When I started to read this book, I thought it would involve mental web surfing, running from the law, and a single boy with amazing technology. I was wrong on the first and third predictions. What I found was much better than I thought. The point of the story was clear, and the chapters flowed into each other smoothly. I loved how the author was able to throw in characters and to make them fit perfectly into the situation. I was relieved to find that there wasn’t too much computer code talk going on. The many twists and turns both surprised and intrigued me to the point where I was speechless.The story starts in a big city with a teen in high school. This boy attempts to hack into one of the most secure business franchises in the world. After words, he and his friend use neuro-helmets that allow them to use a computer just by thinking. Then, the hacker gets arrested on the charges of hacking and terrorism. He is then taken to a prison made for hackers, and the like. He then escapes and is recruited by a secret organization that uses elite hackers to help protect the U.S. Very odd and scary things happen that lead three of the hackers to go on the run. They get held up in a mall but escape to the dessert with a hostage. They drive to Las Vegas, which has been destroyed by a bomb, and they hide there from a sentient A.I. or Artificial Intelligence that is taking over people’s minds. They are driven out and head southwest. They meet a resistance and then head for a mountain. At that mountain… well you’ll have to read the book to find out.I would recommend this book to boys and girls ages 12 and over. If you are into computers, hacking, or self-learning A.I.’s, then would be a great book for you. This is like one of those summer blockbuster movies that's filled with special ops soldiers, black helicopters, plot twists, and a few hardy souls trying to stop the world from blowing up. Awesome!Sam is a computer hack extraordinaire! In the first few pages, he sits downtown at an Internet cafe with his laptop and proceeds to hack into the mainframe of the corporation next door. It's like a game to him, to see whether he can outwit all the safeguards, firewalls, passwords, and spiders that lurk inside computer systems. He can and he does. And he gets away clean. This time. But Sam isn't alway so lucky. He walks right into a trap that the federal government sets for him. They don't want to put him in prison--they want to pay him an enormous salary to keep the nation's computer infrastructure safe from all terrorist threats. But there's one threat they never see coming.
What do You think about Brainjack (2009)?
Very good very good, but the ending was...interesting....
—kagome
Enjoyable book about the what-ifs of future technology.
—maggie
