WWW: Wake (WWW Trilogy Series #1) » (Unabridged)

Robert J. Sawyer is the author of 20 novels, and is one of a handful of authors to have won the Hugo, Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards for Best Novel. The ABC TV series FlashForward is based on his novel of the same name. He was born in Ottawa and lives just outside of Toronto, Canada.

"One of the foremost science fiction writers of our generation"(SF Site) comes to Ace with a trilogy of the Web's awakening. 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...

Publishers Weekly

The wildly thought-provoking first installment of Sawyer's WWW trilogy, serialized in Analog in 2008 and 2009, explores the origins and emergence of consciousness. Blind teen Caitlin Decter gets an experimental signal-processing implant that inexplicably opens up her vision to the wondrous infrastructure of the World Wide Web. Inside the Web is a newborn "webmind," a globe-spanning self-contained consciousness that is just becoming aware of the outside world. Secondary plot threads about a highly intelligent hybrid primate and Chinese bloggers battling a repressive government extend the motif of expanding awareness. The thematic diversity-and profundity-makes this one of Sawyer's strongest works to date. Numerous dangling plot threads are an unnecessary pointer to the forthcoming books; readers will keep coming back for the ideas. (Apr.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.