Gaming genius Matthew Sobol, the 34-year-old head of CyberStorm Entertainment, has just died of brain cancer, but death doesn’t stop him from initiating an all-out Internet war against humanity. When the authorities investigate Sobol’s mansion in Thousand Oaks, Calif., they find themselves under attack from his empty house, aided by an unmanned Hummer that tears into the cops with staggering ferocity. Sobol’s weapon is a daemon, a kind of computer process that not only has taken over many of the world’s computer systems but also enlists the help of super-intelligent human henchmen willing to carry out his diabolical plan.

The hosts on just about every tech podcast I listen to (Leo Laporte, Tom Merrit, Paul Thurrott, and others) have mentioned “Daemon” by Daniel Suarez at one time or another, so it’s been on my to-read list for a while. I just finished reading this techno-thriller after starting it last month (as I headed to New York on business).

The premise is relatively simple: triggered by the death of its creator, software genius Matthew Sobol, a widely distributed, autonomous daemon starts wreaking havoc on the global economy as it carrys out Sobol’s final diabolical plan for humankind.

The main cast of characters consists of people on both sides of the daemon’s war: local police detectives, government agencies, and white hat hackers trying to stop the daemon (if it can be stopped) vs. recruited daemon operatives, hackers, and computer-controlled machines likes killer Hummers, cars, and motorcycles who carry out the daemon’s tasks. The plot is fast-paced and contains a healthy dose of gaming, MMORPGs, GPS tracking, darknets, the global internet and, of course, explosions and mayhem (in other words, it will probably be made into a movie at some point) but unfortunately just as things are really moving the book ends. I guess this was intentional, paving the way for the sequel “FreedomTM” (also on my to-read list).

If you want to learn more about “Daemon” there’s the (rather sparse) Daemon Wiki and of course Daniel Suarez’s own thedaemon.com, which made me think twice before enabling scripts (via NoScript) on that site. You never know where pieces of the daemon may be lurking. Also check out the author’s About page to see if you notice anything interesting about his photograph.

After rescuing the world from the creatures of darkness and chaos by applying a few computer logistics, Programmer and Systems Analyst Extraordinaire Wiz Zumwalt finds himself in another fix when he is kidnapped by dragons.

“The Wizardry Consulted” by Rick Cook is my latest iPhone/Stanza read. Resuming the story three years after “The Wizardry Cursed,” this next installment finds Wiz stranded in a provincial town far to the lands of the North, having been kidnapped by Wurm the dragon. He is there, ostensibly, to help the townsfolk solve their “dragon problem” but ends up mired in council politics. Luckily, Wiz’s former life as a computer programmer and consultant lets him fast-talk around the council, baffling them with confusing presentations, graphic slides, project plans, and buzzwords.

As with the other books, a heathly dose of technology-meets-magic is mixed in: the internet, IRC chat, e-mail, packet routing, and the FBI all play a part. There was even a mention of the Cleveland Freenet, which was one of my first experiences with the internet back in the day (my user ID was ag154). Much like the second book, the narrative is split: Wiz and his dealings with the council, townspeople, and dragons; and then the rest of the folks back at the Wizard’s Keep (Jerry, Danny, Moira, etc.) who are trying to track Wiz down and rescue him from his kidnappers.

Unfortunately, it looks like the fifth book, “The Wizardry Quested,” was never published as an e-book and the paperback is out-of-print ($300 for a new copy on Amazon!?). Additionally, Rick Cook never finished the sixth (and final?) “The Wizardry Capitalized” but has put the unfinished manuscript online. So it looks like I’m done with this series unless I get motivated to read the partial manuscript. Overall, though, it was very enjoyable series to read. Fare thee well, Sparrow!

Alex Cross, a Washington, D.C., police detective, takes on a human monster known as the Tiger with ties to the African underworld. When the Tiger and his teenage thugs butcher writer Ellie Cox, her husband and children in their Georgetown home, Cross is devastated because Ellie had been his girlfriend in college. The Cox family massacre proves to be just the first in a series. Cross pursues the Tiger to Nigeria, where the profiler finds himself at the mercy of corrupt government officials who may be working with the Tiger.

I just finished James Patterson’s 14th Alex Cross thriller, “Cross Country.” I’ve read other Patterson books in the past, but never any of the Alex Cross novels (though I have seen the movies of “Kiss the Girls” and “Along Came a Spider”).

I don’t have that much to say about it: Cross ends up chasing a killer from D.C. to Africa in a hunt that takes him to Darfur, Sierra Leone, Lagos, and other impoverished locations. I’m not trying to be insensitive, but after a while it felt like I was reading a political statement instead of a novel. It just wasn’t that interesting or thrilling to me and maybe that’s the reason I wasn’t that impressed (plus, I could only see Morgan Freeman in my head as I was reading).

The novel is not short, but at 403 pages it contains 158 chapters. That’s about 2.5 pages per chapter! As a result the narrative seemed choppy, but on the other hand it read very quickly (and gave me lots of places to stop). Maybe Patterson’s earlier Alex Cross stuff is better and after 14 books, the ideas are running out …

On the far-future Earth-like planet, Arbre, scientists, philosophers and mathematicians—a religious order unto themselves—have been cloistered behind concent (convent) walls. Their role is to nurture all knowledge while safeguarding it from the vagaries of the irrational saecular outside world. Among the monastic scholars is 19-year-old Raz, collected into the concent at age eight and now a decenarian, or tenner (someone allowed contact with the world beyond the stronghold walls only once a decade). But millennia-old rules are cataclysmically shattered when extraterrestrial catastrophe looms, and Raz and his teenage companions—engaging in intense intellectual debate one moment, wrestling like rambunctious adolescents the next—are summoned to save the world.

I just finished Neal Stephenson’s “Anathem.” Considering it took me about 4 months of occasional reading to get through the 761 pages of “Blue Mars,” completing the 981 pages of “Anathem” in just under two months was definitely faster than I expected.

I’ve read all of Stephenson’s previous work, so it was a no-brainer that I would read “Anathem.” I didn’t even really know what it was about other than it took place on another planet, which immediately differentiates it from all of his prior works. You also know you’re in for it when the book starts out with a “note to the reader” containing a detailed historical time line and almost Dune-like glossary. Oh oh! So the first few chapters were pretty rough, trying to wrap my brain around the new vocabulary and immersing myself in the world of Erasmas, the narrative main character. Arbre is a strange place, but luckily there are similarities to our own world. For example, can you guess what kind of person an Ita is from this definition in The Dictionary?

Ita: A caste dwelling in the mathic world but segregated from the avout, responsible for all functions having to do with syntactic devices and the Reticulum.

Sound like anyone you know? There’s a hint in the first two letters.

While perusing Neal Stephenson’s website earlier this evening, I discovered that there’s actually a trailer for the book!

There are also some good interviews here where Stephenson describes how he came up with the idea (he even mentions “Dune” and the glossary!) and how it ties in with his other books at a philosophical level. If you’re thinking about reading “Anathem” take a few minutes and watch the videos, it’s worth it. In fact, all of the introductory information on his site of course does a better job than I could do here describing the book. Be sure to go back when you’re done too, he’s even got some of the avout chants there from the musical score.

I worked out to my benefit that I started “Anathem” during my trip to Arizona for Spring Training because it gave me the chance to really focus and get sucked into the story. If I had started reading it in 20-page chunks as I am wont to do, I probably would have been more confused and not as enthralled. Check out these blog posts I found (here and here) that are pretty accurate in describing how it can be hard to “get into” this particular book.

To close out this post, here’s a funny quote from the book that I actually marked so I would remember to mention it. I found it to be a comedic, yet strangely accurate, summary of the novel:

“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,” I said. “We have a protractor.”
“Ok, I’ll go home and see if I can scrounge up a ruler and a piece of string.”
“That’d be great.”

Once upon a time, Major Mick Gilligan, USAF, didn’t believe in Magic. Nor, had he been told of it, would he have believed in the elf Lisella, or cared that she had cursed master programmer Wiz Zumwalt, later of Cupertino and now of an alternate world where magic works like a computer program. But that was before he took his F-15 out over the Bering Sea on a top-priority intercept, came out on the losing end of a dogfight with a dragon, and found himself caught in a climactic battle that pitted Wiz and his fellow Silicon Valley hackers against a couple of computer criminals in alliance with the forces of primal chaos.

I just finished Rick Cook’s “The Wizardry Cursed” via Stanza on my iPhone. The third book in the series picks  up about a year after the events of “The Wizardry Compiled.” Wiz, Jerry, and Danny are splitting their time between continuing to refine their spell compiler and being stuck in treaty negotiations with the non-mortals with whom they had narrowly averted war.

Back in our world, Judith, one of the programmers from the project team in the previous book who worked on the spell compiler, still dreams of becoming a fantasy writer based on her experiences in the magical realm. While daydreaming about dragons and faraway lands, she steps off the curve and is hit by a car, ending up in a coma. One of her role-playing game group friends (and computer hacker), Craig, starts visiting her in the hospital and discovers that Judith sometimes talks of the strange land and the spell compiler.

With the help of another hacker named Mikey, and Judith’s coma-based mumblings (and stolen papers from her apartment), Craig starts to understand the workings of the spell compiler, which of course won’t work in the “normal” world. Suddenly, a dark, evil race (the Ur Elves) transport Craig and Mikey into a “bubble world” where both technology and magic work … a bridge between our world and Wiz’s. With the power of the Ur Elves behind them, Craig and Mikey start hacking out technological/magical combinations of war machines with the intent of taking over the world.

A stolen super computer (with real gremlins), a stranded Air Force pilot, the curse of an Elf named Lisella, and a group of dwarves intent on killing the alien wizard all play a role in the ultimate battle between the good people of the world and the Ur Elves and their pawns (Craig and Mikey). How will it play out?

Not exactly difficult reading (certainly not on a level with “Anathem“), Cook’s magical/technological world continues to serve as a nice thing to have around on my iPhone for some light reading on the go. Next up in the series: “The Wizardry Consulted.”

Using the last 200 years of American history as his template for Martian history, Robinson projects his tale of Mars’s colonization from the 21st century, in which settlers successfully revolt against Earth, into the next century, when various interests on Mars work out their differences on issues ranging from government to the terraforming of the planet and immigration. Sax Russell, Maya Toitovna and others reprise their roles from the first two novels, but the dominant “personality” is the planet itself, which Robinson describes in exhaustive naturalistic detail. Characters look repeatedly for sermons in its stones and are nearly overwhelmed by textbook abstracts on the biological and geological minutiae of their environment. Not until the closing chapters, when they begin confronting their mortality, does the human dimension of the story balance out its awesome ecological extrapolations.

Last week I finally finished “Blue Mars,” the final book of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. It picks up immediately after the end of “Green Mars” and spans another 100 (Earth) years on the colonized (and now terraformed) planet.

The first portion of the novel covers the aftermath of the second revolution and the formation of the new Martian government, free of Earth/United Nations Transitional Authority control and complete with its own court system and political parties (the old revolutionary branches like the Reds, Greens, MarsFirsters, Free Mars, etc. etc.).

The terraforming effort continues throughout the book: the sea of shattered ice wrapping around the northern hemisphere of the planet has started to melt into the great Northern Sea. Eventually there are islands, boats, canals, sea life, even coastal towns.

In the middle portion, we are finally taken back to see the situation on Earth first-hand. Nirgal, the Martian native and son of Coyote, visits the “home” planet for the first time along with Maya, Sax, and Michel in an show-of-goodwill ambassadorial mission. They want to be able to help Earth with the overpopulation issue (made critical by the rising sea levels) without flooding Mars with immigrants and making the political, social, and environmental issues there any worse. It was cool to “see” Earth through Nirgal’s eyes (so much water, so much sun, so HOT!).

It’s evident to everyone that Mars is not the ultimate solution to Earth’s population problems. Continued advances in technology allow the human race to explore out even further in the solar system (which Robinson calls “the Accelerando”). One chapter takes place on Miranda, a moon of Uranus, where Ann tries to escape to the primal beauty of a landscape (as of yet) untouched by human endeavors.

Finally, the remaining First Hundred are now over 200 years old, thanks to the longevity treatments. But old age is finally starting to catch up with them and there are a few quick deaths in succession. Facing their own mortality, Sax is determined to find a cure for the “quick decline” which plays out across a few chapters on memory and brain research.

As with the prior two books, Robinson tells each part of the story from a single character’s point of view and uses the quick introductory text of each portion to move the story along (sometimes by a few weeks, sometimes by decades), which is necessary when telling a story that covers more than 100 years. I found it difficult sometimes to remember what (Earth) year it was in relation to the other books, trying to grapple with just how much time had passed. Having three or four generations’ worth of characters didn’t help either, but the breadth of detail Robinson has created was just amazing and fascinating . Overall, I really enjoyed this series start to finish, and will probably read “The Martians” just to be complete. When you consider the fact that I started “Red Mars” last August, I’ve been immersed in Robinson’s world and characters for the last 8 months!

Next, though, I’m about 30 pages into Neal Stephenson’s 1008-page “Anathem.” It’s going to be another long ride …

This was the third time for me (once on Broadway with the original cast, here in Tampa during the first tour in 2007, and now again in 2010) but the first time my daughter had seen it, and she absolutely loved it. She’s actually falling asleep in her room right now listening to the soundtrack. She had read “The Wizard of Oz” (but actually hasn’t seen the movie) so it was fun to watch her put the pieces together as the story of Elphaba and Glinda unfolded on stage. I bought her the novel on which the musical is based (Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West“) a few months ago, but strangely she never got around to finishing it … I’ll be she does now, and I’d like to read it  myself once I catch up on my current backlog.

This was the matinee show so a few of the understudies were performing the main parts. I guess I’m a little spoiled because after seeing Edina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth belt out “Defying Gravity” on Broadway, the traveling company just didn’t pack the same punch. Not that they weren’t good! Here’s a funny note: Richard Kline is playing the role of the Wizard. I wouldn’t have recognized him except the playbill specifically mentioned he “is best known as Jack Tripper’s best friend, Larry Dallas on the classic sitcom ‘Three’s Company.’” That’s right, this guy is currently the Wizard of Oz.

Wiz Zumwalt, ex-Cupertino programmer and now mighty wizard in a sword-and-sorcery world, must contend with the need to act as a leader in the Council of the North, the need to teach his new magic programming system to others, and the need to rewrite his spell compiler system. He also learns of incredibly destructive ends his spell compiler is being put to, as well as growing resentment of humans by the magical creatures of the World, which may culminate in war.

I just finished “The Wizardry Compiled” by Rick Cook, which like the first book in the series I downloaded for free from the Baen Library. I started reading this book in iSilo format on my Treo, but switched to an iPhone in the middle so ended up finishing it in Stanza. While I never had any problem with reading e-books on my Treo, I have to admit the e-book experience on the iPhone is a lot better!

“Compiled” takes place about two years after Wiz defeated the Dark League in “Wizard’s Bane.” Having earned his place among the Mighty and a seat on the Council, Wiz finds himself mired in bureaucracy, typical of large committees. The other Mighty are skeptical of his new magic and his attempts to teach them magical “programming” are going frustratingly slow (partially due to his poor instructional skills). His work on the compiler is progressing, but he soon discovers that someone has modified his ‘ddt’ spell (for safely dispersing magic) into a “hacked” version called ‘demon_debug’ that simply erases anything magical from existence. The humans along the Fringe of the Wild Wood are using demon_debug to move back into the forest, simply nullifying anything in their way … which will shortly cause an out-and-out war with the magic creatures who live there. On his way back from a trip to see the effects of demon_debug first-hand, Wiz is captured by the remnants of the Dark League who still inhabit the shattered City of Night.

The book splits into two separate narratives at this point. While Wiz is a fugitive in the City of Night trying to evade re-capture, Moira (the hedge witch, and Wiz’s wife), travels back to our world to recruit a team of programmers to work on the spell compiler. Soon, there’s a whole managed project going on as the team attempts to understand the workings of magic and Wiz’s new programming language. Can the team complete the compiler, and can Wiz escape from the City of Night, in time to prevent war?

Like the first book, I enjoyed the juxtaposition of programming and code with the world of fantasy and magic. In addition to the technical programming concepts, Cook adds the team and aspects of managing a large software development project (another area I’m familiar with due to my consulting background). Also, in a reversal of roles from the first book, Moira travels to California and gains a better understanding of Wiz’s world (and gets to try pizza!).

I’m going to continue the series, so I’ve already purchased the next volume (“The Wizardry Cursed and Consulted“) from webscriptions.net for a mere $4.

The sequel to Red Mars details an early 22nd-century Mars controlled by Earth’s metanationals, gigantic corporations intent on exploiting Mars. Debate among the settlers–some native-born, some the surviving members of the First Hundred–is divided between the minimalist areoformists, who have come to love Mars in all its harshness, and the terraformists, who want to replicate Earth. As the surface of Mars warms and is seeded with genetically altered plants, the settlers await Earth’s self-destruction, which they hope will give them a chance to claim their independence.

It took almost two months since finishing the prior book (I haven’t had a lot of free reading time lately) but I just finished “Green Mars,” the second installment of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy.

“Green” starts roughly 14 (Earth) years after the end of “Red.” To the new generation of native-born children, Mars is the only home they’ve known, and due to the effects of growing up in the lower gravity of Mars, they’ll never be able to go there. But they don’t care about Earth … these children (the ectogenes) are splintering off into more semi-political groups like the Reds or Marsfirsters as the planet continues to struggle with the metanational corporations back home. Meanwhile, the terraforming efforts continue to change the face of the red planet: algaes, lichen, and moss are being joined by stunted trees, shrubs, and flowering plants. The surface temperature, atmospheric pressure, and oxygen levels are slowly rising, as the CO2 levels are getting lower. Pumps all over the planet continue to fill the lower basins with water from below the surface. It’s all broken ice now, but eventually it will melt and become the new Martian seas.

Jumping forward about 50 years, the majority of the book takes place in the early 2120s, and the reader is reunited with several of the First Hundred who originally landed on Mars nearly 100 years earlier. The space elevator is back, and the latest massive construction project is the soletta: a 10,000 kilometer wide “magnifying glass” orbiting halfway between the sun and Mars, intensifying the sun’s rays providing more light and heat.

Some things never change, though. The remaining members of the First Hundred are still in hiding, as fugutives since the first attempt at revolution. Political and cultural pressures continue to pull everyone in different directions. Will the future see an independent Mars? Or will history repeat itself with another deadly revolution like ’61? Read the wiki article for a better summary.

Robinson’s writing is incredibly detailed, both at the scientific, cultural, and political levels. Just like in the first book, each major part of the story is seen from a particular character’s point of view. Even though I read these two books back-to-back, it was like being reunited with old lost friends from the first novel: Maya, Nadia, Sax, or Ann. I’m looking forward to starting the final book, “Blue Mars” over the upcoming holiday.

It all began when the wizards of the White League were under attack by their opponents of the Black League and one of their most powerful members cast a spell to bring forth a mighty wizard to aid their cause. What the spell delivers is master hacker Walter “Wiz” Zumwalt. With the wizard who cast the spell dead, nobody can figure out what the shanghaied computer nerd is good for — because spells are not like computer programs.

“Wizard’s Bane” by Rick Cook was my latest iSilo/Treo e-read, which I downloaded for free from the Baen Library.

Computer programmer Walter “Wiz” Zimwalt is mysteriously transported from his job in California to a different world, summoned by a powerful spell cast by the wizard Patrius with the assistance of Moira the hedge witch. Patrius is killed during the summoning so no one knows why Wiz was chosen by Patrius. Stuck on a world with no computers, no technology, no pizza, caffeinated sodas, or even coffee, Wiz is completely out of his element. But the dark wizards of the South don’t realize Wiz is powerless and will stop at nothing to capture him and prevent him from helping out the League of the North.

As the story progresses, Wiz begins to learn that magic is similar to coding: anyone can really do it, but without proper training it can cause serious problems (or, in the case of a miscast spell, be deadly). Using his analytical and programming skills, Wiz begins to build a framework for writing spells as if he were writing code … a programming language for magic! Can he really use his spell-casting programs to take on the dark League? Or is he putting everyone, even the whole world, in danger by messing with a power he doesn’t completely understand?

Being a programmer myself, this book was a fun “fish out of water” story. I could relate to Wiz’s situation (what would I do if there were no computers?) and the programming, coding, and development references were cool. It’s not exactly Tolkien-level fantasy, but a good leisurely read.