Daemon
★★★★★
A crazed genius dies, activating a Daemon programme distributed across the internet. An initial few deaths snowball into economic sabotage and the creation of an underground organisation. What are the Daemon’s aims? Can it be stopped?
For a 2009 novel that’s heavy on the tech, this has aged remarkably well. In fact, you could do a quick pass replacing the scripted automation and interactive voice response with an AI chatbot, and it would be a spot-on AGI cautionary tale of our time. The only critique I would make is that I wish authors would stop trying to show off their knowledge of acronyms - ‘his LCD laptop screen’, ‘a GNU compressed file’. These terms are mostly dropped as the tech passes into mass adoption, and it jars you out of the narrative flow to read them today.
The ensemble cast is mostly stereotypical, defined by their job with enough backstory to drive their motivations, but achieving little in the way of development. Accommodating his readership, Suarez always has a luddite in scene who needs everything explained to them, and who often drives the plot with their cluelessness. But once the technology basics are established, the pace ratchets along and the stakes escalate rapidly. The finale is ridiculously over the top, but it’s a fun popcorn read if you’re in the mood.
