WWW: Wake

By: Robert J. Sawyer

Narrated by: Jessica Almasy, Jennifer Van Dyck, A. C. Fellner, Marc Vietor, Robert J. Sawyer

Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math - and blind. Still, she can surf the net with the best of them, following its complex paths clearly in her mind.

But Caitlin's brain long ago co-opted her primary visual cortex to help her navigate online. So when she receives an implant to restore her sight, instead of seeing reality, the landscape of the World Wide Web explodes into her consciousness, spreading out all around her in a riot of colors and shapes.

While exploring this amazing realm, she discovers something - some other - lurking in the background. And it's getting more and more intelligent with each passing day.

BONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction written and read by author Robert J. Sawyer.

©2009 Ace (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The thematic diversity - and profundity - makes this one of Sawyer's strongest works to date." (Publishers Weekly)

"Unforgettable. Impossible to put down." (Jack McDevitt)

"Thoughtful and engaging, and a great beginning to a fascinating trilogy." (Robert Charles Wilson)

I am her and she is me

I have been a Robert J Sawyer fan for over a decade going on 2 decades, , I've read almost everything hes written except for this series . Which now I see was Kismet
When this book came out, I Experience, reading it, as I do today.
would not have had the same, Relationship with the protagonist that I do today.
About 2 years ago, I became legally blind.
I understand her struggles those, probably better and even the author, however he did an extremely good job, Creating a protagonist with this particular issue.

My father is also similar to her father a genius with Azburger's, and my father my father jerema phobia leaving him, not physically affectionate, comma even though we can definitely E and I relate to one another, on a mental end Intellectual level.
But I think the thing that put the icing on the cake in all of us. Is that her birthday appears to be October 5th which is my birthday.

In the past I had copies of all 3 of these books in this series come in paperback and for some reason even though I absolutely loved, Flash forward, and a human Hybrids and hominid series amongst many other of this author's book.
I just never picked them up, now that I can't read out of a book like other people, which irritates me to no end like her trying to learn the new alphabet., So different than brail car which I myself am hoping to learn.......

I have had to relegate myself to listening to books.
Being a person that had at 1 point in time over 2500 books in their personal library, comma and red daily from the time I started reading at the age of 3, Now in my fifties I have probably consumed 5000 books or more in my life
I'm definitely going to spend 2 more of my audible credits I'm the next 2 books in this series.......
I definitely also want to know what happens to hobo.....

For me the book was awesome
I couldn't put it down, and generally I spend a lot of time on YouTube, I have barely opened YouTube since I purchased this book.

In a wrap up, I would suggest this to anyone, but specifically someone who has struggles in their lives...
And I will be suggesting it to my friends in my blind and visually impaired groups on Facebook.

Enjoyable

Yes, it's young adult fiction, so you need to understand and accept some things from that perspective. One review faulted the book for the slang, innuendo and the product placement....but story is told from the perspective of a nearly 16 year old girl. Spend some time with a group of 16 year olds and you will hear all of that and more! I found the narration to be pleasant and the story to be interesting and well told. I liked how Sawyer brought in other authors, books as well scientific and mathematical ideas into the story to substantiate the premise. It gives you something more to research if you are interested in the theories he presents.

what a great trilogy

I truly truly( shall i say one more time truly ) loved this trilogy. It's original, fun, interesting, well written, everything that a good book needs. I take my hat off to you Mr.Sawyer and I will gladly spend my credits on your books. 'nough said.

Fun and thought-provoking

I do enjoy Robert Sawyer's work. He has excellent ideas that are sufficiently grounded in real science that you can accept and run with them. His characters are somewhat less realistic and sometimes harder to believe ... which is why this didn't get 5 stars ... but they were good enough to keep my attention and let me suspend my credibility. The reading is okay (I am not a fan of many readers for one book) and the concept is intriguing. This is classic concept-based sci fi, so if you like the genre, give this one a listen.

best done audible book

great science fiction. great story, great messaged, great audible recording. my new favorite. now onto the other 2 in the series

meh

I read a few of his earlier books and they were really good. I picked up a few of his more recent ones and they seem to be more liberal than what I remember. A lot of talk about global warming, immigration, feminism, Muslim extremists, but that's just a lot of ideas I can do without in my novels. as for the book it was really slow and I hated how the female who played the young girl was supposed to have a Southern drawl from Texas but she just turned out sounding like a girl from Harlem with a mental disability.

fascinating

I just love Caitlin and Dr. Karota (sp?).
The concept is very interesting and am courious to see where it goes. The signing apes and the extermination in China was dropped, but I assume that they will reappear in the next book.
The idea of a "webmind" lurking out there is a scary thought, but then Big Brother has been watching for many years, hasn't he?
Really enjoyed having different narrators bringing the story to life.
Overall a good read and am looking forward to the 2nd book in the trilogy.

Not my favorite, but it has a sequel

I was interested in this book for several reasons. First, because Caitlin, the main character is blind and a math genius/computer geek. Second, because the concept of a friendly AI is one which is not often seen in science fiction.

You can see that Sawyer tries to make Caitlin act like a regular teenage girl. This means that the book is filled with annoying talk (exclaiming "Awesome!" and using phrases such as "like, forever" in sentences. She's a geek --- she's not supposed to be normal! When she is offered the chance to undergo a procedure to get her sight back, she immediately jumps at the chance --- not that it's a bad thing, but the author then proceeds to explain that she's been trying and trying to regain sight and none of the procedures have worked. It's as if everyone should want sight, and those who don't have it are so inconvenienced. This is certainly not how I view it... but, that's just my opinion.

Now, on the artificial intelligence called Web Mind. As it's name suggests, Web Mind emerged spontaneously from the infrastructure of the World Wide Web. We see the progression throughout the book as the intelligence becomes conscious, learns to think, and learns to communicate with the outside world, culminating in Web Mind finally speaking to Caitlin. I found the ideas of consciousness and the human mind in this book fascinating.

Fast paced and entertaining

It would have been perfect 5's across the board, however towards the end the author brought up quotes from astronauts of Apollo 8, regarding God and blah blah blah and it kind of killed the whole feeling of the book as a scientific journey. Even with that please ruining it for me at the end I highly recommend it.

Just a setup for the sequel

I feel like everything that happened in the book was covered by the blurb and that nothing unsurprising happened.

On the other hand, the performance was fantastic. Loved the multiple narrators and the use of actual audio from real love fe events.