Influx

By: Daniel Suarez

Narrated by: Jeff Gurner

Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

What if our civilization is more advanced than we know?

The New York Times best-selling author of Daemon - "the cyberthriller against which all others will be measured" (Publishers Weekly) - imagines a world in which decades of technological advances have been suppressed in an effort to prevent disruptive change.

Are smartphones really humanity's most significant innovation since the moon landings? Or can something else explain why the bold visions of the 20th century - fusion power, genetic enhancements, artificial intelligence, cures for common diseases, extended human life, and a host of other world-changing advances - have remained beyond our grasp? Why has the high-tech future that seemed imminent in the 1960s failed to arrive?

Perhaps it did arrive…but only for a select few.

Particle physicist Jon Grady is ecstatic when his team achieves what they've been working toward for years: A device that can reflect gravity. Their research will revolutionize the field of physics - the crowning achievement of a career. Grady expects widespread acclaim for his entire team. The Nobel Prize. Instead, his lab is locked down by a shadowy organization whose mission is to prevent at all costs the social upheaval sudden technological advances bring. This Bureau of Technology Control uses the advanced technologies they have harvested over the decades to fulfill their mission.

They are living in our future.

Presented with the opportunity to join the BTC and improve his own technology in secret, Grady balks, and is instead thrown into a nightmarish high-tech prison built to hold rebellious geniuses like himself. With so many great intellects confined together, can Grady and his fellow prisoners conceive of a way to usher humanity out of its artificial dark age?

And when they do, is it possible to defeat an enemy that wields a technological advantage half a century in the making?

©2014 Daniel Suarez (P)2014 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"You'll hear a lot of reviewers compare Suarez to [Michael] Crichton, including me for his previous book Kill Decision. And Suarez deserved the honor in the truest sense...he had achieved a truly Crichton-level of storytelling. But with Influx, Suarez becomes the master, and Crichton is the one who is honored by the comparison." (Stephen L. Macknik, Scientific American)

"[Influx is] done with the dazzling sophistication, the play of ideas, the hints of a new understanding almost within our grasp that characterize sci-fi in the cybertronic age." (The Wall Street Journal)

“With this terrifying thriller, Suarez provides further support for the proposition that he’s a worthy successor to the late Michael Crichton… Suarez once again mixes science and fiction perfectly.”(Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Triple Wow!

After reading Daemon and the follow up Freedom my mind was totally blown. I really went into Influx not expecting very much because I figured a story could not possibly get better. I was absolutely wrong. Suarez's story telling in the Sci-fi realm has not limits and the realism in kinda eerie. I found myself activating my Wikipedia app and searching the CERN labs page as I listened asking myself is this stuff real? Lol awesome book!

Wow. New Daniel Suarez Fan Here

I loved the concept and how well written the science aspect was. Interesting characters, and captivating storyline. Normally I like political and military fiction such as Tom Clancy or Larry Bond, but I completely and thoroughly enjoyed this story, its techno-thriller theme.

The performance is what really made this book shine. The narrator had excellent voices making each character immediately identifiable. His accents for foreign characters were well done and not distracting like some narrators. There were some subtle effects used for AI characters which distinguished them as computers and not people. He really did well with female voices which is something that can be difficult for male narrators. My favorite part, though, was the feeling and emotion that he had. When angry, sad, hurried, etc, he made the characters sound so real. They would gasp for air while speaking or chuckle mid-sentence. These things aren't written but when added to the performance, bring so much life to the story.

Science-fact

Suarez could be considered a 'futurist' than a science fiction author. I wouldn't recommend this book for anyone who is not versed (or at least interested) in science. Influx is a well-written exciting story. Suarez is obviously well studied in technology and seems to have his finger on the pulse of where this technology could lead us. This is an excellent listen that is full of great conversation topics concerning the ethics of science and what the future will bring. All of this is wrapped up in an exciting story that I looked forward to returning to when I was away. Well worth the credit.

Lots of fun!

If you like books that set things up and give you semi-plausible explanations of the "science" that will play a big part in the story, this is for you.

If you're the nerd who has to complain about how some university study has already proved some theoretical technology impossible, grab your bag of cheetos and take a seat next to comic book guy.

It's a fun interesting story if you like to ask the question, "what if" a lot.

For high values of 3-star ratings, you get 4-stars

This was a very good story and good job in narration. It wasn't your standard and expected sci-fi story. The story had some weak points and the narration was a lacking inflection in some areas. That said, the story kept me interested and had a good number of twists and turns. I'm glad I got this on sale, but I wouldn't have been upset if I spent a credit on it.

I cried …

… with relief when it FINALLY ended! Honestly, I was enjoying it until about the last ~4 hours, which was the longest, most drawn-out final battle I’ve ever been subjected to! It was so damn confusing that I gave up trying to follow what was going on … until I saw the kitchen sink float by and I figured that there were no more f**ks to give.

I love Daniel Suarez’s Daemon so much that I was rooting for Influx to follow in its footsteps. However, it only had flashes of the brilliance of that smashing debut novel. And the uber-extended Armageddon begged for a competent editor’s ruthless pen. It was a real turn-off.

Silly and fun so long as you don't think too much.

I really enjoyed a good part of this listen. It started off with an interesting concept and slowly moved toward the completely absurd. I stuck through to the end because I wanted to see how it would turn out but I will not purchase anything else in this series. It reminded me a lot of THE MATRIX in the sense that, at some point, I just stopped trying to follow the plot and enjoyed the visuals. Same thing here. Some of the descriptions were very interesting but ultimately unsatisfying.

Snooze

I really enjoyed other books he wrote. but I just could not get into this one. I quit after a few hours. I could not care less about the main character.

Good story, good reader, bad production.

This is a good story, even if much of the science is basically star trek level "it sounds like science" stuff with a hand wave. Some parts are blatantly derivative but overall it's really well done.

The narrator did a good job, with a couple questionable choices on character voice. I was never pushed out of the story by it.

Unfortunately, they decided to overuse musical stingers and loops in places they were completely unnecessary and pushed them too far up front in the mix, to the point that a couple times I had to go back to make sure what the narrator was saying.

Really Makes You Think of the Possibilities

Loved this book. Difficult to put down. Depressing at times, but just keep listening! P.s., just don't listen on speaker if you're near an Echo device... one of the characters is named Alexa!