cedar_grove | Exploding the Hype... (Reply)

"Ladies and gentlemen... meet the kamikase of computer invaders... the worm... no complex structures, just instinct - eat, shit, crawl. That's it. Simplicity. Dead simplicity. It does what it's programmed to do and then checks out." Head of systems explaining the difference between viruses and worms. Digital Fortress Dan Brown

Okay so this guy's books have a hell of a lot of hype surrounding them. It's one of the reasons it's taken us so long to even contemplate reading any of them. It was the same with the Harry Potter stuff. As a rule we're resistant to hype. Ordinarily you can count on us to ignore something that is hyped for a long time.

However... that said... I was simply rivited by this book. It is well paced, written with a simplicity that is elegant in and of itself, and moves so fast, with so many twists and turns that it's a very difficult book to put down. There is maybe a small element of the 'how can one guy be so damned unlucky/lucky' process in some small part of the book, but what's going on with all the rest of it helps you to overlook that, because you're so emersed in the story itself. I love the Sys-sec head. In a lot of ways he reminds me of me... except that I'm not a blubberbelly... but in the way he thinks about computers and systems - yeah, definitely me.

So once again I've been surprised by a book that I didn't think anyone in Cg would like... and yes, maybe it's obvious that I should be the one to like it, because about computers and stuff as is kind of is... but I wasn't the only one.