In a futuristic world overflowing with virtual reality junkies and sophisticated computer technology, a hammerjack is an ultra-sharp superhacker, an information trafficker capable of drawing crucial secrets from the most heavily protected corporate networks. Cray Alden was once one of the best; now, he works for the Corporate Special Services, an elite CIA-type branch of the corporate world government, the Collective.
Marc D. Giller's Hammerjack opens with Alden's latest mission, a risky venture that involves tracking down and retrieving a "runner," who carries a particularly important piece of flash data in her bloodstream. Cray soon discovers that the data is the blueprint for a technological innovation that could potentially shift the balance of global power from man to machine. Suddenly, he's caught in the middle of a war between the Collective and a powerful, fanatical, anti-tech group known as the Inru, and must team up with his greatest enemy to make it out alive.
Although the terminology is a little dense and could be summarized more clearly for the less tech-savvy, non-sci-fi audience, and despite the fact that the single African-American character is formulaic to the point of being trite, Hammerjack is a rather compelling read. Local author Giller's debut deftly combines the typical cyberpunk elements — a near, somewhat bleak future; plenty of legal designer drugs; a direct interface with the "matrix"; surgically/technologically enhanced killers; and a conflict between hackers, artificial intelligences and mega corporations — with fleshed out, convincingly clever characters, and a plot fascinating enough to serve as a solid foundation for an ongoing series.
Giller signs copies of Hammerjack beginning at 2 p.m. Sat., Sept. 17, at Borders-South Tampa, 909 N. Dale Mabry, 813-874-5722.
This article appears in Sep 14-20, 2005.