Synopsis
Chasm Waxing has an excellent premise and a covers a great variety of topics. For cyber security and/or IT professionals, this book really employs a lot of concepts that you will appreciate. For the not so tech savvy, B. Michaels offers great explanations of hard concepts. It does not require a doctorate in computer science to follow the plot, but having one will surely make this book a more interesting read.
The first act offered great – albeit dramatized – insight into cyber security, emerging technologies, and start up strategies. It is not action packed, but it is mentally and emotionally engaging.
The second act is a dramatic and welcome change in pace that feels a bit like a new story, but weaves all the concepts of the first act together into real tension. The character roles are well defined, the antagonist emerges, and the stakes are made clear.
The third act returns to the same voice as the first act with a lot of learning and exposition about the implications of technology. It mostly sets the stage for the second book with a lot of cliffhangers in the final chapter.
My Reaction
If you are looking for a real cyber thriller that uses real technology in a deep and accurate way, this is the book for you. Even if you don’t know what AES, strong AI, or a start-up accelerator is, you will enjoy this story and hopefully learn a little about these topics.
However, this book desperately needed more editing or proofreading to catch grammar mistakes and real-word spelling errors. The last line in the first paragraph had a real-word spelling error, which put me on guard for the rest of the story. They are few and far between in the first half of the book, but start getting rather frequent and distracting in the last quarter. I have highlighted and noted some, but I got a bit tired of doing so after awhile.
The use of quotation marks was a bit maddening and I often had no idea who was talking or if anyone was talking. In some places the wrong names were used which required a few extra readings to work out if that person suddenly joined the conversation or if it was a writing mistake. In other places, sentences had no punctuation at the end.
The redactions were interesting the first 2-3 times, but after a few chapters they really detracted from the story. At one point, two whole pages were redacted and I was left not knowing what was happening. However I don’t think anything critical to the plot was in those redactions.
The book spent a good amount of time building up to a sequel. Its been 4 years since this story was published and there’s no sign that a sequel is in the works. For what its worth, I hope the sequel pans out as I would love to continue this story.
Recommendation
This book was a fun read from a cybersecurity perspective. I have not yet found another novel that integrates so much newer technologies and cyber processes into a story line. I would recommend this book to readers who aren’t as picky about editing mistakes as I am, and who like to read techno-thrillers. There’s not a significant amount to learn in this novel, however the part about the accelerator was quite new to me.