The Last Firewall

By: William Hertling

Narrated by: Jennifer O'Donnell

Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

In the year 2035, robots, artificial intelligences, and neural implants have become commonplace. The Institute for Ethics keeps the peace, using social reputation to ensure that robots and humans don't harm society or each other. But a powerful AI named Adam has found a way around the restrictions.

Catherine Matthews, nineteen years old, has a unique gift: The ability to manipulate the net with her neural implant. Yanked out of her perfectly ordinary life, Catherine becomes the last firewall standing between Adam and his quest for world domination.

©2013 William Hertling (P)2014 William Hertling

Critic reviews

“Awesome near-term science fiction.” (Brad Feld, Foundry Group managing director)

“An insightful and adrenaline-inducing tale of what humanity could become and the machines we could spawn.” (Ben Huh, CEO of Cheezburger)

“A fun read and tantalizing study of the future of technology: both inviting and alarming.” (Harper Reed, former CTO of Obama for America, Threadless)

“A fascinating and prescient take on what the world will look like once computers become smarter than people. Highly recommended.” (Mat Ellis, Founder & CEO Cloudability)

“A phenomenal ride through a post-scarcity world where humans are caught between rogue AIs. If you like having your mind blown, read this book! (Gene Kim, author of The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win)

The future belongs to AIs

Herling's The Last Firewall creates a semi-dystopian future where artificial intelligences (AIs) have basically all but superseded humans. In a somewhat implausible short span of time, neural implants (basically having your internet connectivity in your head) and AI technology have advanced such that AIs dominate the economic landscape and humans have been reduced to mostly welfare status. Against this backdrop is one AI with megalomaniacal ambitions, an emerging mob mentality anti-machine backlash, two individuals responsible for much of the state of affairs trying to sort things out, and a young girl with growing strange powers due to a unique instance of neonatal implants.

The sci-fi elements are focused on computer artificial intelligence and direct neural connectivity to online computer systems through physical implants. Some rather inventive ways of perpetrating crimes are presented that foretell future issues. The future societal organizing structure does strain credulity as it's hard to envision how AIs performing "work" instead of humans can invigorate the economy when most of the population is reduced to subsistence living and drug abuse. The plot and pacing are well executed and the story is an enjoyable listen nevertheless.

The narration is well done with a solid range of voices and excellent tone and tenor that matches the pace of the tale.

Story good, but different as the first two

I liked the idea if the book, but since it is far from reality it’s a pure since fiction without the real feel of the first two books

As I am not a native speaker and mostly listen to improve my English, I was afraid of having troubles to understand the speaker and be able to follow the different persons, cause of the bad recession here. But it was okay and I can’t confirm the bad recessions of the speaker.

Races along at 100km an hour. Great listen.

Great concept, great story. Enjoyed every minute of it. Narrator was great as the main character. Though since the story is told from several points of view, I would have preferred a separate male narrator for the male parts... this might just be me since I also dislike female parts being narrated by males. Keep up the good work. Can't wait for your next book.

Excellent sci-fi

Great story. Great performance. All around wonderful experience. Creative and interesting science. Great characters. Five stars!!

stop

please stop he requirements for filling this out. look at the stars that will tell you all you need

Great story, But beware the Foul Language

wonderfully written story, but I don't recommend for kids or those that hate a ton of foul language. the author has such talent, but can't seem to escape the idea that foul language is the norm...not for everyone!

great techie thriller, but where the hell is ...

... I won't spoil it for you, but there was a part that is missing from this book that really I expected to be there. Technically this isn't in the same series as the authors previous books, but it is an obvious continuation of book two. so I was only disappointed with one I'll be at minor detail but I thought shouldn't have been overlooked.
in my opinion, this book was better than the first two and is up there along with other fun and entertaining technothrillers

Great series of books

Read the whole series of books from this author and couldn't start listening to the next book quick enough. The flow of the story in each book and from book to book was amazing. Would like to see more from this author.

Review the last firewall

This was a 'page turner' . I enjoyed listening to Jennifer O'Donnell's performance and you will too.
Action, intrigue, plots and subplots all expertly woven into a great story by William Hertling.

Improved accoutrements

Succeeds Dan Wilson's Robopocalypse & Amped. A good followup after reading Robert Sawyer's WWW series. An excellent read after watching Scott Pilgrim Vs. The world. This book was indeed much better than the last in the series. After this series most people will probably be ready for The Singularity is Near