Whole Wide World
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Whole Wide World is a compelling cyber-conspiracy thriller set in a world where information is the universal currency, and some people will do anything to be able to control it . . . .
Winner of both the Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick Awards, Paul McAuley has emerged as one of the most thrilling new talents in science fiction, acclaimed for his richly imagined future worlds as well as for his engrossing stories and vivid, all-too- human characters. Now he gives us a gripping and unforgettable thriller of the day after tomorrow--when the world and the Web are one.
London, in the aftermath of the Infowar. Surveillance cameras on every street corner, their tireless gaze linked to a cutting-edge artificial intelligence system. Censors zealously patrolling the Internet. A talented, young woman murdered before the cybernetic gaze of eager voyeurs.
A policeman sidelined to a backwater computer-crimes unit seizes on the chance to contribute to this high-profile murder case, but soon finds himself entangled in a web of high-tech intrigue. Why was Sophie Booth's murder broadcast over the Internet? What is the link between her brutal killing and London's new surveillance system? Who is the self-styled Avenger, and why does he communicate only by e-mail?
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
On the heels of last year's near-future novel, The Secret of Life, British author McAuley offers a stunning thriller set in London less than a decade in the future. The U.K. has been transformed by three events: the Infowar, which has wiped out most of the nation's stored computer records; the rise to power of a right-wing government sworn to eliminate all pornographic and violent materials, both hard copy and electronic; and the development of ADESS, the Autonomous Distributed Expert Surveillance System, a huge network of security cameras all guided by an evolving AI, all feeding their information into various police security computers. A market for pornography still exists, however, and young Sophie Booth, a London art student, aims to please, putting on shows for her adoring fans before her apartment's live webcams. Unfortunately, she opens her door to Mr. Wrong one day and is gruesomely murdered in front of those same webcams. A down-on-his-luck London police officer, his career nearly destroyed by false allegations of cowardliness during the Infowar, finds himself at the center of the investigation. Resented, even hated by his fellow officers, threatened by a mysterious and vicious hacker, he puts his life on the line to bring Sophie's murderer to justice. McAuley effectively combines traditional techno-thriller and police procedural techniques with a clear sense of where the World Wide Web at its worst may be going to produce a highly effective, well-crafted and unusually gritty novel that should please fans of both thrillers and computer-oriented hard SF.
