I know I have said this a lot recently, but it's been a super crazy week. Actually, today I woke up really tired, and feeling sick. I think I'm kind of crashing after this week, but I need to tell my body it can't do that yet, since I have another busy week ahead.
Monday, I had school, I volunteered at the library, had a short Nutcracker rehearsal, and Irish dance class.
On Tuesday, almost nothing happened (amazing!). Some friends of my sister's came over in the afternoon, but other than that I just did homework.
Wednesday was the PSAT in the morning. I missed one class at the college, and barely made it in time for the second, which I had a midterm in. After that was park day.
Thursday, I taught Latin in the morning. We had the first current events class of the year at our house in the afternoon, and then I had a make-up driver's ed class.
Friday, I had class in the morning, then stayed on campus to study for a test in my study skills class, and hang out with some friends. Then I met up downtown with a friend who is home visiting from college. It was great to catch up with her. Then, because that wasn't a long enough day, I had a ballet class.
Saturday, we left at about 10:30 in the morning to get food for lunch and dinner, then went to pick up two other ballet friends. Then we drove 30 min. to the theater we were performing at that night. By the time we got there, it was about noon. We had a ballet class, a dress rehearsal, a break for dinner, a warm up, and then the actual performance. Despite a few issues, the whole thing went very well. By the time the show was over and I got home, it was about 10:45pm. The first performance of Dracula went well, but it was a really long day.
Sunday, I didn't do much all day except hang out with some friends who came over for a few hours. I spent a lot of time talking to friends online, and did a little homework that was due on Monday.
Today, like I said, I'm kind of crashing. I have a similar week ahead of me though, with Dracula performances both Saturday and Sunday.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Friday, October 17, 2014
Daemon and Freedom {A Literature Analysis}
A few weeks ago, I reviewed the books Daemon and Freedom, by Daniel Suarez. Since then, I've been exchanging emails back and forth with Spencer, a homeschool friend, who has gone to college in Seattle this fall. I was reading over this email conversation about these books, and I really wanted to share them with you. I love how we both came at this from pretty different perspectives (and if you know Spencer and I, and the topic at hand pretty well, you might be able to guess how this conversation went), but we ended up at a shared conclusion. But a huge warning: This conversation discusses the END of the book Freedom, and contains massive spoilers for both books. Continue at your own risk. If you have read the book, please continue reading, and feel free to continue this conversation in the comments!
It all started when Spencer sent me a comment on my blog, asking me how I had personally answered the question I had mentioned in my review of Freedom: "But in Freedom, it is suddenly a question that you have to answer for yourselves. " (whether the Daemon is evil or good).
My response: WARNING: Below you will find a somewhat rambling, stream of consciousness style answer to your question. :) I am also very curious to hear what your opinion on the matter is, and what you think of my answer to it.
I'm not really sure. At the end of the story, they needed it, because they were no longer able to function without it, but they also would have never gotten into that giant mess in the first place if not for it's presence. I think they were, in many ways, better off because of the Daemon and the Darknet, but the considering the tremendous loss of life that it took to get there, I'm not sure if I would say it was worth it. Really, I think that the Daemon itself can't be good or evil. It's not a sentient being, and can't have good or bad intentions.
What I think really matters is the intentions of it's creator, Matthew Sobol. In the end, he seemed to have good intentions. He created a system that punished wrongdoers, and supported the grassroots community. Maybe what he realized was that the only way to get to that point was to force people to accept that they needed such a drastic change, which the Daemon did force them to do.
But, one major question still remains: was the loss of human life that it took to get to that endpoint worth it? I personally tend to value intention over actions, which forces me towards the conclusion that Sobol's Daemon was in the end a good creation. Of course, Sobol knew when he created the Daemon that he wouldn't ever have to live in a world where it was in control, so why should he care about the process, if the outcome was satisfactory.
So, really, I'm not sure. I would lean towards saying that it was good, but it's hard to say for sure, not knowing what a world without the Daemon would have looked like.
Spencer: WARNING: Here thar be a long, rambling pontification which is worse than unstructured, in that it is structured poorly :)
Hmm. I'm a utilitarian, so the outcome (total outcome: I do factor in the various bad things and loss of life that the Daemon caused in order to establish itself in the "outcome" of the decision to create the Daemon) is my main consideration. Whether Sobol's intentions were good (I agree that they were) and whether the Daemon itself could be said to have intentions (I agree that it cannot) aren't as important to me.
Although I have the same feeling that you do that Sobol's good intentions at least partially justified his decision. If you want to put yourself in a position where you pass the least judgment on others' decisions, you have to approve the decisions that are well-intentioned, since that way you affirm the decision-maker's ability to decide what is good and what will work. Let 'em do whatever they want so long as they're not evil-intentioned. Does that make any sense?
But back to the Daemon. The total outcome is what matters in my opinion. So what do I think of the total outcome?
Assuming that the Daemon's new government is stable enough to last for a long time, the loss of life seems fairly negligible. I mean, compared to either of the world wars I'm guessing the total death toll is relatively small, because the Daemon pitted forces against focused targets rather than pitting entire nations against each other. I could be off on this though, since it's been a long time since I've read Daemon.
So I would argue that if the state of the world is significantly better after the Daemon's takeover, then the Daemon is good. It seems like in the short term this is definitely true, even if you argue that some of the technologies the Daemon instituted would not have been implemented so flawlessly in real life. (Which you have to, because the technologies surely would not have been.) The Daemon improved the state of the world through redistribution of income (and all sorts of stuff like education), fairer and cheating-proof democracy and justice through secure, networked and constant voting, plus a system that gave everyone who wanted one a role in society. These things have little to do with technology and more to do with enforcing fairness.
It also made the world more like a game and in doing so created purpose for people who had lost a sense of purpose in real life.
Suarez also, crucially, built adaptability into the system, so that the Daemon could facilitate all sorts of other beneficial stuff and adapt to change.
However, this ability to change also represents a security risk. You raised an important point: "At the end of the story, they needed it, because they were no longer able to function without it". By removing existing political structure and forcing everyone to rely on the same infrastructure, the Daemon made the world a lot less robust. A single hacker who figured out how to game the system could cause immeasurable damage. I think Suarez would argue that infrastructure defense security people would be able to contain the damage, but if they could not and the Daemon were destroyed, the world would fall into anarchy and chaos. Or if the hacker/hacker's organization managed to turn the Daemon to their own ends fast enough to stymie the infrastructure defense people, they would essentially have unlimited power and the capacity to do all sorts of horrible things.
So in the end my evaluation of the Daemon comes down to how stable and un-game-able it turns out to be. If Suarez's argument that the people who believe in the Daemon will successfully be able to protect, update, and perpetuate it is valid, I'm all for the Daemon. But if it's hacked, the negative consequences would be enormous.
That's my take :) Looking forward to hearing what you think,
Me: I do think that you are right in saying that total outcome is more important in this particular situation. While I do highly value Sobol's good intentions, since he knew he would never actually see the Daemon in action, I don't think it's the most important factor to consider.
I also agree that long term stability (if the Daemon proved able to provide that) would negate the loss of life. I don't know what the death tolls would have been like, but it is probably true that it would have been less than many wars. While there seemed to be significant loss of life in certain area, and in certain groups of people, much of the world didn't fall into any of the target groups, and thus should have been fine.
My main problem with the entire idea is how dependent the entire world is on the Daemon at the end of the book. If they were able to function successfully without it, I think that the danger of it being hacked would be much less, because they could simply shut it down in an emergency, temporary, or, in an extreme case, forever. But because of their dependence on it, if someone did take over the system, they would be stuck in it. They could hope that, as you suggested, members of the community would be able to fix the damage, but in a worst-case scenario, they would have no way to "get away" from the Daemon, without causing mass chaos, which might arguably be worse than whatever damage the hacker caused.
I am leaning toward saying the Daemon is a good thing, though I think in the end, it defies any such simplistic categories. There is so much more information I would want before making a true analysis, but since that information was not available, I think that, considering just the information provided, I will say that the Daemon is good. Granted, it's risky, and there are plenty of possible issues, but I think that given what we have seen the Darknet community achieve in the past, and looking at the the whole matter with a bit of optimism (which admittedly, I'm not known for, but I'm trying. :D), I think my final analysis might have to be that the Daemon is good.
This is the thought process I imagine Sebek going through in the final pages of the book, when he makes the decision to keep the Daemon. He knew that society would devolve into chaos without it, and he knew that it had positive impacts so far, but he also realized that while trusting the Daemon itself was a huge risk, that wasn't actually who he was trusting. The Daemon was simply a facilitator (at least at that point) of an international community. He chose to trust the people, which, when you think about it, is really the only thing you can do in any society. Because, in the end, there are only people.
Spencer: I have to agree with that analysis. I like the idea that the Daemon, by the end of the book, has really become the community that has sprung up around it. If that's true, I'm definitely behind it. The more that the Daemon still has parts of itself hidden from the community, the less I'm inclined to trust its stability.
I wonder, if you were Sobol, what sort of contingency plan you would try to set up. You would probably train members of the community in what to do if large pieces of infrastructure fell apart.
I guess I'd also have to ask how integrated the Daemon is; to what extent it exists in loosely coupled pieces connected by humans versus being a tightly technically interwoven system. I would say that the more loosely coupled the Daemon is, the more robust it is. In the book the Daemon is mostly portrayed as being tightly integrated so that it can maintain its blitzkrieg, but as you were saying, the peacetime Daemon has ceded a lot of power to its human constituents, so I don't really know what the final state of the Daemon looks like.
In the end, I'd guess the Daemon is fairly robust and support it, but you're right: we don't have enough information :)
So there you have it. Our lengthy analysis of Daemon, and our final decision that it is indeed good.
It all started when Spencer sent me a comment on my blog, asking me how I had personally answered the question I had mentioned in my review of Freedom: "But in Freedom, it is suddenly a question that you have to answer for yourselves. " (whether the Daemon is evil or good).
My response: WARNING: Below you will find a somewhat rambling, stream of consciousness style answer to your question. :) I am also very curious to hear what your opinion on the matter is, and what you think of my answer to it.
I'm not really sure. At the end of the story, they needed it, because they were no longer able to function without it, but they also would have never gotten into that giant mess in the first place if not for it's presence. I think they were, in many ways, better off because of the Daemon and the Darknet, but the considering the tremendous loss of life that it took to get there, I'm not sure if I would say it was worth it. Really, I think that the Daemon itself can't be good or evil. It's not a sentient being, and can't have good or bad intentions.
What I think really matters is the intentions of it's creator, Matthew Sobol. In the end, he seemed to have good intentions. He created a system that punished wrongdoers, and supported the grassroots community. Maybe what he realized was that the only way to get to that point was to force people to accept that they needed such a drastic change, which the Daemon did force them to do.
But, one major question still remains: was the loss of human life that it took to get to that endpoint worth it? I personally tend to value intention over actions, which forces me towards the conclusion that Sobol's Daemon was in the end a good creation. Of course, Sobol knew when he created the Daemon that he wouldn't ever have to live in a world where it was in control, so why should he care about the process, if the outcome was satisfactory.
So, really, I'm not sure. I would lean towards saying that it was good, but it's hard to say for sure, not knowing what a world without the Daemon would have looked like.
Spencer: WARNING: Here thar be a long, rambling pontification which is worse than unstructured, in that it is structured poorly :)
Hmm. I'm a utilitarian, so the outcome (total outcome: I do factor in the various bad things and loss of life that the Daemon caused in order to establish itself in the "outcome" of the decision to create the Daemon) is my main consideration. Whether Sobol's intentions were good (I agree that they were) and whether the Daemon itself could be said to have intentions (I agree that it cannot) aren't as important to me.
Although I have the same feeling that you do that Sobol's good intentions at least partially justified his decision. If you want to put yourself in a position where you pass the least judgment on others' decisions, you have to approve the decisions that are well-intentioned, since that way you affirm the decision-maker's ability to decide what is good and what will work. Let 'em do whatever they want so long as they're not evil-intentioned. Does that make any sense?
But back to the Daemon. The total outcome is what matters in my opinion. So what do I think of the total outcome?
Assuming that the Daemon's new government is stable enough to last for a long time, the loss of life seems fairly negligible. I mean, compared to either of the world wars I'm guessing the total death toll is relatively small, because the Daemon pitted forces against focused targets rather than pitting entire nations against each other. I could be off on this though, since it's been a long time since I've read Daemon.
So I would argue that if the state of the world is significantly better after the Daemon's takeover, then the Daemon is good. It seems like in the short term this is definitely true, even if you argue that some of the technologies the Daemon instituted would not have been implemented so flawlessly in real life. (Which you have to, because the technologies surely would not have been.) The Daemon improved the state of the world through redistribution of income (and all sorts of stuff like education), fairer and cheating-proof democracy and justice through secure, networked and constant voting, plus a system that gave everyone who wanted one a role in society. These things have little to do with technology and more to do with enforcing fairness.
It also made the world more like a game and in doing so created purpose for people who had lost a sense of purpose in real life.
Suarez also, crucially, built adaptability into the system, so that the Daemon could facilitate all sorts of other beneficial stuff and adapt to change.
However, this ability to change also represents a security risk. You raised an important point: "At the end of the story, they needed it, because they were no longer able to function without it". By removing existing political structure and forcing everyone to rely on the same infrastructure, the Daemon made the world a lot less robust. A single hacker who figured out how to game the system could cause immeasurable damage. I think Suarez would argue that infrastructure defense security people would be able to contain the damage, but if they could not and the Daemon were destroyed, the world would fall into anarchy and chaos. Or if the hacker/hacker's organization managed to turn the Daemon to their own ends fast enough to stymie the infrastructure defense people, they would essentially have unlimited power and the capacity to do all sorts of horrible things.
So in the end my evaluation of the Daemon comes down to how stable and un-game-able it turns out to be. If Suarez's argument that the people who believe in the Daemon will successfully be able to protect, update, and perpetuate it is valid, I'm all for the Daemon. But if it's hacked, the negative consequences would be enormous.
That's my take :) Looking forward to hearing what you think,
Me: I do think that you are right in saying that total outcome is more important in this particular situation. While I do highly value Sobol's good intentions, since he knew he would never actually see the Daemon in action, I don't think it's the most important factor to consider.
I also agree that long term stability (if the Daemon proved able to provide that) would negate the loss of life. I don't know what the death tolls would have been like, but it is probably true that it would have been less than many wars. While there seemed to be significant loss of life in certain area, and in certain groups of people, much of the world didn't fall into any of the target groups, and thus should have been fine.
My main problem with the entire idea is how dependent the entire world is on the Daemon at the end of the book. If they were able to function successfully without it, I think that the danger of it being hacked would be much less, because they could simply shut it down in an emergency, temporary, or, in an extreme case, forever. But because of their dependence on it, if someone did take over the system, they would be stuck in it. They could hope that, as you suggested, members of the community would be able to fix the damage, but in a worst-case scenario, they would have no way to "get away" from the Daemon, without causing mass chaos, which might arguably be worse than whatever damage the hacker caused.
I am leaning toward saying the Daemon is a good thing, though I think in the end, it defies any such simplistic categories. There is so much more information I would want before making a true analysis, but since that information was not available, I think that, considering just the information provided, I will say that the Daemon is good. Granted, it's risky, and there are plenty of possible issues, but I think that given what we have seen the Darknet community achieve in the past, and looking at the the whole matter with a bit of optimism (which admittedly, I'm not known for, but I'm trying. :D), I think my final analysis might have to be that the Daemon is good.
This is the thought process I imagine Sebek going through in the final pages of the book, when he makes the decision to keep the Daemon. He knew that society would devolve into chaos without it, and he knew that it had positive impacts so far, but he also realized that while trusting the Daemon itself was a huge risk, that wasn't actually who he was trusting. The Daemon was simply a facilitator (at least at that point) of an international community. He chose to trust the people, which, when you think about it, is really the only thing you can do in any society. Because, in the end, there are only people.
Spencer: I have to agree with that analysis. I like the idea that the Daemon, by the end of the book, has really become the community that has sprung up around it. If that's true, I'm definitely behind it. The more that the Daemon still has parts of itself hidden from the community, the less I'm inclined to trust its stability.
I wonder, if you were Sobol, what sort of contingency plan you would try to set up. You would probably train members of the community in what to do if large pieces of infrastructure fell apart.
I guess I'd also have to ask how integrated the Daemon is; to what extent it exists in loosely coupled pieces connected by humans versus being a tightly technically interwoven system. I would say that the more loosely coupled the Daemon is, the more robust it is. In the book the Daemon is mostly portrayed as being tightly integrated so that it can maintain its blitzkrieg, but as you were saying, the peacetime Daemon has ceded a lot of power to its human constituents, so I don't really know what the final state of the Daemon looks like.
In the end, I'd guess the Daemon is fairly robust and support it, but you're right: we don't have enough information :)
So there you have it. Our lengthy analysis of Daemon, and our final decision that it is indeed good.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Weekend Review #10 {Fall, School, and Friends}
It's been a good week. I'm finally feeling like the new schedule is normal, and it's getting less weird.
This week, I had my first ever college test (in my study skills class), and I got an A, which is very exciting. :) I also taught Latin this week, which I really missed doing and I am glad to be doing again. I spent a lot of time with friends, and had the last Dracula rehearsals. I finished reading both Paradise Lost, and Dracula.
On Sunday, we had a cookout/campfire party at a friend's house, which was really fun. It rained some, and was kind of cold, but there was something really awesome about sitting around the fire in the dark, while it rained, with friends.
This coming week, I have a lot of schoolwork to do, the PSAT to take, and friend home from college to catch up with, and, on Saturday, the first Dracula performance. It's going to be an exciting week.
In some ways, this week was a little weird, in that it was the first time this fall where the drastically new schedule actually felt normal. I am spending a lot of my time with different people than I used to, and becoming much better friends with people I barely knew before. It's actually really nice.
This week, I had my first ever college test (in my study skills class), and I got an A, which is very exciting. :) I also taught Latin this week, which I really missed doing and I am glad to be doing again. I spent a lot of time with friends, and had the last Dracula rehearsals. I finished reading both Paradise Lost, and Dracula.
On Sunday, we had a cookout/campfire party at a friend's house, which was really fun. It rained some, and was kind of cold, but there was something really awesome about sitting around the fire in the dark, while it rained, with friends.
This coming week, I have a lot of schoolwork to do, the PSAT to take, and friend home from college to catch up with, and, on Saturday, the first Dracula performance. It's going to be an exciting week.
In some ways, this week was a little weird, in that it was the first time this fall where the drastically new schedule actually felt normal. I am spending a lot of my time with different people than I used to, and becoming much better friends with people I barely knew before. It's actually really nice.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
In Which Hank Green is Inspiring
So today I've been doing a lot of nothing. I haven't gotten a lot of work done, but I have been doing a lot of things that are a) not very practical, and b) rather thought provoking. First of all, for the last few months, I've been watching all of the Vlogbrother videos, in order. I've seen a lot of them before (at least the newer one, and all of the ones in 2013 and 2014), but there are a lot I haven't seen before, or at least not in a long time. It's been really interesting in a lot of ways, and it's taken me a long time. I started in the middle of July, and I've only gotten to May 2011, which means I'm about half way though.
The videos I find most interesting are the ones that are a reaction to an current news event. These videos often try to predict what the outcome will be, and, living in the future, it's very interesting to see what they thought our world would look like.
But there are also videos that are just funny, or insightful, that are still just as funny and insightful today.
I'm thinking about putting together a playlist of my favorite Vlogbrothers videos, and putting it up here, but I don't have time to do that today. Instead, I just want to share this one video I was watching this afternoon. Just a warning, it does contain some adult language, just fyi. I'm not sure if you can see the title or not, but hopefully that should be warning enough.
It's funny, it rhymes, it's kind of standard advice, but it's said in a way that makes you (or at least me) think about it a little more.
And, in case you need something funny, here's a playlist of Hank Green songs. Two warnings: first, there are 90 videos in this playlist, so it's kind of a timewaster. Second, some of these are a bit NSFW, but most of them are fine. Also, the best songs (in my opinion) are the earliest ones, which also happen to be at the very bottom of the playlist.
I've been spending a good bit of my afternoon watching Hank and John while outlining my 2014 NaNoWriMo novel (yay for NaNo progress). I'm finally getting really excited about it. I kind of got some inspiration today, and I'm not sure how good my idea will be, but I like it.
I hope you're having a good Tuesday. I have more outlining (and actual school work) to do. And mom, if you're reading this, I actually have gotten schoolwork and chores done today, just not as much as I could have considering the time I had available. Don't worry. :)
The videos I find most interesting are the ones that are a reaction to an current news event. These videos often try to predict what the outcome will be, and, living in the future, it's very interesting to see what they thought our world would look like.
But there are also videos that are just funny, or insightful, that are still just as funny and insightful today.
I'm thinking about putting together a playlist of my favorite Vlogbrothers videos, and putting it up here, but I don't have time to do that today. Instead, I just want to share this one video I was watching this afternoon. Just a warning, it does contain some adult language, just fyi. I'm not sure if you can see the title or not, but hopefully that should be warning enough.
It's funny, it rhymes, it's kind of standard advice, but it's said in a way that makes you (or at least me) think about it a little more.
And, in case you need something funny, here's a playlist of Hank Green songs. Two warnings: first, there are 90 videos in this playlist, so it's kind of a timewaster. Second, some of these are a bit NSFW, but most of them are fine. Also, the best songs (in my opinion) are the earliest ones, which also happen to be at the very bottom of the playlist.
I've been spending a good bit of my afternoon watching Hank and John while outlining my 2014 NaNoWriMo novel (yay for NaNo progress). I'm finally getting really excited about it. I kind of got some inspiration today, and I'm not sure how good my idea will be, but I like it.
I hope you're having a good Tuesday. I have more outlining (and actual school work) to do. And mom, if you're reading this, I actually have gotten schoolwork and chores done today, just not as much as I could have considering the time I had available. Don't worry. :)
Monday, October 6, 2014
Weekend Review #9 {Dancing, and Colleges}
It's been a busy week (but aren't they all?).
I had classes at the community college, I volunteered at the library, and I had dance classes. In addition to all the "usual" stuff, I made up a driver's ed class, and went to a college fair.
I also went to the YA Review Club meeting for the month on Saturday. This weekend was also the beginning of Nutcracker rehearsals. Dracula rehearsals are getting a little more intense too, since the first performance is now less than two weeks away.
I'm a little conflicted about what to do after Dracula ends, dance wise, but I think I have enough material there for an entire blog post later this week. Basically, there aren't really dance classes at that dance school that I think are the appropriate level for me, but I don't want to stop going there because I've been making friends, and I would like to be able to be in more of their productions (like their spring production). Anyway, more on that later.
I have Yoga in 10 minutes, so I have to go now, but I will post again about dance and stuff, maybe later today if I have time. I'll try to talk a little more about the college fair in that post too.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Freedom by Daniel Suarez
*This post may contain affiliate links, and if you make a purchase after clicking them, I will receive compensation.*
I'm going to warn right away: this post is going to have spoilers. It is the second of a two book series, so there will certainly be spoilers for book #1, and likely some spoilers for this book too. Freedom is the sequel to Daemon, but they are really just parts one and two of the same story. You can't just read Daemon and stop there. I really, really liked both books, and highly recommend them.
My Review
In Daemon, the Daemon is painted as evil. It kills people, it frames people for murder, and it is a huge national security risk. But in Freedom, it is suddenly a question that you have to answer for yourselves. Yes, the Daemon shook things up, and people died, but the people fighting it have done bad things too.
Freedom begins with many of the characters we know from the first book joining the Darknet (the virtual world the Daemon has created to allow its followers to communicate, work on projects together, and follow it's initiative.) and trying to make the best of a new world they are now living in. With the economy going south, and traditional government unable to do anything about it, the Darknet is providing an opportunity for a new life for many people.
I thought the book was fantastic and creative. There were times when I doubted the ability of Matthew Sobol and the Daemon to predict so many events so accurately so far into the future, but in the end, I could ignore that. Also, I think the fact that I'm not familiar at all with any of the technology that would be used to do something like this helped. The characters were mainly well developed and the plot was well formulated (and obviously extensively planned ahead of time).
I really liked the character of Pete Sebek in this book. He goes on a quest that changes not only the course of history, but also greatly changes him as a person.
Who Should Read This Book?
As with the previous book in the series, this is an adult book, and thus has some adult elements. The violence is particularly graphic, and there is a lot of it. I highly recommend this book, but if these are things that bother you, you may not want to read it.
I'm going to warn right away: this post is going to have spoilers. It is the second of a two book series, so there will certainly be spoilers for book #1, and likely some spoilers for this book too. Freedom is the sequel to Daemon, but they are really just parts one and two of the same story. You can't just read Daemon and stop there. I really, really liked both books, and highly recommend them.
In Daemon, the Daemon is painted as evil. It kills people, it frames people for murder, and it is a huge national security risk. But in Freedom, it is suddenly a question that you have to answer for yourselves. Yes, the Daemon shook things up, and people died, but the people fighting it have done bad things too.
Freedom begins with many of the characters we know from the first book joining the Darknet (the virtual world the Daemon has created to allow its followers to communicate, work on projects together, and follow it's initiative.) and trying to make the best of a new world they are now living in. With the economy going south, and traditional government unable to do anything about it, the Darknet is providing an opportunity for a new life for many people.
I thought the book was fantastic and creative. There were times when I doubted the ability of Matthew Sobol and the Daemon to predict so many events so accurately so far into the future, but in the end, I could ignore that. Also, I think the fact that I'm not familiar at all with any of the technology that would be used to do something like this helped. The characters were mainly well developed and the plot was well formulated (and obviously extensively planned ahead of time).
I really liked the character of Pete Sebek in this book. He goes on a quest that changes not only the course of history, but also greatly changes him as a person.
Who Should Read This Book?
As with the previous book in the series, this is an adult book, and thus has some adult elements. The violence is particularly graphic, and there is a lot of it. I highly recommend this book, but if these are things that bother you, you may not want to read it.
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