In this sequel to Daemon, Suarez continues where the last one left off. Matthew Sobol’s darknet has taken off with the populous . The darknet is a virtual plane only visible through sunglass Heads up Displays or HUDS. People are building sustainable communities in the darknet and those who are a switched on are basically rebuilding life. At the end of Daemon we had the character of Loki Stormbringer, a miscreant in real life, who becomes very powerful in the darknet who can summon automated attack vehicles and razorbacks (autonomous motorcycles with sharp rotating swords to dismember enemies) in order to defend the darknet. He is in an all out war with the Major, who is against the darknet, who commandeers a corporatized army to take out the daemon and the darknet with it. He can spin the news saying that armed gangs are killing everybody in the Midwest United States when really it is his army that is taking out the darknet one faction and one city at a time. While Loki represents pure evil and has a low reputation score on the darknet side to prove it, The Major represents evil on the civilian or non-connected world side of things.

Working to set things right are the heros of the story, Pete Sebeck (AKA The Unnamed One which is his computer world call out)and Laney (Chunky Monkey), his partner in the darknet are on a quest initiated by the avatar of Matthew Sobol to find the Cloud Gate. Not only does Sebeck have to go on this quest, he also undergoes a character arc from being very resistant to Sobol and the darknet to actually embracing it as a good thing. Another good guy in this story is Jon Ross (AKA Rahk) who wants to bring down Loki and The Major and make the darknet a community everyone can live and work in. He is still in love with Dr. Natalie Phillips who refuses to join the darknet but works for the National Security Agency trying to end the Daemon.

One of the other interesting side plots in this story is the character of Hank Fossen. He is a farmer in Greeley, Iowa. While out on his tractor he sees some black SUVs on his land. All the farmers in the area have been planting genetically altered corn from this company. Apparently this company wants to take his land and he’s not having it. They are going to sue him for this land he’s on. Meanwhile Hank’s daughter has joined the darknet and though the power of the Daemon manage to get this suit dropped. The daughter gets Hank to join the darknet and teaches him how using this virtual infrastructure he can change his land into farming food that is organic and edible. It’s an interesting commentary on the corporatization of farming and making it difficult for the small farmer to survive growing seed that is not owned by some company or is genetically altered.

I believe I said this in the Daemon review, but if you like computers, video games or technology in general and how it is changing or affecting society you will get a big kick out of these books. They are very fun to read and are real page turners as well. I also heard that Suarez may be releasing a new book in this series called Darknet which I can’t wait to check out.

It starts with rain. Actually, it starts with a torrential downpour that comes out of nowhere, late one night. Molly, a writer, happens to be awake when the rain starts. She notices that the rain glows, and smells funny, and comes with an ominous and disturbing feeling about it.

Molly decides to do what one would expect the heroine of a horror novel to do: she goes outside to investigate. A large group of silent and nervous looking coyotes have gathered on her porch. They seem to be afraid of the bizarre rain, or, possibly, some evil force that Molly can sense in the nearby woods. Amazingly, the coyotes have no problem with Molly when she impulsively decides to step out on the porch, and stand among them. This short scene feels very mystical, and is my favorite part of the book.

Molly’s husband, Neil, a former priest, also feels an ominous presence coming from the rain. He starts murmuring strange statements while he is still asleep, somehow.

From here, things get really freaky. Molly and Neil experience some seemingly impossible things. Molly’s collection of music boxes spontaneously go off all at once. They both start to see a shadowy form that appears to be right behind them when they look in the mirror, but does not seem to be in the room with them.

They turn on the television and learn that this strange rain is happening pretty much all over the world. There are many floods. A strange typhoon has appeared in the ocean. In some places, it is snowing, and children are playing in the odd glowing snow. No one knows what is causing it. One of the live newscasts ends with a camera man dropping the camera, and half of the reporters severed head landing on the ground. Whatever is going on, it’s not good.

Conveniently, both Molly and Neil not only have a gun, a rifle, and plenty of ammo for each, but are both skilled with using these weapons. They take these with them when they decide to drive to the center of town, believing that gathering with other people will be safer then staying by themselves.

A radio broadcast plays audio from the Space Station, which seems to currently staffed by half the countries in the UN, based on the quick glimpse we get. Molly and Neil listen as unexplained alien invaders phase through the doors of the station, and slaughter the astronauts.

Who are these alien invaders, and what do they want? This is unexplained for most of the book, which adds to the tension in the story. I give Koontz credit for creating an extremely creepy setting. It seems that these aliens have come to Earth to take it, in every sense of the word. The description of the alien looking landscape, and the creatures that come out of it, is vivid enough to make my skin crawl.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems with this book. So many things are just too convenient. Molly and Neil just happen to have guns and ammo lying around the house, and both are trained to use them. Molly has a nearly photographic memory for phrases and words, and this ability makes her able to instantly recognize when other characters start quoting poetry. She even knows what poet wrote it, and what poem the quote is from. Despite the horrible things happening around her, she manages to memorize a phrase that appears to be gibberish that was said by the alien that invaded the space station….. and decode it later on!

Molly’s past includes a traumatic event that happened when she was a child, which (not to give too much away), involved her protecting some other children that her father was trying to kill. Later, she and Neil become protectors of stray children.

Neil just so happens to have once been a priest, in a book filled with biblical references, few of which come from him. If you are not a person who is familiar with the Old Testament part of the bible, or someone who doesn’t happen to belong to a faith that believes in it, much of this book is going to have little meaning for you. I was not impressed by this. I like my horror stories to be scary, creepy, and even a bit disgusting at times. I don’t want to get to the end of the book only to learn that the events that happened were because the God of the Old Testament wanted them to happen. Such a disappointment! Why did all this destruction and horrible things happen? Why did so many people die? Because it was God’s plan. This is not an ending, it is a cop out.

The invading aliens are vicious and violent. To me, the inclusion of aliens in this book appeared to be specifically so the author could create new and incredibly disturbing ways to torture people. Now, I understand that there are a lot of people who enjoy books and/or movies that involve graphic scenes of torture. I am not among them. To me, this was overkill, and largely unnecessary. It especially bothers me that tons of people got tortured in this story not because of a war, or because of insanity, or even because someone was possessed by a demon or other evil force. It was because God said so. Oh really? So, for no reason then. Great.

This was not my favorite Koontz book, by far.

J.C. Hutchins just had this book published by a major publisher.  This is a remarkable feat because the book started out as a podcast.  Hutchins podcasted the book in weekly installments, it grew in popularity, and now it is published in book form (I read it on the Amazon Kindle app on my iPod Touch.  This book is the first in a series as the original manuscript was broken up into several smaller novels.  It is obvious that the story goes on when you reach the last sentence of the book.

The book opens up dramatically with a four year old having assassinated the president of the United States.  Then seven people are kidnapped.  There is John, the musician; Dr. Mike, the psychologist about to go on Larry King; Michael, the marine; Father Thomas, the priest; Kilroy 2.0, a notorious computer hacker; Jay who works for the U.N.; and Jack, a geneticist.  They are taken to this top secret facility where they find out they are beta clones and must stop the Alpha from killing more people.

I couldn’t listen to the original podcasted novel, but enjoyed it quite a bit in print form.  It eventually turns into a real page- turner.  The most interesting character in my opinion is John, a musician, kind of the black sheep who hasn’t really done much with his life, but is as smart as the others. For some reason he seems to stand out to me as the main character even though the seven clones are supposed to be equals in terms of character development.  Kilroy 2.0 is a fun character as the nerdy computer hacker who laughs maniacally and believes in the vast conspiracy network.  I really enjoyed the parts in the book where the seven clones work together to solve a piece of the puzzle that has been placed before them.  Overall I would have to say it is a fun read.

My dad read a lot of science-fiction novels. Over the years, many of those novels wound up in my hands. Occasionally, I’ll breeze through one of these books, especially after reading something more serious in nature. My dad enjoyed a lot of these books. Later in his life, I think he got more out of them as fun nostalgia trips than anything else. It was likely that he had read many of these books before, probably while he was growing up. I recall many times when we’d discuss these books, and he’d either marvel at the things these classic sci-fi writers came to predict (computers, TV’s, etc.) or he’d laugh at some of the completely ridiculous notions they held about the future (flying cars, atomic-powered ray guns, etc.). He also enjoyed these books in general, and he liked the writing and the stories. The first part of his enjoyment – the nostalgia factor – is often a deterrent to my enjoyment of these books. Sometimes, they’re just all too dated. Especially when they do contain things like atomic-powered zappers. I can usually tell within the first chapter of any of these novels if I’ll be able to stick with them ’til the end. And I’m happy to report that The Day After Tomorrow is indeed a book I was able to enjoy all the way through.
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