Interception [Paperback]

Graham Watkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1998

In a heavily guarded desert fortress, someone is secretly monitoring cyberspace--invading chat rooms, stealing information, and even changing e-mail between friends, lovers, and strangers. Now, Grant Kingsley, a horse trainer on a California ranch, and Andi Lawrence, a New York City psychologist, are entering cyberspace's most deadly abyss. Without knowing it, one of them has been chosen by the architect of a bizarre secret project--for a fate worse than death.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When a client disappears after leaving her husband and children for a man she met on the Internet, New York psychologist Andi Lawrence plunges into the digital world. Freighting his plot with a load of computer imagery (corridors, avatars, hub centers, teleporters, windows and chat rooms), Watkins (Virus) conjures up a nightmarish vision of technology run amok. Online, Andi "meets" Grant Kingsley, handsome widower and California horse trainer. Swapping e-mail (and quoting each other's lines at numbing length), they fall in love. ("You can't know what it means to see those words here on my screen.") When she flies to California to meet her lover, however, it is not Grant who turns up but handsome Colin, who, having intercepted Andi and Grant's letters, has substituted his own picture for Grant's. Colin is the mastermind and chief recruiter for a Singapore computer firm that turns young women into cyborg-like computer processors. Grant, helped by one of Colin's victims who has an unrequited crush on him, uncovers the evil scheme and sets out to free Andi from Colin's desert stronghold. Conveniently, Grant is an ex-Navy SEAL. After much violence, the good guys win. Watkins's novel is suitably suspenseful and spiked with some impressively horrid imagery. But the computer hell he envisions is too far-fetched to convince computerphiles and too bizarre to play effectively upon the fears of most computerphobes.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A third try at genre-jumping from computer/sex/romance/hi-techie Watkins (Virus, 1995, etc.)--a hokey, sentimental, but up-to-the-minute story of love, death, depravity, and software abuse on the Internet, Can one find true love on the Internet? Watkins dedicates his bouncy tale to those who have, informing us that the tender e-mail that he attributes to his fictional heroine Andrea Lawrence was actually written by his own wife during their Internet courtship. So it is foreordained that Lawrence, a beautiful psychologist curious about the addictive effect of Internet chat rooms, will, in the parlance of the Internet, hyperlink with Grant Kingsley, a rugged former Navy SEAL now working as a horse trainer on a California dude ranch. Lawrence is on the rebound from a bad relationship; Kingsley, a superdad to his teenage son Todd, is still haunted by his wife's death in a car accident. Kingsley and Lawrence meet in the Hall of Sadness, a computer-generated chat room with walls, doors, secret passageways and avatars--cartoon stand-ins that mask the chatters' identities. Nature, if not technology, would freely take its course for the lovers if not for Sue5, a part human/part computer intelligence enslaved by the sadistic boss of a supersecret hi-tech laboratory that kidnaps Internet lovers, literally plugs them into computers, and sells their services to businesses (and government organizations) that need lightning-fast data processing. Will true love help Kingsley and Lawrence escape being kidnapped by the villains and reduced to ``human interfaces''? Will love cause Sue5 to pity the pair, hack her boss to pieces, and help Kingsley use his SEAL talents to rescue Lawrence and blow the lab sky high? A passable fantasy that confuses technologically-assisted social pathology with a sane life. Too contemporary for science- fiction fans, and the reliably described Internet procedures are in danger of growing obsolete by the time the book reaches paperback. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 431 pages
• Publisher: Pinnacle (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786005858
• ISBN-13: 978-0786005857
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,326,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Interception, November 14, 2009

By 

Gail Rodgers "moonwishes" (North East, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Interception: An Internet Thriller (Hardcover)

This is a book that anyone who thinks they have found 'love' via the internet needs to read. Obviously what happened to the characters in this book won't or at least shouldn't be happening, but it will help you perhaps step back a minute and think about what do you really know about this person other than the nice stuff they were willing to tell you. Have you found out if they smoke, are vegetarians, vote Democrat or absolutely love NASCAR racing and you can't stand any of these things? This was a very interesting book with a unique angle.

4.0 out of 5 stars Interception by Graham Watkins, July 31, 2008

By 

Brenda B. (Kansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Interception (Paperback)

Fascinating story of a female psychologist looking into the (then new) phenomenon of online dating and romance. After a patient's spouse leaves their marriage for a new love found online, Dr. Andi Lawrence decides to find out more about the online romance idea. The man she meets online, and decides to meet in person, don't seem to be the same guy. Maybe this online dating thing is for other people, or maybe there's a lot more unseen going on in cyberspace!

4.0 out of 5 stars Didn't think that I would like it, March 18, 2000

By 

R. Hall "mettadesigns" (St Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Interception (Paperback)

My boss read this book and told me that I just had to read it. I didn't think that I would like it, but it suprised me. I thought that it was going to go into a different direction, but the ending suprised me. The two main characters were well written. I thought that it was a little difficult to believe love on the internet, but it is a work of fiction after all. It also shows me that there are some strange people out there that are willing to go to any lengths to destroy people and the world around them. I would recommend this book to anyone that would like a something different to read. It will open your mind.