Customer Reviews

Daemon

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Daemon incorporates many current and near-future technologies. Zeraus' vision of our use and misuse of technology is both intriguing and disconcerting. The author spins an exciting tale and all the while you're thinking, holy crap, is any of this actually possible? Or worse - maybe it's already here.

I visited the Daemon website and there is a page dedicated to many of the technologies used in this book. In fact, the website has a synthetic voice to guide you. It's hard to appreciate this until you've read Daemon. A female, British-accented speech module known only as 'The Voice' plays an integral role in the novel, and it's not your typical alien-sounding voice either. It's alarmingly realistic.

Here's a list of some relevant technologies used in the book:

MMORPGs (very creative use of Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games)
Voice Recognition/Synthetic Voice Systems
News-reading bots
Acoustical weaponry
Hypersonic Sound
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
Haptic clothing
Fab Labs
Digital Ink
GPS/Geo-caching

There's quite a bit more, but it's how the author rolls it all together to create something new and (at least for me) wholly unexpected that makes Daemon such a fascinating book. Buy it. Read it. You won't be disappointed.

As a computer professional I found the technology in this book believeable --which is it's most compelling feature. Whether one individual with a lot of know-how and money could pull off a scenario like this is debatable, but an entity (Government, corporation, etc.) certainly could which is what makes the moral underpinnings of the tale so important. I wish the author had spent more time on the implications of hitching our wagons to technological hegemonies in general and companies like Microsoft in particular. They aren't inherently evil, but as the book points out, a lack of diversity from an evolutionary standpoint has always been bad.

I loved the book and have bought 7 copies (so far) as gifts, but I rated it 4 stars because I think the author ran out of gas at the end and didn't make as strong of a moral statement as he tried to do. I can't say I am disappointed, but what could have been a classic and a great book seemed to suffer from over aggressive editing at the end and thus ends up as only a very good book which I highly recommend for the nerd. I would be interested to see what a literate non-nerd thinks of it.

The story is strong, but the writing isn't literature. If you liked this book, you'll love "Darwin Among the Machines" by Dyson; "Mind Children" by Hans Moravec might also interest you; and if you can still get your hands on it the classic cautionary morality tale in the computer industry is still "Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation" by Weizenbaum who asks the basic question: Just because we CAN do it, does it necessarily follow that we MUST or SHOULD do it?

Based on the back-cover blurb, I expected Daemon would be an interesting `high concept' techno-thriller, but this book floored me. Zeraus seems to have thoroughly researched the technology presented and combines it in ways that are exciting and terrifying. This book pulls you in and doesn't let go.

You might think you know where the story is going, but believe me: you don't. This book will surprise you countless times, and it will stay with you long after you finish it.

I liked this book a lot. The pacing and action were that of a popular novel -- the action scenes were some of the best I've ever read -- but the characters, descriptions and dialogue were much better than those in "airplane reads." The antagonists, both alive and dead, were particularly, fist-clenchingly nasty.

And the technology was spot on! For once an author was able to describe hacks using actual security back doors rather than simply bandying about buzzwords.

I have one quibble with the book, but as it involves a hefty spoiler, I'll spare you. But, yeah, very well done. I'll give it four stars simply because I feel five should be reserved for classics.

Buy it. Read it. Give it to a friend. I actually slapped myself on the forehead twice reading this thing.

I read Daemon in two nights and loved it! Unlike most mainstream thrillers, this one has a highly original story and interesting characters to boot. You really feel like you're exploring worlds you never knew existed. If you enjoy Neal Stephenson and some of Michael Crichton's EARLIER work, then chances are you too will love Daemon.

Wow! What a read! It's been a long time since a book hooked me so completely that I spent hours, maybe days, in my bathrobe compulsively reading rather than tending to my chores. At times I found myself pacing the floor trying to outwit or predict the Daemon's next move; sleepless, helpless, compelled to read on. When I did go out, Daemon came with me in the hope that I could snatch another page or maybe a chapter while waiting at the doctor's office, the soccer field, or just in a traffic jam.

The Daemon, an international techno-thriller of the highest breed, is NOT just another permutation of the typical thriller. It is fresh and current and compelling! Zeraus masterfully weaves complex cutting-edge gaming, internet security, and weaponry technologies into a believable, evolutionary tale which takes place in a global setting. (Check out the Daemon website for references on real modern-day weaponry and other technologies depicted in the book.)
I was chronically awed by Zeraus' ability to maintain a Terminator-like pace in a real-life scenario. No fairy tale here. Daemon consistently delivers layer upon layer of intelligent, witty, well-designed complexity in both its plot and characters. I never felt disappointed in either. Zeraus convincingly depicts both the light and dark aspects of his characters (Sobol, Gragg, Sebeck, Anderson, etc.), foisting another factor of believability into his story, as well as intrigue and mystery. All I can say is Daemon captured me in the same way it captured its heroes/villains in the book. And like them, I will never be the same. I stand on a precipice awaiting the sequel...

I'll be brief. I read a lot of genre fiction (thrillers, action-adventure, not-so-much fantasy) and I found this book to be fantastic. I'm not the sort of person to review a book or even post a review but I felt compelled to comment on Daemon after seeing a 1-star rating. If the Aug 14th reviewer had bothered to actually read the book they would have been pleasantly surprised. Daemon is fresh and insightful, especially commenting on the dangerous direction our world is headed (technologically speaking). Some of the best tech minds in the world have endorsed this book - it's realistic and very scary. And how irresponsible to review a book you haven't read! Daemon will do to the Internet what Jaws did to the water. Great book!

This book is a jarring wakeup call in the form of a story engaging enough to keep me up through the night. If you're like me and tended to dismiss gamers, hackers, and other subcultures as probably passing fads or otherwise below the noise, you won't after reading this. This book may not herald *the* future that is coming, but it certainly gives blinding insight into a kind of future that is likely... and may unexpectedly be the *best* kind of future we can hope for, given the alternatives our current trends could lead us to. Don't get me wrong, this book is not a cleverly-packaged lecture; it is a clean, tight, first-class story with very human (and unhuman) characters that raced, twisting, to a conclusion that left me dying to read Mr. Zeraus's next offering. This book will change the way you look at our society, and may lead you to rethink your positioning as it evolves.

Wow! This book rocks. The concept is very cool -- the death of multi-millionaire game designer Sobol sets into motion a complex series of hi-tech/computer driven murders, blackmails, assassinations, hostile take-overs, and even the economic destruction of entire nations. It's techno-armageddon time! The detective on the case, Sebeck, discovers that Sobol, using the latest technologies, is actually the man behind the evil that is happening. But how can he stop this guy when he's already dead? The author keeps the action moving at a rip-roaring, breakneck pace. The technologies and scenarios presented are fascinating and thought provoking. Characterizations are uniformly strong, especially engaging is the hacker Gragg. There are a large number of characters and intersecting plotlines so I had to backtrack once or twice to refresh, but I actually like that challenge in a novel. It will make you work a little bit to keep up. I will say that I felt the end came too abruptly for me. But all in all a really, really exciting, thought-provoking, and cutting-edge novel. It has left me wondering how secure we are in this computerized, networked world of ours -- could the stuff presented in Daemon actually happen, and are we really safe? Pretty scary to think about. Five stars.