… in the not-so-distant future the world has turned into a very bleak place, but luckily there is OASIS, a virtual reality world that is a vast online utopia. People can plug into OASIS to play, go to school, earn money, and even meet other people (or at least they can meet their avatars), and for protagonist Wade Watts it certainly beats passing the time in his grim, poverty-stricken real life. Along with millions of other world-wide citizens, Wade dreams of finding three keys left behind by James Halliday, the now-deceased creator of OASIS and the richest man to have ever lived. The keys are rumored to be hidden inside OASIS, and whoever finds them will inherit Halliday’s fortune. But Halliday has not made it easy. And there are real dangers in this virtual world.

After hearing Jick talk about it on a Kingdom of Loathing podcast last year, I picked up a copy of  “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline. I have to admit, this book had me hooked after referring to “Heathers,” Oingo Boingo, the Atari 2600, and 800XL, Galaga, and “Family Ties” in just the first few pages.

The beginning gave me a distinct “Daemon” vibe: when an eccentric software developer and creator of the OASIS (think the Matrix), James Halliday, died he left behind a massive virtual scavenger hunt inside the massive online system. The first person to find all three keys, pass the three gates, and find Halliday’s easter egg becomes the sole heir to his entire estate and owner of the OASIS (the similarity to “Daemon” ends there since Halliday isn’t trying to kill people and take over the world from beyond the grave).

Our protagonist, Wade Watts, is a high school senior and an expert in all things Halliday. He’s just one of millions of gunters (or “egg hunters” trying to find Halliday’s egg. But it’s been five years since Halliday’s death and no one has even found the first key yet. That is, until Wade (known as Parzival in the OASIS), makes a breakthrough discovery and the hunt is suddenly on. Wade quickly learns that the search for Halliday’s egg is serious business in some circles, even worth killing for. Can Parzival and his fellow gunters find the egg and keep the OASIS free from the hands of the corporate behemoths who want sole financial control?

“Ready Player One” takes place in 2044, but it’s chock full of 80s pop-culture (check the wiki page for just a few!). “Whiz Kids,” Cory Doctorow, Will Wheaton (who reads the audiobook version), “WarGames,” “Blade Runner,” and Monty Python all make appearances. It was those references that really appealed to my nostalgic side, having been a geek in the 80s (the golden age of dungeons and dragons, video games, music, movies, and TV) when being a geek wasn’t cool. Without getting into spoilers there was a whole interactive fiction section (I took great pride in figuring out the “dwelling long neglected” puzzle chapters before Wade did ), and I had actually listened to Rush’s 2112 the day before it came up in the book. On top of all of that, I learned some things: I had no idea the last level of Pac-Man was a corrupted split-screen (I never got that far), or that the very first easter egg was in Adventure on the Atari 2600.

I also couldn’t help but wonder if Cline had modeled James Halliday on Steve Jobs with the way he is portrayed in the story (an intensely private person who built something that changed the world, and died, tragically, of cancer). Halliday’s business partner, Ogden Morrow, even reminded me of Woz, and the evil empire of Innovative Online Industries could have been Microsoft.

Overall, “Ready Player One” was an immensely enjoyable ready for me. If you were a nerd in the 80s, you really should read it.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12.

I just finished reading “Mockingjay,” the last book of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. (Warning … slight spoilers may follow!)

The book picks up immediately where “Catching Fire” ended: Katniss has been rescued from the arena by the rebels from District 13, but they were unable to rescue Peeta who is now in the hands of the government forces. As part of the resistance, Katniss reluctantly becomes the titular Mockingjay, the face of the revolution, and a tug-of-war of propaganda ensues between the revolting districts and the Capitol.

The revolution in Panem takes center-stage in this final book of the trilogy while the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale continues to be a main plot point. Peeta is eventually rescued from the Capitol but turns out to be brainwashed, no longer his gentle self, but a ticking time-bomb programmed to (hopefully) kill the Mockingjay.

Can Peeta fight his demons be returned to normal? Will the Districts be able to overthrow the Capitol and win the war? Will Katniss get her final revenge and kill President Snow? Most (but not all) of your questions are answered in the final chapters. I found the end to be a little rushed (and my daughter had ruined one of the major surprises for me) but still enjoyed the series.

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out on the silver screen. We went to see “Beauty and the Beast” in 3D today and all of “The Hunger Games” movie posters were hanging up (only two months to go!) which got my daughter all psyched. It’s going to be PG-13, though, and even though she’s read the books I’m not sure how seeing some of those sequences on screen are going to affect her (real or not real?) so we may have to do the “wait and watch at home” thing.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.

During our summer road trip we listened to the audiobook version of Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” and my daughter quickly read the remaining books in the trilogy shortly afterwards. With the upcoming March 2012 release of the movie, I know I’ll probably be taking her to see all of them anyway so I figured I might as well read the rest of the books myself.

“Catching Fire” is the second book in the series and begins about six months after Katniss and Peeta emerged as the dual victors of the 74th annual Hunger Games, as they prepare to go on their Victory Tour of the other Districts. This year’s Hunger Games will be a Quarter Quell, which occurs every 25 years and usually includes some sort of miserable twist to the Games. The surprise for this Quell is that the Tributes will be selected from past victors, which means Katniss and Peeta are going into the Arena … again.

The secondary plotline continues to be the unrest in the Districts towards the Capitol. As the title suggests, Katniss has become the spark that could ignite a revolution and the Capitol will do everything in its power to prevent that. So where the first book focused more on the Games themselves, this story gives us more detail on the other Districts, their relationship with the Capitol, and the current political situation in Panem overall.

Just like the first novel, “Catching Fire” is laid out in three parts of 9 chapters each, and is an easy read (not surprising since it’s really young-adult literature). It seemed to end rather abruptly just and events were really picking up, but having started “Mockingjay” now I know it picks up immediately and keeps going, so it was the logical break point for the book.

Just remember who the Enemy is …

A plane over the Atlantic suddenly needs to reboot its computer to stay in the air, and the pilots barely avert disaster. A hospital network mixes up patient information, resulting in the death of several people. A law firm, which has lost all of its clients’ data and can’t get its system running again, turns to Jeff Aiken, a former government analyst and computer expert. He discovers that all of the crashes are insidiously connected, and an even greater disaster is coming.

I just finished reading “Zero Day” by Mark Russinovich, a cyber-thriller on par with Daniel Suarez’s “Daemon” or “FreedomTM.” At its core, “Zero Day” addresses a real-world, incredibly difficult to solve dilemma: with so many unprotected/unpatched computers in the world today, could a well-crafted virus potentially wreak havoc on the global economy?

The plot: an insidious computer virus, masked by different rootkits, multiple variants, and seemingly multiple authors, is secretly infecting computer systems all over the world, with a trigger date of 9/11. The virus is only noticed ahead of time because some of the computers it infected had incorrect system clocks which caused it to trigger a month early, completely crashing them. Jeff Aiken, a computer security expert, and his former colleague Daryl Haugen, the Assistant Director Computer Infrastructure Security Unit at the Department of Homeland Security, are on the trail of the virus, trying to track it back to its source before the zero day strikes. Who is behind the virus? How long has it been propagating? How widespread is it? Can it be stopped? Will anyone believe them?

We’re all familiar with the concept of viruses and malware and the importance of running anti-virus software and firewalls and keeping our computer systems patched. The reality is, however, that there are a lot of machines complete unprotected or unpatched, which opens a lot of vulnerabilities for the bad guys to exploit. Russinovich, a Technical Fellow at Microsoft, is well-versed in the topic at hand, and so I found his novel to be a little more realistic than the Suarez books I referenced above.

The book is fast-paced and a good read even for those of us in the computer industry. For more information about “Zero Day,” check out the book’s website.

Lisbeth Salander, the brilliant computer hacker who was shot in the head, is alive, though still the prime suspect in three murders in Stockholm. While she convalesces under armed guard, journalist Mikael Blomkvist works to unravel the decades-old coverup surrounding the man who shot Salander: her father, Alexander Zalachenko, a Soviet intelligence defector and longtime secret asset to Säpo, Sweden’s security police.

“The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest” by Stieg Larsson is the final book of the Millenium trilogy and I finally finished reading it this past weekend during my trip up to Ohio.

“Hornets’ Nest” picks up immediately where “The Girl Who Played with Fire” ended: Mikael Blomkvist has found Salander miraculously alive after being shot in the head and buried at a remote farm where she tried to kill her father and half-brother. Lisbeth and Zalachenko end up in the hospital under police guard while the authorities try to piece together the events that occurred in the second book. Meanwhile, The Section, the secret division of the security police is mobilizing to protect its secrets and its past history. Once again Blomkvist and Salander are at the center of a political, legal, and far-reaching scandal that threatens both of their lives and the lives of their associates.

In “Fire” we learned about Lisbeth’s backstory and history with Zalachenko and The Section. “Hornets’ Nest” unravels the inner workings of The Section, its history inside Säpo, the players involved, and explains how the conspiracy started and continued into present day. It gets a bit complex and at times I found it hard to keep everyone and everything straight, but Larsson does a good job of intriguing the reader and keeping the plot moving forward at a good pace. Even the big courtroom scenes at the end, which are mostly expository, are riveting to read. It’s not until the final pages of the epilogue when everything finally falls into place and is neatly wrapped up.

Having cancelled Netflix recently, I won’t be able to watch the third installment of the Swedish movies, but the US version of the trilogy starts in December.

The whole world knows and loves this book. It is the magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot; of Merlin and Owl and Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly, of wizardry and war. It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad. It is the fantasy masterpiece by which all others are judged.

As a slight change to my regular WIJFR posts, this one should be WIAFR (What I Almost Finished Reading).

It’d been a while since my daughter and I had read a book together so back in Mid-May we started “The Once and Future King” by T. H. White.

Part 1, “The Sword in the Stone,” chronicles the Wart’s (Arthur’s) childhood and tutelage under Merlyn. She laughed at the wizard’s antics (sewing his beard into his scarf, blowing himself to Bermuda, etc.) but was slightly confused by the concept of his living backwards in time. As the Wart was changed into different animals (hawl, owl, ant, fish, etc.) by Merlyn for his lessons, she enjoyed hearing about the adventures and problems he had (I’m sure if we keep reading she’ll make the connection between the meaning of those lessons and the situations that occur later on). She even caught some of the references to other literature, like Robin Wood (not Hood!) and Maid Marian (obvious) and Queen Circe (not-so-obvious, and even though she knew of her through the Percy Jackson novels I was still impressed). Next to Merlyn and the Wart, I think her next-favorite character was Archimedes, Merlyn’s trusty owl. Of course, the book ends with the Wart pulling the sword out of the stone and becoming the King of England (spoilers! ) which pleased her as well.

“The Once and Future King” is actually a compilation of five of T. H. White’s earlier works, so I guess you could say we actually finished “The Sword in the Stone” and then stopped there. We got a few chapters into Part 2 (“The Queen of Air and Darkness“) but I felt that the content and language was a bit above a 10-year old’s comprehension level so suggested we stop and finish it later. She protested, but I think that’s the right decision for now. Instead, it’s time to show her the old Disney movie!

In a not-too-distant future, the United States of America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war, to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 12 districts. Each year, two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts, the televised games are broadcasted throughout Panem as the 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch. When 16-year-old Katniss’s young sister, Prim, is selected as the mining district’s female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart, Peeta, the son of the town baker who seems to have all the fighting skills of a lump of bread dough, will be pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives.

During our recent family vacation road trip, we all “read” (listened to) the audiobook version of Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games.” We spent almost 68 hours in the car, so we had no trouble getting through all 11 hours of it.

I had never heard of this book but my daughter apparently learned about it through classmates so my wife purchased the audiobook from iTunes before we left. Since I knew nothing going in, other than it was young adult fiction, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The excerpt I included at the beginning of this post does a pretty good job of summing up the plot of the novel, so I won’t attempt to elaborate on that any more. It was a pretty good (although sometimes brutal) story. We started out listening to only short bits at a time, intending it to be an occasional distraction from other activities in the car, but soon we were really into it and going through 2 hours at a time easily. Carolyn McCormick‘s reading of the novel was well executed (although $26 for an audiobook seems a bit much).

In the week since we’ve gotten back from vacation, my daughter has already borrowed (and finished!) the next two books in the trilogy: “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay.” I wonder if I should mention to her that the movie is coming out next year. I guess we’ll need something to look forward to once the Harry Potter movies are all done.

Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.

Moving on to the second book of Steig Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, I’ve finished “The Girl Who Played with Fire.”

“Fire” picks up about a year after the events in “Dragon Tattoo” and we learn that hacker Lisbeth Salander has been traveling the world (anonymously of course) using her recently acquired wealth. Back in Sweden, Millenium editor/journalist Mikael Blomkvist has spent the past year dealing with the aftermath of the Wennerström affair and also searching for Salander who, for all practical purposes, has completely disappeared without explanation.

Lisbeth eventually returns to Sweden and learns that  Mikael is working on an exposé issue of the magazine that is going to blow the lid off of the underground sex trade, implicating several high-ranking police and state officials (she still keeps tabs on him via his hacked laptop). The evening before the issue is to be published, Blomkvist’s two collaborators and Lisbeth’s guardian are murdered. When Lisbeth’s fingerprints are found on the murder weapon and at both crime scenes, a massive manhunt is launched to bring the fugitive hacker to justice.

Blomkvist can’t believe Salander was involved in the murders and begins his own inquiry. Soon the story is following Mikael, the police investigation, and the criminal underground as the search for Salander continues. Why did she kill three people (if she was indeed the killer). What is the link between Bjurman (Salander’s guardian) and the dead journalists? And who is the mysterious Zala?

Where “Tattoo” was mostly about Mikael Blomkvist, “Fire” is really about Lisbeth Salander and her troubled past. We learn more about what happened during Lisbeth’s childhood and how she ended up a ward of the social protection system. There’s an unexpected twist in the last quarter of the book but the end is a bit abrupt (I hope it picks up again in the third book).

I plan on starting the last book of the series while on our family vacation road trip to New England next week. Like with “Tattoo” I’ll also watch the Swedish movie version of “Fire” on Netflix when I get the chance.

Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch – and there’s always a catch – is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues.

Today I finished reading “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson, the first book of his Millennium series.

Recently disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist is approached by industrialist Henrik Vanger to write a book about the Vanger Family history in return for information that can clear his name. The book is just a cover story (pardon the pun) for Henrik’s ulterior motive for Blomkvist: solve the mystery of his niece’s disappearance over 40 years ago.

Blomkvist ends up diving into decades of Vanger family history, genealogical details, police records, photos, etc. In the course of his investigation under the guise of research for the book, he makes a few friends (and enemies!) of the various Vanger family members. Eventually his path crosses with Lisbeth Salander, an eccentric, tattooed hacker in her twenties with a photographic memory and a troubled past. With Lisbeth’s research and hacking skills, the duo is able to dig deeper into the mystery of Harriet’s disappearance and discover that not everyone wants the mystery solved.

As Swedish murder/mystery/tech thrillers go, this one is pretty good. It obviously takes place in Sweden, so there were a lot of strange (to me) names and places, but they just added to the mystique of the novel. There are a lot of characters, especially with the generations of Vangers involved, but luckily Larsson includes a family tree at the front of the book for easy reference.

Larsson originally intended the Millennium series to be 10 books but he died before completing the fourth so it’s now known as the Millennium Trilogy. The books were made into movies in Sweden (I plan on checking them out on Netflix streaming) and there will apparently be an American remake released later this year.

The computer program Daemon has taken over the Internet, and millions have joined its virtual world. Now the effect is spilling into the real world as Daemon assumes control of financial institutions, and the program’s real-life converts flock to small towns to re-create a sustainable lifestyle amid the agribusiness monoculture of the Midwest.

During my trip to Arizona last week for Spring Training ’11 I finished “FreedomTM,” Daniel Suarez’s sequel to “Daemon.”

The story picks up a few months after the events at Building Twenty-Nine and covers about 8 months, beginning to end. The daemon has continued to infiltrate corporate networks to exert its control over the global economy, which is starting to show signs of collapse. Meanwhile, off-the-grid darknet-based communities have begun to spring up everywhere, run by people who understand the implications of the daemon’s new social order. Then there are the shadowy government agencies, led by the Major, who want to control the daemon for their own personal (and financial) gain. In the middle of all of this, former detective Pete Sebeck (now known as Unamed_1 on the darknet) is on a quest to justify the continued existence of humanity to the daemon.

A lot of the major players from “Daemon” return in “FreedomTM”: Russian hacker Jon Ross, cryptographer Natalie Philips, Sebeck, the Major, and of course, the terrifying darknet agent Loki who continues his bloody rampage in the name of defending the infrastructure of the daemon.

The darknet communities in middle America reminded me a little of Asimov’s Foundation, especially this particular line: “Repositories of human knowledge and technology are being designed and built by various curator factions around the world … That way, should human civilization be lost in a region, this system could put locals back on a path to regain knowledge in a generation or two. It could also be useful in resisting a downward spiral to begin with.” My favorite line of the book, though: “The modern world was undergoing a cold reboot.” Scary.

Like the first book, this one was fast-paced and fun to read, filled with technology and online gaming references mixed in with a healthy dose of global economics. And, unlike the first one, it had a satisfying ending.