WWW, Wake

This is the first book in a trilogy, and it follows two stories: one of an chimpanzee who can create representational art, and the other a blind teenager who is given an operation that might allow her to see. At the same time, the internet itself has begun to evolve consciousness.

It took me awhile to warm to this. Caitlin, the visually-impaired teenager, seemed in some ways to be a stereotypical Sawyer protagonist: incredibly bright and witty, with some sort of medical condition, who is a bit of an outsider in their community but at the same time is okay with that. Also, the “internet gains consciousness” plot seems a little hokey at first glance.

Then I got to the scene where Caitlin's able to see for the first time, and damnit, he sucked me in. Sawyer's ability to craft an emotionally-charged phrase and have it draw you in is just amazing. I've seen him do it before - most of his recent novels have a point like that in them - and every time he does it you still never really see it coming.

This isn't Sawyer's best work - if you're new to him, I would recommend anything from the period between Calculating God and Mindscan as a better starting point - but if you like his work, this is a good read. I'm interested to see where the rest of the story goes.