| Title | : | American Hex |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 9783730942 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | ebook |
| Number of Pages | : | - |
| Publication | : | First published August 12, 2013 |
In the near future, Techclon, an American mega corporation, develops cheap wireless nodes making the Internet fast, access universal, and bandwidth abundant. Techclon convinces the government to ban personal hard drives, forcing everyone to store their data over the Internet on Techclon servers. After Justin is arrested for having his own hard drive, the CEO of Techclon gives Justin a choice: work for Techclon or go to prison.
Justin’s new career at Techclon centers on catching the Judge, an amateur philosopher and a black hat computer hacker who plans to release a doomsday worm that will take down the Internet. Through online conversations with the Judge, Justin becomes obsessed. Justin's quest will sweep him to the top echelon of society and then plunge him into poverty as he seeks to figure out the Judge’s identity.
Even after the Judge is no longer a threat, Justin sacrifices everything to find the Judge because he believes the Judge is the only person who can cure his sense of alienation.
American Hex Reviews
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It is extremely difficult, in fact nigh on impossible to find any information online about the actual author of American Hex "Justin March" I have gone back through my emails only to discover that all of my email contact with him has come via anonymous writer...
I don't know if this is all part of some cunning marketing strategy, a true desire to remain anonymous or whether the author is simply on some kind of narcissistic trip however the main character, or seriously flawed hero of American Hex also happens to be called Justin March.
Set in the near future, Justin March is a computer genius who embarks upon a destructive quest to find a computer hacker who has threatened to unleash a doomsday worm on the world...I winced when I first started reading this, not because the book is badly written, far from it, however as a general rule tales of cyber hacking do not float my boat however I was quickly pulled in by what is undeniably a corny, cliched yet utterly compelling, sometimes frenetic, sometimes laboured plot. I felt that in the beginning, I was maybe being asked to suspend disbelief just a little too much...Take for example the scene where he escapes some hit men via a taxi but drops his possessions including his laptop which contains information that would expose the cyber criminals that he has been working for. Then, after getting shot at, he returns to the scene and is relieved that the hit men haven't taken his stuff. Come on, this is big city America. That stuff would have been lifted by passers by in less than a second!
Justin's obsessive game of cat and mouse with the judge spans several years and comes at a great personal cost to him as he achieves great wealth and prestige only to come crashing down to earth with a bang. The characters in this book are interesting. I wanted to slap Justin at times for his stupidity and the fact that he seems so one dimensional at times, yet I found the judge to be thoroughly intriguing and likeable. I also thought that the dysfunctional friendships that he formed were well written. There are several plausible contenders for the role of judge and I was completely thrown and surprised by the actual reveal...which is definitely a good thing!
The book carries a strong anti corporate America/anti establishment theme which in spite of my strong socialist principles, I sometimes felt was hammered home a little too crudely and I found myself switching off from several of the rants in the book.
The big plus about American Hex is that it is completely FREE on kindle from Amazon as well as being FREE on Nook from Barnes and Noble and is definitely worth downloading.
All in all, this is a reasonably well written book, with a strong message which might not be to everyone's taste but which will undoubtedly provide a little light entertainment as well as plenty of food for thought...
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www.ingridhall.com
