This weekend I finished two books from Daniel Suarez – Daemon and it’s sequel Freedom. These are the first novels written by Daniel Suarez but at the same time best techno-thriller I have read. It was a 27+ hour listen (= read) from Audible but not for a single minute one looses interest in story. Page after page it was an exciting thriller that maintain the grip.
This is story about a computer daemon that is triggered after death of a genius game designer, Mathew Sobol. This book is the journey of the daemon; people who are trying to fight it and how our perception changes when new facts come in light. Sobel tries to take over the world by utilizing the game engine he has developed and which has matured over years. The book is fairly technical in terms of how things take place but author does an excellent job simplifying things. Sometimes there are complex things like API, Encryption algorithms, Buffer overflow, Dictionary hack etc but the book never goes beyond a level where common person cannot understand, but at the same time it uses all of the technologies perfectly.
These books not only cover technology but blends in the current scenarios, world politics, and financial situation very well. Daemon is trying to resolve the entire crisis and on other end there is a set of people who are trying to save themselves from this deamon. The best part about book is Daniel Suarez makes everything believable. He is always using commercially available technologies in a creative way, which makes us think that its not far when we see some of the things he is talking about in book.
As one of the reviewers wrote, these books are Dan Brown’s books done right and I fully agree with that viewpoint. I would rate it 5/5 and highly recommend to all fiction (not only sci-fi) readers.
As always Hollywood has jumped over this story and planning to make a movie, I am glad Walter Parkes of Wargames fame is involved in the project.
