Customer Reviews

The Digital Plague (Avery Cates)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I originally got this book as one of those "Buy 5 books for .99 cents" deals when I chose the books I did want to get; I was left with one book left to get. I chose this book because it seemed interesting, but I expected it to be bad. I was wrong. The book takes place in a unified world under one government that came to power many decades before the book. Even though this book takes place in the near future, the world hasn't changed for the better.

Many cities have become black ash ridden, with pitch black goo running in place instead of river water. New York is one of the last cities that are in semi "normal" shape with the rich population in the north, and the poorer people living below the rich area.

New York is where the story starts out with the protagonist Avery Cate's, a crime legend where he lives, with over 30 cops being killed by him, along with many other crime members. His luck takes a turn for the worse and he is captured by people in masks with their voices suppressed by mechanical devices and they have captured him for a reason, which is explained later in the story.

This book has a ton of violence, cussing, and detailed gory scenes. It's a great book for dystopian lovers and it has many great twists. It has a good amount of pages, and it kept me wanting to read more after the book ended. The story has many diverse, interesting characters that you can tell change through-out the story.

Overall, it's a must buy if you like dystopia's, violence, and great story telling. It does remind me of the book The Plague, but it's different enough to keep you interested if you have already read that book. It is worth every penny.

~ Written: 2009

Positives
* Great story
* Lots of violence
* Many twists
* A page turner
Negatives
* A slow start at first, but picks up

This is Jeff Somers' second outing to the future, and a bleak future it is. All of the world's nations were "unified" approximately 20 years before the opening of his prior Avery Cates novel - The Electric Church - which seems to have started a death spiral down the toilet.

Putting together the clues from this and the prior novel, it seems that some cities, including Paris and Newark, have been entirely abandoned, while others - such as New York City - which is the stomping ground of Avery Cates, the anti-hero of "The Digital Plague" and "The Electric Church - appears to have become radically divided between 10% haves - who have all kinds of wonderful technologies - and the 90% have-nots - who can't find a job and are part of a grisly underground economy where life is nasty, brutal and short, and where Cates at age 36 is long past his expiration date. In such a brutal world, order is tenuously maintained by the System Police, aka "System Pigs," who brutal when they are not corrupt.

In the prior novel, we saw Cates claw his way to the top of the garbage heap and become something of a player in affairs when he was commissioned to take out the mastermind of the "Electric Monks" - cyborged religious fanatics who just may refashion the world in their image. As a result of his prior mission, Cates achieves a few years on the top of the heap prior to the opening of this novel. Unfortunately for him, his mission against the Electric Monks left a few loose ends.

As a result of one of those loose ends, Cates becomes infected with a "digital plague" - an artificially created nano-technological virus - that threatens to put paid to the human race. Although Cates is "patient zero," he and anyone standing within 50 feet of him are immune - thus far - to the effects of the nano-virus. This give Cates the opportunity and incentive to investigate, while hampering him with a series of ad hoc partners who do not want to lose sight of him.

The story resolves itself satisfactorily and logically. Cates seems to mature during the story, becoming more concerned with the fate of other people and humanity itself during the storyline than we thought was part of his character in "The Electric Church, although he retains the stock "screw you world" attitude that is typical of this and the "urban fantasy" genres, which tends to make for unsympathetic lead characters.

It seems that Somers is working on a deeper themes and a more intricate puzzle than appeared to be the case in the opening book. Clues are introduced in "The Digital Plague" that the world is in worse shape than we imagined. On the one hand, electronic entities - "droids" - are doing the work that humans once did, thereby reducing humans to a choice between joing the police to oppress the unemployed or becoming part of the unemployed, but, on the other hand, it is beginning to look like some of the really key players may look at bodies as a convenience.

Because I thought that Somers' imagined future became denser, thicker and more interesting, and that he is hinting at puzzles he will explore in future instalments, I am giving this five stars, albeit I would back it off by a half star if given that opportunity.

I did really love the 1st book, it was interesting and I couldn't put it down. I did like this one as well, but it did feel a little weak compared to the 1st, it also took me much longer time to read this one, and it was harder to get absorbed into it.
It seemed like certain events went on too long, and when the antagonist is revealed, it seemed like it should have been a little more impacting than it was.
It did seem like an important link for the storyline, and would have been awkward to skip it to the 3rd book.
And I'm actually planning to read the 3rd, as this one does leave you with a painful cliffhanger :[

I would suggest this if you want to read more of the series, and your planning to read all the books.
But if you haven't read the 1st book I would suggest so, it was a fun read c:

After reading *The Electric Church*, I, like many other readers, craved a sequel. This one does not disappoint. In my opinion, in contrast to some other readers, *The Digital Plague* was every bit as entertaining as its predecessor. I look forward to *The Eternal Prison*, which I plan to read soon.

I had a bad cold while reading this second Avery Cates novel. Every time that my chest got itchy and I'd start coughing, hacking and heaving... miserable with tears and worse streaming down my face. At least I wasn't in Cates shoes. This blazingly fast paced kicker of a novel will make your greatest worries and trials (and colds) seem like a bowl of cherries in comparison. Kind of like putting Dan Simmons' Joe Kurtz, Phillip Dick's Deckard (Bladerunner) and Richard Morgan's Kovac into a really efficient meat grinder. Fast and Fatal, you won't have time to even think about regretting buying this book.

Great adventure. You must read the first book first or this sequel will make no sense.

The plot to The Digital Plague has been recounted in several other reviews, so I won't recap it in this one.

While I thought that The Digital Plague was a decent read, it wasn't as good as The Electric Church. I thought that The Electric Church was a great read, so feeling that The Digital Plague was a bit of a letdown may not be entirely fair to it. Nevertheless, I felt that some of the newer characters didn't mesh as well as those from The Electric Church, and that the exposition in this book was longer and handled a bit less artfully.

It's a good book that has the misfortune of carrying on a story from a great book. The Digital Plague is still definitely worth it, but comparisons with the first installment are inevitable.

There is good news, however: I'm coming back around to write this reivew after reading and reviewing the third book in this series, The Eternal Prison. The pacing and characters pick up considerably in the next book, bringing the story back to form.

While still able to keep you guessing, this book isn't as exciting as the first one. Again, a quick read, but kind of disappointing once you've gotten to know Cates from the first book.

simplistic plotline, no new drama worth delving deeper into. all characters were already known. still, a third installment will be read if it comes out.

Science and technology combine for another intriguing cyber-noir read from Jeff Somers.

On his knees with a gun to his head, Avery Cates thought this would be his execution. Instead, he is injected with nanotech, which is infecting everyone who crosses his path - unless they stay within a certain distance.

Who did it, why, and how to stop the deaths are far from easy to answer - and it's even more difficult to cope when the dead don't stay dead. From New Jersey to Paris to New York, one thing's for certain: the Electric Monks are sticking close. Avery's battle with them is far from over. And, hopefully, so is this series.

It took me a while to realise that this is set more than five years (estimate) since THE ELECTRIC CHURCH ended, and it may mean something that the appendix was easier to follow than the actual story. Still, at least the author has interesting concepts and characters that I haven't really come across before. Reading the first two books in this series on the trot, it's kind of annoying that I now have to wait for THE ETERNAL PRISON's circa-July 2009 release. The good news is there's a teaser of it at the back of THE DIGITAL PLAGUE, and it sounds a treat.

This series may be hard on the brain, but if you pay attention and keep focused, it has its rewards.