Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Apr 23, 2010

Michael rated it:

Good science fiction speculates on things that are theoretically possible given some of the conditions and advances of our current level of technology. In many cases, the advances may be years or decades away from becoming reality, but in the case of Robert J. Sawyer’s new novel, “WWW: Wake,” part of his speculated future has become a reality far too quickly.

It’s disconcerting to pick up a novel that speculates on the future and find one plot element concerning an outbreak of a new f More...

3 comments like (10 people liked it)

Apr 26, 2010

Lisa rated it:

This was an incredibly fast read, and I really enjoyed the story.

I loved the premise. I loved all the subplots, event though some of them are abruptly dropped, at least in this first book; it is a trilogy. All the parts of this book did make sense to me though and they did all converge well.

After the first several pages, I completely enjoyed Caitlin Decter, an almost sixteen year old girl who has been blind since birth, and then gets an opportunity to have an operation th More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 28, 2010

Porter rated it:

I really enjoyed this book. The ideas it deals with are fascinating, and the main character was both interesting and compelling, as was her storyline.

In comparing it to Little Brother by Corey Doctorow, the latest book I've read which also features a tech-savvy youth as the protagonist, it seems like Doctorow was trying too hard to be hip.

The one complaint I have about this book is that it's not a novel -- it's just the beginning of one. (This book is the first of a More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 21, 2009

Diana rated it:

I can't wait to share WWW : Wake with my teen book clubs even though it wasn't written for teens. It is the kind of sf that made me a fan. It stirs up that sense of wonder and makes me think. I also love that Sawyer brought in so many other books. It is the story of fifteen-year-old Caitlin, a brilliant math student and web surfer who happens to have been blind since birth. Shortly after moving from Texas to Canada with her physicist father and economist mother she receives an email from a resea More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 03, 2011

Ben rated it:

Seldom does a book live up to blurbs like "Unforgettable. Impossible to put down," as Jack McDevitt says of Wake. Usually, such claims are empty hype, even when the book is good. Not so with Wake. I agree wholeheartedly with McDevitt, for I was 100 pages into the novel before realizing it was 2 AM and I should probably get some sleep. There's no way that Wake could be mistaken for "an action-packed thrill ride" or any of those other tired blurb clichés floating around in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 02, 2010

Alan rated it:

Robert J. Sawyer is a prolific author known for writing popular, workmanlike science fiction, and WWW:Wake is no exception. His work is also not especially adventurous... and this book is no exception there, either. I enjoyed reading this novel (although be warned: it's the first in Yet Another Series), but it was something of a guilty pleasure.

Sawyer's take on the well-worn theme of a nascent artificial intelligence could have been entitled When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was Web 2.0—already a fa More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 20, 2010

Alex rated it:

From an author who has written a number of books and has won just about every award a science fiction author can comes one of the most original and fascinating novels to be published in a long time. It’s one of those books that has just as much right to be on a fiction shelf with other literature classics. WWW: Wake is the first in a trilogy about a blind girl, Caitlin Decter, who undergoes new and theoretical surgery in Japan to bring back her sight. With an implant in one eye, signals are s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 02, 2011

Kris rated it:

I grabbed an ARC of this the other day and am pleased to say that I enjoyed it immensely. My first Robert J. Sawyer experience was calculating god, and to this day it is one of my favorite quick reads - it's crossed the country in countless carry ons.

Until now I haven't been as fond of his other works. I always find his ideas fascinating, but I don't click with his characters - and since his novels are very much character pieces as well as imaginary voyages into the unknown tha More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 04, 2012

Michelle rated it:

Book was good, but I found the style a little difficult at times. If it was written for adults, then there was too much teenaged content. But as a teen novel (which it is, at least in our library system), I found it a little too complicated and advanced for what I would expect most kids would want to read. It was a strange mix, and seemed to flip flop from teen novel to adult content over and over again.

I was confused about why storylines were created and dropped. I realize thi More...

0 comments like

Dec 30, 2011

Ariel rated it:

The premise of this story: a girl undergoes an experimental treatment to give her sight when she's never had it before. It's a successful procedure, for the most part - but in addition to the real world, Caitlin can also see the internet (there are medical explanations for this, I promise). Slowly, due to its uplink with Caitlin's mind, the internet begins to become sentient. What's even cooler: Caitlin purposefully helps it along. This book was incredibly entertaining - I really loved Caitlin's More...

0 comments like

Oct 07, 2011

Robert rated it:

I'm not much of a sci-fi reader but this author and trilogy was recommended to me so, I thought I would give it a go. I wasn't aware the author was Canadian, which makes it an even better choice (he who writes this review is from Toronto, Ontario, Canada).
I thoroughly enjoyed my first taste of R. Sawyer and I may very well come back and amend this to a 4 once I have finished the trilogy!!!
Not too far fetched (which I appreciate) and the characters are all very likeable (Caitlin, the More...

0 comments like

Jul 30, 2011

Algot rated it:

This is the first book of a trilogy. While each book can stand alone, the full impact of the trilogy benefits from the books being read in order.

These books define what I think of when I say "Science Fiction." They have a young person's perspective of possibilities. In this case, the young people are represented by a sixteen year old girl from Texas who moves to Canada, a Bonobo-Chimpanzee learning sign language and a consciousness which emerges from the packets of data flowi More...

0 comments like

Jul 01, 2011

Roberta rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

May 28, 2011

Diana rated it:

Gosh, real old-school sci fi, not fantasy; makes me quite nostalgic. Not that it isn’t quite up to date in subject matter - it’s all about the dawning consciousness of the World Wide Web and other technological immediacies. I gather that Sawyer is enormously popular and, indeed, one of the best selling authors Canada has ever produced. This book is highly readable but Sawyer is no Bradbury; it’s not art.

Like all old-school sci fi, the basic what-if scientific idea is the whole rai More...

0 comments like

May 17, 2011

Mike rated it:

It has been a long time since I read a science fiction book with such joy as "Wake". This is science fiction as I want it to be: human, accessible, exciting, challenging, educative, serious, funny and fast-paced.

Of course, I fell in love with Calculass - the fifteen year old math genius who is given technology meant to let her see the real world for the first time. If she really had a LiveJournal blog, I would be a regular reader.

I loved the web-native view of the n More...

0 comments like

May 16, 2011

Angela rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 28, 2011

Francesco rated it:

Dal celebre scrittore canadese di fantascienza, Robert J. Sawyer, un nome divenuto un “marchio di fabbrica” della letteratura mondiale di genere - le sue opere sono state nominate e hanno vinto premi prestigiosi quali l’Aurora, lo Hugo e il Nebula oltre che essere state adattate per la TV in una popolare serie del 2009 - arriva Wake (Gollancz, 2009), romanzo che costituisce l’inizio di una trilogia incentrata sulla nascita della coscienza in un’Intelligenza Artificiale, in questo caso il World W More...

0 comments like

Mar 16, 2011

Tim rated it:

Some of Sawyer's recent books haven't impressed me as much as I hoped, but this one's right back on the track. Lots of geeky ideas (I like 'em, your mileage may vary), some good characters, a sufficiently complex plot, lots of research behind the content, and an easy-to-read style. I look forward to the next volume.

I was surprised at the number of strongly negative reviews salted in among the raves. After a while, though, it seemed that most of them were from people who picked up the More...

0 comments like

Dec 30, 2010

Karissa rated it:

This sounded like an incredibly interesting read. I have always been fascinated by the idea of information structures becoming sentient. This was a great book that delves into deep topics of consciousness and humanity while still providing a very approachable and engaging story. I listened to this on audio book and it was one of the best audio books I've listened to yet; they provided different readers for different parts of the book and did an excellent job with the whole thing.

Thi More...

0 comments like

Oct 31, 2010

Rob rated it:

I've read a lot of books by Robert Sawyer. I consider him a reliable, mediocre author. Never challenging, never dull, a good way to spend however long it takes me to make it through his latest.

Wake is, in my opinion, at least, his best book so far. I can't really say why it should have been. I don't think the prose has gotten better; and the things that always (slightly) annoy me about Sawyer are still there. It's not even particularly original from an idea viewpoint; I must hav More...

0 comments like

Jun 21, 2010

Sean rated it:

This book impacts on so many levels it's difficult to know quite where to begin. It's garnered much attention from the blind community, as has the sequel, but I wanted to read it without all the hype and so held off until things had quite died down.

As a rule, I try not to let portrayals of the blind influence my thinking one way or another. There were certain things that made me pause - the assertion that raising a blind child is overly difficult, for instance. I don't remember my f More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 18, 2010

Matthew rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

May 26, 2010

Nicholas rated it:

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1443406.html

I don't think I will ever much enjoy a Sawyer novel, but this one irritated me less than most of his books. The prose was not particularly awful, and the plot mostly makes sense; the story of the blind girl gaining sight for the first time resonates almost neatly with the story of a conscious intelligence developing in the internet.

It is, of course, a flawed book. Caitlin writes a livejournal which sounds nothing like any teenager's More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 05, 2010

Mike rated it:

I'm never quite sure why Sawyer wins all the awards he does. I'm not entirely clear on why I read his books every once in awhile. I think I am over him and his pontificating, and then a couple of years later, I delve into another of his far-fetched tales and get wrapped up in his storyline.

He can really tell a story. I knocked off this novel in about 6 hours of reading. The book is about a blind girl who has a rare sight disorder. She can actually see (the eyes and optic nerves work More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 14, 2010

'Nathan rated it:

Robert J. Sawyer is my favorite science fiction author, hands down. He delivers a kind of science fiction I've always enjoyed - one that breaks past the science in to psychology, sociology or morality, but is still grounded in excellent characters with whom the reader can easily connect.

In WAKE, we meet Caitlin, a young woman with a congenital blindness and a gift for mathematics. Her voice rings true, and when she is given a chance at sight via a new technology, she finds herself capa More...

0 comments like

Jul 24, 2009

Chris rated it:

Three stars because I really like the character of Caitlin especially early in the novel. She is a blind girl who through a extremely new procedure is able to see. The catch is that she can only see the internet or the world wide web. The connections the pathways and the information that flows as electrons. She senses or does she some presence that we already know is growing. Interesting story but at the end it becomes a girl sitting at her computer. And I know this is me but no matter how More...

0 comments like

May 26, 2009

James rated it:

I started reading this book because of the talk about it on Twitter. At first I scanned through the text, thinking it was a joke. Being visually impaired myself, I was overwhelmed by the attention to detail as far as the main character being blind was concerned. The author has obviously done his research into JAWS, Braille Displays, etc, and once I started actually reading the novel I managed to put aside my original opinion in favor of adopting a different view. It occurred to me that the amoun More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 23, 2009

Samantha rated it:

A fun read, featuring intriguing speculation and plenty of nods to web-savvy folks. What happens when a young blind girl is hooked up to experimental equipment that may help her see? She gets a most unique view of the Internet - something no one else can "see" - and comes to realize there's something out there, waiting to make contact. Things I enjoyed about this novel: the speculation on technology, and the way the protagonist "sees" the Web are genuinely intriguing, as is h More...

0 comments like

Jun 08, 2011

Jackie rated it:

Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a matematics genius-and blind. Still, she can surf the net with the best of them, following its complex paths clearly in her mind. But Caitlin's brain long ago co-opted her primary visual cortex to help her navigate online. So when she receives an implant to restore her sight, instead of seeing reality, the landscape of the World Wide Web explodes into her consciousness, spreading out all around her in a riot of colors and shapes. While exploring this ama More...

0 comments like

Aug 05, 2010

Lightreads rated it:

I loathed this book. Its Hugo nomination makes me cringe. This morning I came out of my room with a happy Labrador bouncing around my feet and the sunshine pouring in, and my roommate said, “good morning!” and I said, “I hate this book.”

A congenitally blind teenager is fitted with a neural implant to restore her sight, but first it lets her see the internet, where something is coming alive.

There are a lot of things wrong with this book: cardboard writing, pacing issues, c More...

9 comments like (10 people liked it)