The WWW Trilogy

WWW #1-3

by Robert J. Sawyer

The New York Times calls Robert J. Sawyer "a writer of boundless confidence and bold scientific extrapolation." Now, for the first time ever, his award-winning WWW trilogy is available in one e-book edition. Wake Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math-and blind. But she can surf the Net with the best of them, following its complex paths in her mind. When a Japanese researcher develops a new signal-processing implant that might give her sight, she jumps at the chance, flying to Tokyo for the operation. But the visual cortex in Caitlin's brain has long since adapted to allow her to navigate online. When the implant is activated, instead of seeing reality, she sees the landscape of the World Wide Web spreading out around her in a riot of colours and shapes. While exploring this amazing realm, she discovers something-some other-lurking in the background. And it's getting smarter... Watch An extraordinary presence within the Web has befriended Caitlin Decter and grown eager to learn about her world. But this emerging consciousness has also come to the attention of WATCH-the secret government agency that monitors the Internet for any threat to the United States, whether foreign, domestic, or online-and the agents are fully aware of Caitlin's involvement in its awakening. WATCH is convinced that Webmind represents a risk to national security and wants it purged from cyberspace. But Caitlin believes in Webmind's capacity for compassion-and she will do anything and everything necessary to protect her friend... Wonder The advent of Webmind-a vast consciousness that spontaneously emerged from the infrastructure of the World Wide Web-is changing everything. From curing cancer to easing international tensions, Webmind seems a boon to humanity. But Colonel Peyton Hume, the Pentagon's top expert on artificial intelligence, is convinced Webmind is a threat. He turns to the hacker underground to help him bring Webmind down. But soon hackers start mysteriously vanishing. Meanwhile, Caitlin Decter-the once-blind sixteen-year-old math genius who discovered Webmind-desperately tries to protect her friend. Can this new world of wonder survive-or will everything, Webmind included, come crashing down?

988 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 3, 2012

About the author

Robert J. Sawyer is one of Canada's best known and most successful science fiction writers. He is the only Canadian (and one of only 7 writers in the world) to have won all three of the top international awards for science fiction: the 1995 Nebula Award for The Terminal Experiment, the 2003 Hugo Award for Hominids, and the 2006 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Mindscan.
Robert Sawyer grew up in Toronto, the son of two university professors. He credits two of his favourite shows from the late 1960s and early 1970s, Search and Star Trek, with teaching him some of the fundamentals of the science-fiction craft. Sawyer was obsessed with outer space from a young age, and he vividly remembers watching the televised Apollo missions. He claims to have watched the 1968 classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey 25 times. He began writing science fiction in a high school club, which he co-founded, NASFA (Northview Academy Association of Science Fiction Addicts). Sawyer graduated in 1982 from the Radio and Television Arts Program at Ryerson University, where he later worked as an instructor.

Sawyer's first published book, Golden Fleece (1989), is an adaptation of short stories that had previously appeared in the science-fiction magazine Amazing Stories. This book won the Aurora Award for the best Canadian science-fiction novel in English. In the early 1990s Sawyer went on to publish his inventive Quintaglio Ascension trilogy, about a world of intelligent dinosaurs. His 1995 award winning The Terminal Experiment confirmed his place as a major international science-fiction writer.

A prolific writer, Sawyer has published more than 10 novels, plus two trilogies. Reviewers praise Sawyer for his concise prose, which has been compared to that of the science-fiction master Isaac Asimov. Like many science fiction-writers, Sawyer welcomes the opportunities his chosen genre provides for exploring ideas. The first book of his Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, Hominids (2002), is set in a near-future society, in which a quantum computing experiment brings a Neanderthal scientist from a parallel Earth to ours. His 2006 Mindscan explores the possibility of transferring human consciousness into a mechanical body, and the ensuing ethical, legal, and societal ramifications.

A passionate advocate for science fiction, Sawyer teaches creative writing and appears frequently in the media to discuss his genre. He prefers the label "philosophical fiction," and in no way sees himself as a predictor of the future. His mission statement for his writing is "To combine the intimately human with the grandly cosmic."

http://us.macmillan.com/author/robert...

Reviews

[Lisa Bostwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this trilogy and the premise it is built upon of an evolving, friendly, AI.

[Peter Dodds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humane and unique.