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As I was reading "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki, I remembered "Earthweb" and decided to reread it. In "The Wisdom of Crowds" James Surowiecki does a good job of explaining how groups of people may make better decisions than the experts. Marc Stiegler in "Earthweb" writes a wonderful story about humans defending their planet against doomsday machines from space, called Shivas. One of the most important tools is the Earthweb which allows everyone on earth to help in fighting the doomsday machines.
This is a well written book. It was hard to put down. We are introduced to a variety of interesting characters and the story weaves their lives together as it builds to the exciting conclusion.
The book explores the events leading up to the second attempt to destroy another Shivas. We meet the attack team which is going onto the most recent Shivas. An important character is Morgan MacBride who directs the team remotely. He was the leader of the team that destroyed the first Shiva. The rest of characters are mostly those who kibitz via the Earthweb to help the attack team blow up the Shiva.
The basic premise, that of these Shivas coming every five years and they can only be destroyed by sneaking on board, is a bit farfetched. But it does provide the author with a way to explore the power of the wisdom of crowds. One of the interesting things to me is this book was published in 1999, and "The Wisdom of Crowds" was published five years later in 2004.
- Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Baen; First Edition edition (May 1, 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 067157809X
- ISBN-13: 978-0671578091
- Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 4.6 ounces
- Average Customer Review: 13 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#1,529,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5209 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- #22448 in Science Fiction Adventures (Books)
- #10279 in Biology (Books)
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