 <http://www.thedaemon.com> the reader can find evidence that the seemingly incredible advances Suarez proposes could infact 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, Daemonwill 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 whichmakes 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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