Pyslent Book of the Month: Daemon
April 8th, 2010, 9:11pm by Kelvin
In preparation for our get together next month, I’m hereby resurrecting the Pyslent Book Club, which will be held in person for the first time! The second book on our long, but distinguished list will be Daemon, by Daniel Suarez. Daemon is a techno-thriller about the computerized events that occur following the death of Mathew Sobol, a programmer who developed the worlds’ most popular MMORPGs. It’s not the most well-written book and the character development is somewhat flat, but I thought it had a geeks-will-inherit-the-earth vibe that you’d all appreciate.
Serena and I started listening to the audio version of the book during our drive to San Diego. Overall, we enjoyed our first experience with audible books. It was a good way to pass the time without taking too much concentration off the road. Since then, I finished listening during my commute and at times, while at the lab bench. The theatrical performance aspect of the reading is kinda amusing.
Audible allows you to authorize up to 3 computers on each account—these computers can download books at any time from the Audible servers and then, through iTunes, load them onto any number of iPods. Here’s the trick, though—as far as I can tell, once you have the books on your iPod, you can then deactivate the parent computer with no effect on the playability of the books already on your iPods. I’ve deactivated my computer (serena still has hers authorized), so there are 2 authorizations available. I suggest you do this: log onto audible.com as me (text me for the login info), download all 4 files (2 for Daemon, 2 for Freedom the sequel—I downloaded the level 4 audio quality), load them onto your iPods by dragging (at which point, you need to authorize your PC), and then deactivate your computer (On the PC, it’s Advanced/Deactivate Audible Account). That should free up a license for others.
The first book (2 files) is 16 hours, so plan your time accordingly! Derrick, this will be perfect way to pass the 4 hours NYC-Boston drive, as long as you and Emily are synchronized! Joanie, as the only programmer among us, you might be interested in the topic as well.
The technology aspect of type of “reading” will of course be one of the topics of discussion!
April 8th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
So’s my Johnson. (Sorry, had to be said).
April 9th, 2010 at 9:44 am
I guess I had signed up for an audible account long ago — I still had a credit on my account from some trial or something! So I got this with my credit. Going on vacation (to Atlanta/Birmingham) for a week, so I’ll have some time to get it started!
April 9th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Welcome to the Club!
April 10th, 2010 at 12:41 am
So I was all set to download it, when I was presented with the option to deauthorize my Audible.com account. Sad part is, as far as I can tell, I have no Audible account. Checked a half-dozen email addresses & none of them work. So yeah, total fail. Unless I find some way to deauthorize this phantom Audible account, doesn’t look like I’ll ever download an Audio Book on the iMac. Yay for DRM.
Suppose it should work on the MacBook, which means screwing up iPod sync w/ the desktop. More brilliance. I’d go ahead and just buy it, but… $26? Man, that’s steep.
April 10th, 2010 at 3:22 am
OK, apparently I didn’t need to deauthorize my computer, which appears to have never been authorized. Seems like a bug in iTunes 9.0.1.
April 10th, 2010 at 9:23 am
In iTunes: Advanced -> Deauthorize Audible Account.
And the price listed when I went onto Audible was $7 — $26 is ludicrous!
April 10th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Were you just confused because the “Deauthorized Audible Account,” menu option is always there? You say you got a pop-up to deathorize your iTunes when you tried to download from the Audible website? That’s weird– I didn’t do it on a Mac, but the download for me occurred outside of iTunes and it wasn’t until I tried to play or move the file to my iPod within iTunes that I was prompted to authorize my iTunes for the first time.
But to be clear, the option to deauthorize Audible Account is always there, whether iTunes is linked to an Audible account or not.
$26 seems expensive if you compare it to the price of a book, but its a *performance!* How much is a Broadway play these days :).
April 10th, 2010 at 10:50 am
for some reaon I thought iTunes audiobooks were Audible. Hence much of the confusion. $7 seems reasonable, although the lending library model is much preferred.
starting to listen to Daemon now as I sit on the LAX runway. I’m also headed to the south, Orlando bound.
April 26th, 2010 at 12:49 am
Just finished it! I’ll refrain from discussing the book until our official club meeting, but will ask… do we have to listen to the sequel, too?
April 26th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Awesome! I’ve started the second book, but don’t expect to have finished it by the time we get together.
It just so happens that the book was one of the books in Veronica Belmont (and Tom Merrit’s) sci fi book club podcast, Sword and Laser, and they have a few episodes of interest (19 and 27, I believe). Interview with the author and one of the early champions of the book. Not too indepth, but might as well listen to them. We’ve come this far, right?
May 14th, 2010 at 8:32 am
OK, all finished, ready to discuss! Overall, entertaining, but wasn’t happy with the ending.
May 14th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Join the club!
May 23rd, 2010 at 1:28 am
I’m halfway through the 2nd book. I’m starting to realize one problem with it, my refusal to suspend disbelief. While the far-fetched character behavior is part of that, I think the format is equally responsible. Reading books or watching movies, we’re accustomed to suspending our disbelief as a result of extensive conditioning.
On the other hand, we’re all pretty used to listening to spoken word, non-fiction podcasts on our MP3 players, computers and cell phones. So when we tune into a far-fetched audiobook, we’re not prepared in the same way.
May 23rd, 2010 at 8:13 am
Great point, I’m sure that’s part of it, and the cheesy storytelling voice doesn’t help too much, either (imagine hearig a cheesy storyteller at a party or something in real life, again you’re much less likely to suspend disbelief).
I also found that, unlike reading or watching a movie, I would listen to the book while doing other things, mostly driving — wasn’t the totally immersive experience that reading a book or watching a movie is, which may also play a part.
August 18th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Just finished the second book (finally got back to it after a long hiatus). I thought it was a must-read; ties up the storylines of the first book quite nicely. Maybe Mike would prefer it in “print” form.
August 18th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Funny — I decided to look up “Freedom” on bn.com, and not only did I find that it was $12.99, but also saw the cover of the book — from which I learned that Daemon was a “national bestseller.” National bestseller? I’ve never heard the phrase before — kinda hit me like “Austin Powers: National Man of Mystery.”
August 18th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Or the “National House of Pancakes.”