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Kill Decision [Hardcover]

Daniel Suarez
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (124 customer reviews)

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Book Description

July 19, 2012
The shocking techno-thriller that cements Daniel Suarez’s status as the heir to Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy—a terrifying, breathtaking, and all-too-plausible vision of the world’s near future.

Unmanned weaponized drones already exist—they’re widely used by America in our war efforts in the Middle East. In Kill Decision, bestselling author Daniel Suarez takes that fact and the real science behind it one step further, with frightening results.

Linda McKinney is a myrmecologist, a scientist who studies the social structure of ants. Her academic career has left her entirely unprepared for the day her sophisticated research is conscripted by unknown forces to help run an unmanned—and thanks to her research, automated—drone army. Odin is the secretive Special Ops soldier with a unique insight into the faceless enemy who has begun to attack the American homeland with drones programmed to seek, identify, and execute targets without human intervention.

Together, McKinney and Odin must slow this advance long enough for the world to recognize its destructive power, because for thousands of years the “kill decision” during battle has remained in the hands of humans—and off-loading that responsibility to machines will bring unintended, possibly irreversible, consequences. But as forces even McKinney and Odin don’t understand begin to gather, and death rains down from above, it may already be too late to save humankind from destruction at the hands of our own technology.

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Kill Decision + Freedom (TM) + Daemon
Price for all three: $35.72

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Perfectly blending nail-biting suspense with accessible science, bestseller Suarez establishes himself as a legitimate heir to Michael Crichton with this gripping present-day thriller."
     --Publisher's Weekly (starred review) 

"A confident thriller that leaves us wondering not whether its fictional premise will one day become reality, but when. "
     --Kirkus Reviews on Kill Decision"

"A plausible account of how, and more importantly, why, the real 'skynet' might be created."
     --Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc.

"Kill Decision is a fantastic techno-thriller.  As someone who has designed combat robots myself, I found the technology depicted both accurate and chilling."    
     --
Alexander Rose, Roboticist & Executive Director of The Long Now Foundation

"Suarez's fiction is closer to reality than most people think."
     --Chris Anderson, author & Editor-in-Chief, Wired Magazine

From the Author

From the New York Times Bestselling author of Daemon and Freedom™, comes a terrifying, breathtaking, and all-too-possible vision of the world's near future. In his new novel, Kill Decision, Daniel Suarez turns to the timely and increasingly important topic of combat drones.  The book tells the story of myrmecologist Linda McKinney--a scientist studying weaver ants--who is forced to team up with a Special Ops soldier after her research is stolen and used by unknown forces to power autonomous swarming weapons.  Suarez's well researched thrillers are based on real science and technology, and in Kill Decision he takes the very real implications of automated war to its next logical step.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Dutton Adult; First Edition edition (July 19, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0525952616
  • ISBN-13: 978-0525952619
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (124 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Daniel Suarez is the author of the New York Times Bestseller Daemon and Freedom TM. A former systems consultant to Fortune 1000 companies, he has developed mission-critical software for the defense, finance, and entertainment industries. An avid gamer and technologist, he lives in Los Angeles, California.

Customer Reviews

Always a good book when you want to read it instead of doing just about anything else. Chris Louviere  |  19 reviewers made a similar statement
Very fast paced throughout and with great characters. Alexander Rose  |  22 reviewers made a similar statement
Too many characters and a wobbly plot made this book just a slog for me. Ken C.  |  15 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
49 of 56 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Daniel Suarez has done it again (Daemon, Freedom). He's written the tech thriller of the year.

He's managed to get his mind around the most complex and terrifying military technology of our time, DRONES, and turn it into a thriller that will keep on the edge of your seat.

What is a drone and why is it terrifying? It's a flying robot that can kill with precision. Drones are currently being used across the world from Pakistan to Yemen to the Philippines, to continuously watch and kill people. Already, thousands of people are being killed by drones each year, and that number will rapidly grow beyond everyone's expectations. Why? Moore's law. Drones are going to get very cheap and very smart much faster than anyone anticipates (in the same way cell phones and personal computers got cheap and powerful). That means they will be many, many more of them, used very often, in a plethora of places.

This is where Dan Suarez steps in. He takes this lethal technology and projects it forward in a way that feels right. Why? He (rightly) uses myrmecology (the study of ants, think E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition) as his pattern for the evolution of drone technology.
He then puts it into a fast paced story replete with military special operators (in SAPs), corrupt defense contractors, and lots of very creepy drones -- which combine to keep you on the edge of your seat.

So, BUY this book. Treat yourself to an education, a thrill, and a scare all at the same time.

Read it before you see it in the theaters (this WILL become a movie).
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Smart? Yes. Thrilling? Not so much... August 16, 2012
Format:Hardcover
Daniel Suarez's first two novels, Daemon and Freedom (tm), turned me into a fan. Therefore, I was excited to learn of the publication of a new stand-alone thriller. I did not find Kill Decision to be as strong as Suarez's prior novels, but I'm still a fan. I can't help it; I'm a sucker for smart fiction.

This time around, Suarez is writing about the threat of autonomous drones being used by the military. After several opening scenes which illustrate the dangers of these devices, the story builds around a military man on a secret mission to investigate a series of drone attacks on U.S. soil and a scientist who gets caught up in the action. She researches ant behavior--but it seems that her pure research has other, darker applications. Now these two are teamed up with, well, a team. They need to stay alive, stop the drone attacks, and hopefully get the military to see that machines can't be trusted to make life or death decisions.

Now, that's a fairly sparse synopsis coming from me, and you may have noticed that I used no names. I didn't really see the point. The characters were so superficially drawn that I could barely remember who the supporting characters were, and the male and female protagonists were awfully generic as well. I have to admit that I had a very hard time caring about them or getting invested in their story. Plus, they all had ridiculous monikers like Odin, Mooch, and Foxy. (Or you'd have a character nicknamed Ripper interacting with a character named Ritter. Do you really need to make things that difficult, Mr. Suarez?)

And it wasn't merely the characters that had a generic feel about them; some of the dialogue was downright cringe-worthy. An example: at one point the lady scientist asks the military man why he's drawn to war. He responds, "It's what I'm good at. And there's a bond you develop with your unit that's hard to find in civilian life. People you can trust your life to." Is that, or is that not, one of the most clichéd exchanges ever written?

And one more significant criticism... While Suarez has written some nice action sequences and some genuinely tense scenes, at some level the action feels tacked on to a tale that's more about talk than tussle. It's almost as though whenever things grow too static, the author felt the need to throw in some sort of crash or chase or threat, leading to a somewhat contrived feel to the proceedings.

At this point, you can certainly be forgiven for wondering what I DID like about the novel. I liked what I always like about Mr. Suarez's novels: they're just so darn smart! In fact, I'd sort of compare Suarez to a favorite writer in another medium, Aaron Sorkin. Don't get me wrong, Suarez isn't the wordsmith that Sorkin is, but what they have in common is the sheer intelligence they bring to their subject matter, no matter what it is. And it's that intelligence that draws me in every time. I couldn't be less interested in the behind the scenes workings of a television sports program, but in Mr. Sorkin's hands, Sports Night was pure gold. I am similarly disinterested in all things military, drone technology, etc., but Mr. Suarez milks the subject matter for every ounce of interest and fills his novel with passionate speeches ranging from technology to biology to philosophy. And at these times, his writing is both compelling and lucid. Simply put, I can't get enough. I will read about any subject he cares to write about because I know he's going to make it interesting.

I do think this is Mr. Suarez's weakest novel to date, however, I'll be reading his next release because I have faith. He has the tools in place and will continue to learn the craft of writing a thriller. Beyond that, he has gifts of intellect and curiosity and the ability to connect diverse subjects in fascinating ways that are rare and far less easily acquired.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Real. Very Plausible. July 20, 2012
Format:Hardcover
Kill Decision is startlingly real. And equally plausible.

Suited masters of perception playing games with reality while skipping scotch in Crystal City. D.C.'s incestuous relationship between big defense business and... everyone else. Nameless, compartmentalized operators fighting through the night in cesspools loosely labeled as countries. Drones raining from the skies.

For those familiar with the constellation of clandestine units, private military contractors, and information warriors that comprise much of America's counter-terrorism capacity, this book will feel very, very real.

(If you're not up to speed, I heartily recommend Marc Ambinder's The Command: Deep Inside the President's Secret Army as a quick/cheap/quality introduction to that world.)

But Kill Decision takes that reality a step forward. In a way that perhaps cements Suarez's position as the best near-future fiction author of the post-9/11 era. He folds in equal parts science, warfare, and informed futurism to take today's sleek drones to their logical conclusion. The results will gnaw on your brain like a swarm of gnats, for weeks after you read the book.

This is possible, of course, due in large part to his foundation in John Robb's work (something Suarez graciously mentions in his acknowledgements). Readers of Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization and the Global Guerrillas blog will find themselves nodding along.

Kill Decision is that real, yet, like Suarez's Freedom and Daemon, it's also a lot of fun. Great action sequences that just scream MAKE A MOVIE. Compelling characters. Quality narrative. It's all in here.

Grab it today if you want to see tomorrow.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars solid story
You can see how it could happen! Read for second time and well worth your consideration. Daemon and freedom also!
Published 10 days ago by Marianne M Becker
5.0 out of 5 stars Fast pacing technological thriller
Suarez, combines an in-depth knowledge of current day cutting edge technologies and ongoing scientific research which highly realistic near future scenarios that provoke some very... Read more
Published 12 days ago by David R. Weinbaum
5.0 out of 5 stars Memorable
I have really enjoyed Daniel Suarez's books since discovering him. This book keeps with the others in not letting me put it down. Read more
Published 20 days ago by John Livingston
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
It's a fascinating possibility from our rush into the unchecked robotics development for the battlefield. Read more
Published 22 days ago by Paul
5.0 out of 5 stars Prophetic
Anyone concerned about the direction this country is taking should read this book. A real life possibility. If not probability.
Published 27 days ago by Timothy J. Slot
5.0 out of 5 stars Grest book!
I have read Suarez' other books and this one is without exception another great piece of work. He has a unique way of presenting the scientific/mathematical/technological... Read more
Published 1 month ago by jensen.lugo
5.0 out of 5 stars Another winner by one of my favorite authors
I was pleasantly surprised by the accuracy of the Special Operations jargon and TTP. He's either done very good research or has sources within the SOF community. Read more
Published 1 month ago by dolphin559
3.0 out of 5 stars An unfortunate letdown.
I would have given it 2.5 stars.

If you're like me, you were probably really excited to hear that Suarez was coming out with a new book. Read more
Published 2 months ago by D. Mosley
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent escape
Well written, great way to pass the time. I would have preferred to simply give the star-rating as its not my habit nor interest to write reviews. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Jeff Marks
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book exceptionally well read by Gurner
Love this book. I figured I'm the only female to read the book and all three of the Daniel Suzrez books. Can't wait for the next one. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Jose Sneeze
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