Release Date: September 28th, 2010
Genre:  Tech, Action, Dystopia
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 349
Rating:
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Summary: 

Las Vegas is gone—destroyed in a terrorist attack. Black Hawk helicopters patrol the skies over New York City. And immersive online gaming is the most dangerous street drug around. In this dystopic near-future, technology has leapt forward once again, and neuro-headsets have replaced computer keyboards. Just slip on a headset, and it’s the Internet at the speed of thought.

For teen hacker Sam Wilson, a headset is a must. But as he becomes familiar with the new technology, he has a terrifying realization. If anything on his computer is vulnerable to a hack, what happens when his mind is linked to the system? Could consciousness itself be hijacked? Before he realizes what’s happened, Sam’s incursion against the world’s largest telecommunications company leads him to the heart of the nation’s cyberdefense network and brings him face to face with a terrifying and unforeseen threat.

Review: This book is some CRAZY stuff. It's full of so much jargon that I often felt like I was reading a computer science textbook! But at the same time this book doesn't read like a bunch of guys writing code, it reads like a video game. Things are blowing up, people are having their brains reprogrammed, it's insane!

What I really liked is that this book can be effective towards both computer nerds and NON-computer nerds. Falkner provides you with all of the techno-babble, but then he relates it to things you can understand. Some codes are like "dogs on a chain" while others are "creeping spiders." He was really good at taking bits and bytes and turning them into real live things.

While I was reading this book I was visualizing it in my mind and it looks like a Jason Bourne movie. Or maybe even Inception. Very much edge-of-your-seat mind games, but also easy to get lost. If you like action movies, then you'll probably like Brain Jack.

All in all I found this a really enjoyable read. I had to skim over some confusing parts, but I still liked it. If you know a boy (or girl) who likes computers then they will LOVE this book.



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