The Dark Net / Benjamin Percy.
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2017]Copyright date: ©2017Description: xii, 256 pages ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 0544750330
- 9780544750333
- 813/.6 23
- PS3616.E72 D37 2017
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Cherry Hill Public Library | Cherry Hill Public Library | Fiction | Fiction Collection | FICTION PER (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 33407004380745 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"Thrilling . . . one of the best Stephen King novels not written by the master himself. . . . The setup promises furious action, and Percy delivers, like [Richard] Matheson, like King. . . An awfully impressive literary performance."-- New York Times Book Review
"[An] imaginative, spooky, swiftly paced tale threaded through with dark humor."--Dean Koontz
"Percy's blend of cyberpunk-style SF and occult horror is a perfect combo for summer chills."-- Library Journal
The Dark Net is real. An anonymous and often criminal arena that exists in the secret far reaches of the Web, some use it to manage Bitcoins, pirate movies and music, or traffic in drugs and stolen goods. And now an ancient darkness is gathering there as well. This force is threatening to spread virally into the real world unless it can be stopped by members of a ragtag crew:
Twelve-year-old Hannah -- who has been fitted with the Mirage, a high-tech visual prosthetic to combat her blindness-- wonders why she sees shadows surrounding some people.
Lela, a technophobic journalist, has stumbled upon a story nobody wants her to uncover.
Mike Juniper, a one-time child evangelist who suffers from personal and literal demons, has an arsenal of weapons stored in the basement of the homeless shelter he runs.
And Derek, a hacker with a cause, believes himself a soldier of the Internet, part of a cyber army akin to Anonymous.
They have no idea what the Dark Net really contains.
Set in present-day Portland, The Dark Net is a cracked-mirror version of the digital nightmare we already live in, a timely and wildly imaginative techno-thriller about the evil that lurks in real and virtual spaces, and the power of a united few to fight back.
The Dark Net is real. An anonymous and often criminal arena that exists in the secret, far reaches of the Web, some use it to manage Bitcoins, pirate movies and music, or traffic in drugs and stolen goods. And now, an ancient darkness is gathering there as well. These demons are threatening to spread virally into the real world unless they can be stopped by members of a ragtag crew: Twelve-year-old Hannah, who has been fitted with the Oculus, a high-tech visual prosthetic to combat her blindness... Lela, a technophobic journalist... Mike Juniper--a one-time child evangelist who suffers from personal and literal demons--has an arsenal of weapons stored in the basement of the homeless shelter he runs. And Derek, a hacker with a cause, believes himself a soldier of the Internet, part of a cyber army akin to Anonymous. They have no idea what the Dark Net really contains.
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
There's a deep global net in the virtual world, accessed only by those wishing to remain anonymous. Black-market trading and illicit dealings occur here, along with programs that provide prurient services. Keeping their operations vital but nearly untraceable is the task of people who are well paid to keep these servers up and running. What happens when demonic forces acquire log-in abilities at these dark levels? Can a computer hacker, a onetime child evangelist, a technophobic journalist, and a little girl with prosthetic eyes come to grips with hell on earth if it's only a keystroke away? VERDICT Percy (The Dead Lands) turns in a fast-paced dark thriller with crisp, honest dialog and well-imagined characters. His premise is fanciful yet anchored in believability. [See Prepub Alert, 2/27/17.]-Russell Miller, Prescott P.L., AZ © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
An unlikely group of misfits battles supernatural evil in Percy's blend of fantasy and SF. In near-future Portland, Ore., 12-year-old Hannah is fitted with a prosthetic to allow her to overcome her incipient blindness; Lela, a work-obsessed journalist, hunts a big story in the Pearl District's blood-soaked Rue Apartments; and Mike, famed as a child for his (false) claims about near-death experiences involving Jesus and angels, tries to atone for his sins by sheltering Portland's homeless. Around them cluster a swarm of malevolent bluebottle-like spirits, which are held off by secondary characters for most of the book. Then Hannah is swept into the Dark Net, the horrific digital hell below the Deep Net that underlies the Internet, and Lela and Mike must help her save Portland from demonic possession. Percy (Thrill Me) notes in the acknowledgements that he tried to ground his novel in reality; there's an abundance of local Portland color and an overabundance of technical detail bogging down his lurid prose. Nonetheless, fans of cyberpunk and occult-flavored fiction may enjoy this outlandish nonreligious fable of good and evil. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown Ltd. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.Booklist Review
In this fast-paced demonic cyber-thriller, Percy has a sinister take on the deepest parts of our digital lives: much of who we are as living, breathing humans is actually being infiltrated by every device we touch. Anxiety and fear are set up from the opening pages as we are quickly introduced to a ragtag group of misfit heroes: Hannah, a young blind girl getting brand new technology that will allow her to see; Lela, her technophobic reporter aunt; Mike, a homeless-shelter manager; and Cheston, a computer hacker with a nefarious employer. They discover that strange happenings all stem from the founding of the Internet, and that this foundation is laid upon the backs of ancient demons who have been interfering with mankind for millennia. Dark Net can get gruesome, and the body count is high, but Percy keeps it suspenseful and compelling from the first page. The authentic Portland, Oregon, setting with a pivotal scene in Powell's Bookstore is also a draw. Think twice before accessing this on an e-reader, unless you think can handle the extra layer of terror.--Spratford, Becky Copyright 2017 BooklistKirkus Book Review
In Percy's (Thrill Me, 2016, etc.) techno-horror thriller, a small band of misfits must counteract a full-scale demon possession of Portland, Oregon.Below the internet we use every day lurks a violent and terrible place known as the Dark Net. This is where people come to satisfy their most destructive and perverted desires, and, according to Percy, it's naturally where demons would go when working to possess people in the 21st century. While the demons in question begin by possessing the bodies of humans in order to physically manipulate and control technology, their ultimate quest is nothing less than complete domination of the human race, to be achieved through torture and mass murder. And the only people who can stop it are a 12-year-old blind girl, two demon hunters "on the spectrum" (meaning they have supernatural tendencies of their own), and an intrepid reporter. Percy's vision rather obviously offers commentary on our contemporary lifestyle: "People fuss so much about what they eat.But they don't worry as much about what they consume online." Once the demon virus is released from the Dark Net, anyone accessing our everyday staplesNetflix, Tinder, Googlebecomes a homicidal maniac. Percy takes the darkest conspiracy theories you can imagine and makes them the stuff of nightmares. Oh, and all this happens on Halloween, "the fall climaxa time of reaping harvest, of accounting." Humankind is held responsible for its irresponsibility, paying the price for all the convenience we take for granted, for our obsession with the digital world. While the message is effective and scary, though, the characters and the writing fall short of mesmerizing. Who says science and religion are incompatible? There's something undeniably creepy about the thought that your smartphone can possess you. A gory cautionary tale. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.There are no comments on this title.