Books I've Read This Week

Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez is not a continuation of his previous two books, Daemon and Freedom. This is a stand alone novel with no connection to the previous two books. I just want to make that clear that if you are looking for more from the Daemon universe you aren't going to get it here. What you are going to get is an engaging and sometimes thought provoking novel in which autonomous drones are killing people all over the world. After a few scenes of the awesome power of the drones we are introduced two our protagonists. A military organization who's mission is to figure out who is behind the drone strikes and a myrmecologist who's ant behaviour algorithms may be being used to give the drones a type of intelligence. The cons of this book are that it is short and I found that the story itself was no where near as interesting as the questions it posed. I found myself spending more time thinking about whether or not drones should ever be used without a human intelligence overseeing the entire operation. As a software developer I realize how easy it is for bugs to crop up in the system.

The Dreaming Void by Peter F Hamilton is a sprawling science fiction epic set in the year 3589. In the far future humanity has discovered a void which takes on a very religious context. One man Inigo discovers he is able to dream about the humans who live inside the void in a type of paradise. Over one hundred years after Inigo's disappearance a second dreamer has emerged. This signals the followers of the dream to begin preparing for a pilgrimage into the void. A pilgrimage that some think may cause the void to expand and destroy millions of worlds. So that's the setup. The execution is excellently done. It follows a number of main characters in various parts of the galaxy and I'm yet to determine how their stories relate. Honestly, I can't accurately judge this book until I read the next two in the series.