Review: Daemon

Daemon by Daniel Suarez

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Fantastic read! A lot of fun, intense action and techno-suspense. I'd like to thank Jeff for recommending this book to me.

Take the basic Terminator plotline of a supercomputer and sublimate that AI into a yes/no program that has been programmed by a genius now dead and see what it can do. If the programmer is smart enough, it can do almost anything.

And Sobol is a world class genius. It is fascinating to see all that he planned before he died. He recruits the right people for his cause and makes use of their training in various areas. It was kind of scary actually, to see the plan unfold.

Then you have the opposing team. A police detective, a mystery hacker, a government woman authorized to take the Daemon down. All interacting, failing and being overwhelmed. And seeing the almost inevitable march of the daemon is great. It gave me a sense of doom, which is hard to do.

The couple of things that kept it from being a 5star. Technobabble out your ears! I'm sure it is accurate, as Suarez thanks some programmers/hackers at the end of the book, but it become a little overwhelming. A scene of an underage girl being drugged and used for a sex video. Not "super" graphic, but graphic enough that it stood out in my mind. And finally, the completely overwhelming'ness of Sobol/Daemon. It was just too smart imo. Several times I felt like it was the bogeyman with unlimited threat power.

One warning. It does end on a cliffhanger, so make sure you have the sequel, [b:Freedom (TM)|7132363|Freedom (TM) (Daemon, #2)|Daniel Suarez|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347579092s/7132363.jpg|7394861], on hand.



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