The Satori Effect

The novelty of electronic books can wear out quickly -- now that the potential for distributing books as bits is obvious to everyone right up to famous writers and their publishers, it's not enough that a book be electronic. There has to be a good story. Reader 11131719 contributed this review of what sounds like a killer book that satisfies on both counts, and perhaps one well suited to spark some genuine e-book action.

The Satori Effect author David Pesci pages 615 publisher David Pesci www.thesatorieffect.com rating 8.5 reviewer 11131719 ISBN n/a summary Kick-ass Internet murder mystery with a techie hero and one killer app.

One Killer App What the hell is the author of Amistad doing writing a contemporary mystery about hacking, viruses, a computer forensics specialist and the FBI? That was my first thought as I started reading The Satori Effect, the new novel by best-selling author David Pesci. By the time I hit page 20, I could see exactly what he was doing: kicking ass.

Pesci, best known for his novel Amistad (inspiration for the Steven Spielberg movie), steps out of history with The Satori Effect and lands firmly in a future that might be just a few months away. The story, a mystery wrapped around the world of hacking, e-mail viruses and apps, opens with a suicide and quickly moves to a possible homicide: the victim is decapitated when his computer monitor explodes. This turns out to be the second such incident in less than a month. The FBI suspects a Unabomber type, dubbed "The CyberBomber" by the media. A computer forensics tech named Flint, who works in a top-secret government facility, is charged with going through the overwrites on the victims' hard drives in search of clues.

What Flint finds is not the traces of a bomber but pieces of code, one that he comes to believe are part of an app designed specifically to use the system's hardware to kill the user. It's a wild premise, and not even Flint's co-workers believe such an app could be written. But as Flint and his partner (the very hot, seen-it, done-it Special Agent Buhner) begin to investigate, the clues start mounting up. So do the bodies, and it becomes a race to find out who has the app and catch him (or them) before the code is given a replication subroutine and turn it into a full blown Internet virus.

All this is revealed in The Satori Effect's first 120 pages, which are posted online (PDF format) for free at www.thesatorieffect.com. There is also a rich cast of characters, including a dark-hat hacker with a serious information addiction, Flint's boss (who makes Machiavelli look like one of the Backstreet Boys), Flint's co-worker -- a know-it-all wise-ass lesbian tech named Berlow -- and an ever-deepening plot where almost nothing is as it seems on the surface. The writing is first-rate, the details accurate, the story flies and there are more than a few surprises.

My only real hit against The Satori Effect is that it's not available in book form yet. I found out about it after a friend sent me the URL for the book. According to the Matrix-flavored website built around the free pages, Pesci's publishers have hedged on putting this out because he is known as a history writer and they don't think his readers will follow him to technofiction. Pesci, who oozes attitude in the site's copy, has flipped them the bird by posting this online. If readers like the free 120 pages posted on his site for free, the rest is available in PDF format for $10 via PayPal. I quickly found that didn't like reading the book on screen, so I was printing out 100 pages at a time and carrying them around loose, which sucked. Still, I think Pesci's going to get the last laugh on his publishers. The Satori Effect rocks. Neal Stephenson beware: Pesci may be eating your lunch soon, if not your Captain Crunch.

Comments

In the right direction...

[BrK]

This sounds better to me than Stephen Kings idea of digital publishing. There doesn't seem to be the same grief from the author about the same user reading the same story on different platforms. I bought The Plant online just to support the concept in general, but I never really felt that it was all the way there. It would be cool if publishers caught on to this, I would love to be able to read the first few chapters of a book before deciding to buy it.

Reading on the screen

[stephenbooth]

. I quickly found that didn't like reading the book on screen,

I used to have difficulty reading long pieces off the screen. After I really got into fanfic, distributed via mailing lists, I got used to it and now have no problems. It's just a case of getting aclimated.

Now the only time I print something off is to read in bed (still not comfortable curling up with a laptop), to read on the bus or if I need to show it to someone who doesn't have a computer.

Stephen

Re:PDF on a PDA?

[Trinition]

RichReader version 1.61 can convert PDFs to their format for reading on the PalmOS. I believe other readers can do this as well, but this is the first that came to mind.

Re:Interesting...

[A Big Gnu Thrush]

Hey, you can read the first three chapters of my book at the above sandbox address, or buy the pdf for $10.

Hell, email me and I'll send you the whole thing. I'm a cheap ho.

Re:What will e-books do to us?

[Erik Hollensbe]

One of the things that I've been doing at my job at a online and local-area bookstore in portland (name withheld) is setting up e-book handling for our customers.

We serve 2 types: Rocket Editions, and soon E-books using the MS Reader software (with that cleartype crap the rest of the world calls anti-aliasing).

The MS reader is exactly what you describe - communicate through a secure server that verifies your ID, sends a transaction to a distributor and you get a file (.lit) that contains the "book". You use the software on your computer to read it, and msot sites have it setup so that you can return and download it at will once you've paid for it.

Now, rocket editions, are extrememly cool. You purchase a palm-pilot like device that syncs with your computer, so, you can take it anywhere, not much different than a "real" book. The only caveat is that all books are stored on rocket's site, so, while you've purchased it, you're pretty much at the mercy of their system for getting your books. I can't recall if it's capable of storing these books on your own system.

Now that you perhaps actually understand what you're talkign about, it should be known that too kill off books, you're going to have to kill off:

1) literacy

2) paper

3) ink

4) anything else that sparks creativity

While banning books in libraries does exist, it's important to understand that the libraries get the books for SOMEWHERE, they don't produce them.

How are book burnings any different than banning them? They are both expressions of silencing free speech, even if one tends to be more powerful than the other. A simple protest will do, or mass writing/emailing activism on the complainant's behalf.

It would be particularily nice if people would spend less time performing actions against the problem and more time attempting to solve them.

Fahrenheit 451

[mattdm]

Actually, if the people in Farhenheit 451 would have had electronic books, the would have been a lot better off. Much easier to hide, and much easier to duplicate.

The point of the story isn't that books-as-paper were banned -- it's about books-as-ideas.

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$10

[mattdm]

Not to sound like a cheapskate or anything... actually, yes, to sound like a cheapskate: $10 seems like a lot, when a paperback book is $6 or so.

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