Hammerjack By Marc D. Giller

In the far distant future, world governments have disappeared to be replaced by seven corporations known as the Collective, the members from each forming the Assembly. It is a world where everyone is plugged into the information network and information is the king. Hammerjacks ride the waves to find out corporate secrets and sell it to a rival willing to pay a higher price.

Cray Alden is a corporate spy working for GenTech when he is assigned to bring back the runner Zoe who has in her bloodstream information that belongs to his boss. Cray finds himself in a tug of war between the opposing forces, the corporate Collective who has invested heavily in a synthetic intelligent computer and the Innu who sees that such an entity could replace man as the dominant species. While he tries to figure out is who he can trust, Cray is unaware that he is changing and to stop himself from becoming a danger, he must return to the source of the conflict, the self-aware sentient computer known as Lyssa.

The future that Mark D Giller paints is bleak, dark and plausible. With the advances in computer technology, a sentient AI doesn't seem like science fiction because the author, a computer systems techie, bases his work on technology known today that he takes to it's final conclusion. The protagonist is a man who realizes he is a prisoner of the corporation that hires him and feels very little, certainly not joy. HAMMERJACK is an exciting science fiction noir thriller that will appeal to fans who like to be taken to the edge and beyond.

Harriet Klausner