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)

WWW: Wake

I loved it! It was one of the best reads (or listens) in quite some time! This is an intelligent, engaging story and I could not put it down. If you like smart stories that make you think...this one's for you.

Not a Sawyer Hit

Robert Sawyer is without question one of my favorite science fiction authors, however, for me this one was a miss. One of the big misses for me was the choice to have the adult reader do a fake valley girl impression for the main character. I found this voice so annoying as to make the book almost unlistenable. I persevered thinking that the story would make the listening worthwhile in the end - not really. There's also a side story about web censorship in China that has no relevance to the story. I kept waiting for the tie-in, but it never came.

Very interesting, but...

I really enjoyed the glimpse into the world of modern technology with out eyes. Some fun and new ideas are played around in this book. But... I think I could best say it comes off a bit preachy. Maybe the ending is overdone. I don't know how else to describe it.

Freaking AWESOME - As www's Kaitlin would say!

I don't even know how to express my own personal "WONDER" in relation to my experience listening to these books. All three of them are fantastic. I want a WebMind! I want him for me and for "us". This author is a genius. The way his mind works is unimaginable to me. His messages, his politics, his humanity, his creativity, his complexity and his talent are beyond compare. The story is wonderful. I absolutely love the narrators on this book. Kaitlin’s narrator is sooooooooo talented! I have read Mr. Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax (NP) series and Calculating God (CG). They are great stories also. I knew I'd like NP, and after I finished those three books, I was pretty sure I'd like CG but I wasn't sure at all I'd like the WWW series. I'm just not technically inclined and the topic as described was a little bit intimidating. BOY WAS I WRONG. It's just such a great story. I hope the Chinese government reads it.
Now, my hardest decision is which one of Robert Sawyer's books to download next. :-)
PS - I think it is so smart for him to include references to Audible in WWW. What a great plug for a great service!

Intriguing setting set back slightly - great story

Would you consider the audio edition of WWW to be better than the print version?

probably, but the mispronunciations severely inhibit understanding early on.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Kaitlyn is a very compelling intellectual with human frailty.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

It's disturbing with the thousands if not millions of qualified English speakers (even if limited to Canada) raised in Chinese speaking households that would have correctly pronounced the words that refer to the part of the story taking place there, if the North Americans butcher the pronunciation, it's severely distracting when the Chinese personages in the story do not know how to pronounce Chinese references.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Some laughter for sure, but it gets better in the other books.

Any additional comments?

For some reason, the author uses the Chinese when referring to the national firewall as 'chang cheng' instead of the english used elsewhere (The Great Wall)

A Real Snore

Reminded me of the books we had to read in High School. “THE CLASSICS”. Somewhere my old English Literature teacher is squealing “The will read, most will hate, but all will write a 5 page, single spaced paper”. Followed by an evil teacher laugh.

I will not sleep tonight.

Very Surprised and Super Pleased!

This book was a great accidental find for me on a sale recently. I took a chance and was not disappoInted!

Very intellectually written, I feel I went back to school!

The intermingling of the voices made this book fly! I was so disappointed when it ended I eagerly downloaded the second book to start it.

Also, not only was yhis fun for me as an adult, I can see how this might be a book a teenager would enjoy too!

A lot of fun.

This is a fun trilogy, even if your not a computer geek, you will like the twist and turns that the book takes you. I am a Christian though and was just a little put off by the authors obvious disdain of Christianity. But other than that, the books were fun to listen to and learn about some of the computer words and the way they work that I was clueless on, and that is a lot. I actually Googled a few things, even though this is a work of fiction, I wanted to see if certain things were real, and they were, so yay, I learned. lol I really liked the narrator's, they all did a really great job.

Impressed but...

Not the best. Over all WWW is a good book. However I felt myself becoming bored through a number a parts of it. I enjoyed the overall plot but I felt as though it needed something more to it in order to hold interest.

By the end of the book I was relieved to be done because of how long it felt the book had taken. But that's not to say I wasn't impressed with the ending either. An ending that both leaves the story concluded while still opening if up for the next book.

I own physical copies of the whole series. So I think I may try the physical version of the next book to see if I receive it different.

Review for the whole trilogy

Robert J. Sawyer is one of my all-time favorite authors. In this trilogy, he delivers yet another fantastic story. He weaves in technical and scientific detail without being pretentious or condescending. His characters are expertly developed over the trilogy, and one can't help caring about them. It's a great series and I would recommend planning on listening to/ reading the entire trilogy. The first two books leave off feeling incomplete... because they are. But the third book does resolve nicely.