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WWW: Wake

By: Robert J. Sawyer
Narrated by: Jessica Almasy, Jennifer Van Dyck, A. C. Fellner, Marc Vietor, Robert J. Sawyer
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Summary

 Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math - and blind. Still, she can surf the net with the best of them, following its complex paths clearly in her mind.

But Caitlin's brain long ago co-opted her primary visual cortex to help her navigate online. So when she receives an implant to restore her sight, instead of seeing reality, the landscape of the World Wide Web explodes into her consciousness, spreading out all around her in a riot of colors and shapes.

While exploring this amazing realm, she discovers something - some other - lurking in the background. And it's getting more and more intelligent with each passing day.

©2009 Ace (P)2009 Audible, Inc. Science Fiction Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense Fiction Technology Thriller
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Critic reviews

"The thematic diversity - and profundity - makes this one of Sawyer's strongest works to date." (Publishers Weekly)
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Fantastic story, curious how all the characters paths intertwine. Narrators are great, Especially the older lady. her voice is so warm and rich I want to give her a big hug!!!
Being blind myself I was curious to see how this would be handled, and there are differences between the book and real life for me.
I'm looking forward to the others in the series, The one distracting thing I found was the toing and froing between points of view for just a sentence or so, then flipping back. Thankfully there wasn't too much maths, which I was worried there would be, but hearing binary rendered as audio was just plain tedious. That's a downside of the format though as audio rather 'than the actual book's fault.
Great read. Unusual, and quite outside my comfort zone. .

Story jumps a little too much but good anyway

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Well written and expertly presented in this audiobook format with original music and perfectly chosen voices.

A book of subtle beginnings leading the listener into conclusions that the author is just about to layout for you. At times emotional and at times Hard SciFi. A must for the SciFi fans and those wishing for more of a personal book.

Highly recommended to all.

A Beautiful Book of Hard SciFi

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This is a thoroughly entertaining read. It's not going to boggle your brain with endless details about science, but there is enough there to keep things interesting. As a former maths student I found the brief forays very entertaining without being at all heavy. The main story makes clever use of a couple of tangential story lines which never quite knit in as I had expected but are still made very relevant in the main plot. I also enjoyed the way the author gives you a first person account from the AI's point of view as it becomes conscious. Very nicely done. A thoroughly enjoyably holiday read perhaps. I'm looking forward to the next one now!

Lightweight sci fi done well

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Would you try another book written by Robert J. Sawyer or narrated by the narrators?

Possibly as I enjoyed Flashforward however I listened to Hominids but didn;t enjoy that so depends upon whether the synopsis looks intriguing.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Interesting concept being able to see the web and restore sight to the central character. Least interesting was the amount of waffle from the online entity which didn;t add anything to the story

Which scene did you most enjoy?

When the eye-pod finally works

If this book were a film would you go see it?

Maybe as it could be condensed and pared down to a more manageable size

Loved the idea but wasn't gripped

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I was very impressed with this book - surprisingly so, in fact. My general encounters with science-fiction books have fallen into two categories - things written by Iain M Banks, and things I hated. So I was taking a risk here.

The review deserves two parts - one for the book itself and one for the production of the audio-book, which is interesting enough in it's own right. To cover that, I love the idea of varying the narrator according to the context of the story. This is a story that links together many stories and themes, and to give each of them their own voice makes it both more interesting and easier to follow. I tend to listen while driving which means occasionally I have to focus on other things - having an audio reminder of roughly what's going on is very helpful.

The story is complex and, in the beginning, far from obvious. Stuart's review noting that there seemed to be no link between the threads is fair, but it becomes clearer later on. This is a book about consciousness, about separation, acquisition and loss of senses, about the very idea of what is to be. Inevitably an ambition like that is going to lead to some confusion at first, and I got the impression perhaps to a few half-formed ideas getting dropped along the way. The thing about China does make sense, but you have to think about why - nobody gets spoon fed their explanations here.

The point about the maguffin not really making sense - without wishing to spoil things, the idea of lost packets leading to greater things - is correct. It doesn't make sense. I think the best approach here would have been to adopt the approach Star Trek's producers took when asked how the intertial damping works - they said 'very nicely thanks' and left it at that. The story is really about what it is to be and about varying perceptions of different entities - I don't really care about TCP/IP packet loss.

Overall - great book, interesting ideas and even a few funny jokes.

Very engaging (if you're prepared to work with it)

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