The Termination Node

Rating:
Summary: Gripping, realistic story. A must read.
Review: As a computer professional of 30 years, I can tell you that the threats portrayed in this book are real. Gresh and Weinberg do an excellent job of gripping the reader and keeping the action moving. Once I started, I couldn't put it down.

This book should be required reading for all business leaders. It is a clarion call to alert people to the real threat of the 21st century. Its not Y2K but the increasingly vulnerable state of business and the world economy due to their reliance on the electronic commerce.

In the end, hackers rule!

If you like a good thriller or if you have anything to do with business, you should buy this book and read it today!

Rating:
Summary: Easy Reader
Review: As a computer professional, I felt this book really hit the mark. Some of the scenarios envisioned could potentially happen, and that's scary! I have to disagree with some previous reviews that cited a lack of character development. You'll get to know the main characters well enough to want to continue reading to see how things work out. Along with the action, the suspense, and the technology, I could'nt put it down. Great book!

Rating:
Summary: This Book Predicted Cyber-Crime Years Before It happened!
Review: I read this book when it came out in 1999 and thought it was an entertaining but unrealistic view of the future of computers. I found it interesting that many of the reveiwers claimed they knew so much about computers and all of them seemed to think that the authors' predictions were way out of line. Several of the reviewers went out of their way to point out how much smarter they were than the two writers who had composed the book. Well, all of those hot-shot reviewers are gone and so is their laughter. During the past several years, this book has become famous as the most accurate account of computer crime ever to appear in a novel.

Recently, the Federal Government released a report stating that over $2 billion had been stolen over the internet by hackers breaking into personal accounts and stealing money from everyday people. That's when I re-read THE TERMINATION NODE and discovered that Gresh and Weinberg had predicted all of the recent problems involving internet robbery five years ago. Though the book never received much coverage in science sections, it should have been on the front pages of newspapers throughout the country. Most citizens still have no idea how vulnerable their bank accounts are to hackers. Maybe it'll take a $50 billion dollar heist like the one in this book to convince everyone that they need to protect their internet investments better. This is a book every person worried about 21st century crime should read!

Rating:
Summary: This Book Predicted Cyber-Crime Years Before It happened!
Review: I'm a techie...this is an enjoyable novel for a techie...check it out...

Rating:
Summary: Buy This Book
Review: If I were doing a movie pitch, I'd say this is a cross between The Net and Hackers. But this would be a rude distortion of the actual plot -- not unexpected, given the way Hollywood mangles entertaining SF novels like this one these days. They give us one-dimensional plots because some think we can't follow complicated ones. They take intriguing actresses such as Sandra Bullock and Angelina Jolie, make them cute-as-a-bug and wonder why we don't find them believable as hackers. Not so in The Termination Node. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this novel are the characters. Judy Carmody along with Calvin and his brother Dan Nikonchik read like folks you'd run into on the street and think, geek, straight-off. So? We all have warts, some are even visible. Thanks to the authors for a cool, clean portrayal of characters suited to this type of story. It adds immeasurably to the credibility of the novel. I was entranced.

Rating:
Summary: Duh.
Review: If you're reading this review, you've probably read this book before. Just under a different title, and by a different author.

There are at least a half-dozen fairly popular books that have all followed this same formula before, and it's starting to wear a little thin. Brilliant hacker who lives in California (doesn't everyone live in CA?) gets caught up in some kind of major computer-crime incident, inevitably involving all the TLA government spook agencies (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc., although this book goes one better and even invents its own such agency: The ISD, or Internet Security Department), and manages to single-handedly solve everything by breaking into seemingly every computer on the planet.

The Termination Node stands out in my memory, though, as the most tech-heavy of the techno-novels I've read. The authors aren't afraid of showing you command-line entries where they use commands like netstat or ping, which seems kind of refreshing, since it seems to indicate that the authors actually know something about computers. (Actually Lois Gresh is allegedly a real-life computer expert, which is probably what makes the difference.)

But what makes this book so incredibly annoying, so exasperatingly stupid, is how easily the protagonist can crack into systems. She uses a variety of tricks which almost sound sort of plausible because they borrow from some real-world elements, but are just plain dumb when you think about it. A great example of this is the "blue box" which she uses at one point while making a phone call. No, she's not using it to make a 2600 Hz tone; The "blue box" in this book is a device which makes your phone number untraceable, by using loop lines. Huh? How are loop lines (which really do exist, and really are used for testing purposes as the book states) supposed to help you prevent someone from tracing your phone number? If you have any idea what the authors are talking about, this kind of impossibility just makes you want to scream. And if you don't understand the techno-talk, then the book will fly right over your head anyway and you won't enjoy it.

It really illustrates a serious problem authors have when they try to create a book like this: The need to strike a balance between actually sounding technological, and being appealing to a broad audience. I appreciate this difficulty, and the book does try hard to do the impossible. Ultimately it was a fun read, which is why I'm giving it 3 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Termination Node is a Page Turner
Review: The Termination Node is a great read for a wide audience. The plot is engaging and keeps the reader interested page after page. We found ourselves wondering if Judy, the main character, would live and save her hacker friend. And for those in the computer field, the plot is close to life and makes you wonder just how good those hackers are out there.

We recommend this book highly.

Rating:
Summary: A TRULY BELIEVABLE COMPUTER THRILLER
Review: This book is the best computer thriller I have ever read. It is not really science fiction though it takes place a few years in the future. All of the computer science is true and is happening today. Anyone who thinks this book is science fiction is missing the whole point of the novel. The stuff that takes place in this novel can take place right now. That is what makes this novel so scary.

I'm a computer science major in college and the characters in this book are very believable. I attend college with people just like the hackers in the story. It is easy to relate to them as they are exactly like my friends. Cal and Judy are both typical hackers, as are Grouch and his friends. Reading the description of how they live made me laugh, because it describes my apartment.

If you are the least bit interested in the dangers of internet banking or high-tech crime, you have to read this book. It is the first book that really describes the computer field and hackers the way they really are. I can't wait for the sequel.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!
Review: This is one of the few computer-related novels that I have read that takes into account that not everyone knows computer terminology. What computer terminology is used should be readily understandable from watching television. But that isn't entirely what makes this a good read. Weinberg and Gresh have written a day-after-tomorrow thriller with excellent pacing, making it hard to put the book down. And the characters, even the minor ones, are well delineated, making them stand out from the page so you get to know them like your neighbor or the friendly grocer down the street. I, for one, will be eagerly awaiting their next novel. And this one is highly recommended!