I came home after school to find the FedEx guy looking for an address… turns out it was for me! Just the other day I got an email from Dutton/Penguin (the publisher) stating that I won a free copy of Freedom, signed by the author. In case I haven’t stressed it enough: Daemon and Freedom are AWESOME! They are a great story..
Here’s a quick Youtube Video I shot as soon as I could.
Last June I posted my thoughts on a bood, Daemon by Daniel Suarez, a book which is about the revolutionary decisions made by a made a sick (as in ill, dying) computer programmer, Matthew Sobol, whom has made this daemon which upon his death begins terrorizing business and people. The book is reasonably computer savvy and talks about up-to-the-moment computer security issues, most controversially SQL injections. The technology in that book was reasonable, however somehow distant given it’s ease and lack of failure.
In this book, Freedom, the daemon continues, and in this (final) part of the story we see that the daemon has advanced from a niche terror to a social network which is almost entirely powered by the people on the “darknet.”
I started reading this book on January 7, the day it was first available on Kindle, and finished in less than 72 hours later, on Sunday night. I enjoyed the whole story, and will now go back to read the whole series again, probably next semester for english, knowing how it ends. If you want to know more you can check out this Google TechTalk with Daniel Suarez (Author) and the author’s site, thedaemon.com.
Freedom is available on:
More information from The Publisher (from Chapters)
The propulsive, shockingly plausible sequel to “New York Times” bestseller “Daemon,” the “Greatest. Techno-thriller. Period.”*
*William O’Brien, former director of cybersecurity and communications systems policy at the White House
2009 saw one of the most inventive techno-thriller debuts in decades as Daniel Suarez introduced his terrifying and tantalizing vision of a new world order. “Daemon” captured the attention of the tech community, became a national bestseller, garnered attention from futurists, literary critics, and the halls of government-leaving readers clamoring for the conclusion to Suarez’s epic story.
In the opening chapters of “Freedom(tm),” the Daemon is well on its way toward firm control of the modern world, using an expanded network of real-world, dispossessed darknet operatives to tear apart civilization and rebuild it anew. Civil war breaks out in the American Midwest, with the mainstream media stoking public fear in the face of this ‘Corn Rebellion’. Former detective Pete Sebeck, now the Daemon’s most famous and most reluctant operative, must lead a small band of enlightened humans in a populist movement designed to protect the new world order.
But the private armies of global business are preparing to crush the Daemon once and for all. In a world of conflicted loyalties, rapidly diminishing government control, and a new choice between free will and the continuing comforts of ignorance, the stakes could not be higher: hanging in the balance is nothing less than democracy’s last hope to survive the technology revolution.
I finished this book on Kindle for PC on December 29, and I loved it. Michael Crichton, in what seems to be a trend of his, touches on important issues. Of course the story itself is ficticious and many of the issues addressed are mere sci-fi for now, however in the near future, this will have been a warning. Next touches on genetic research (ethics & law) and genetic patenting.
This was the first book I read using Kindle for iPhone, and subsequently finished using Kindle for PC. Whenever I read a section I synced it up to Amazon and it was completely seamless to move between PC and iPhone, and presumably the Kindle (device).
I paid $8.39 USD for this Kindle book at Amazon. It was delivered instantly. I was happy.
Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? There’s a new genetic cure for drug addiction–is it worse than the disease?
What’s coming Next? Get a hint of what Michael Crichton sees on the horizon in this short video clip: high bandwidth or low bandwidth
We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps, a time when it’s possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars and to test our spouses for genetic maladies.We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes…
Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn.
Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and the bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.
The future is closer than you think.
This book costs, $8.39 at Amazon.com, and equates to 560 pages.
This is also available at Audible for $24.48 (or one credit) for ~14 hours of book.
5/5 for sure!