The Dark Net by Benjamin Percy
Hell on earth is only one click of a mouse away…
The Dark Net is real. An anonymous and often criminal arena that exists in the secret far reaches of the Web, some use it to manage Bitcoins, pirate movies and music, or traffic in drugs and stolen goods. And now an ancient darkness is gathering there as well. This force is threatening to spread virally into the real world unless it can be stopped by members of a ragtag crew:
Twelve-year-old Hannah — who has been fitted with the Mirage, a high-tech visual prosthetic to combat her blindness– wonders why she sees shadows surrounding some people.
Lela, a technophobic journalist, has stumbled upon a story nobody wants her to uncover.
Mike Juniper, a one-time child evangelist who suffers from personal and literal demons, has an arsenal of weapons stored in the basement of the homeless shelter he runs.
And Derek, a hacker with a cause, believes himself a soldier of the Internet, part of a cyber army akin to Anonymous.
They have no idea what the Dark Net really contains.
Set in present-day Portland, The Dark Net is a cracked-mirror version of the digital nightmare we already live in, a timely and wildly imaginative techno-thriller about the evil that lurks in real and virtual spaces, and the power of a united few to fight back.
Amazon Barnes and Noble Goodreads
Author’s Bio
Benjamin Percy is the author of three novels, The Dead Lands (forthcoming from Grand Central/Hachette in 2015), Red Moon (Grand Central/Hachette, 2013) and The Wilding (Graywolf Press, 2010), as well as two books of short stories, Refresh, Refresh and The Language of Elk. His fiction and nonfiction have been published in Esquire (where he is a contributing editor), GQ, Time, Men’s Journal, Outside, the Wall Street Journal, Tin House, Glimmer Train, Ploughshares, and the Paris Review. He also writes screenplays and comics. His honors include an NEA fellowship, the Whiting Writer’s Award, the Plimpton Prize, the Pushcart Prize and inclusion in Best American Short Stories and Best American Comics. He is the writer-in-residence at St. Olaf College and teaches at the low-residency MFA program at Pacific University.
My Review
4 stars
The Dark Net is the darkest corner of the internet where the evils in this world lurk. People think because they can dip their toe into it in the privacy of their house means they are safe. But they are not. Pure evil lives there and it can come to those that explore that corner of the internet. But with any dark there is light. Those that can see the evil and can fight it.
This is one of those books that you can’t really classify and don’t go by the blurb, that doesn’t even begin to describe it. Hannah slowly became blind but with the Mirage device she can now see but she is seeing dark shadows around people. Her aunt is a newspaper reporter writing about serial killer Jeremy Tusk. But it’s not just him that is important, the Rue apartments also has a past. Mike Juniper that has his own past that has him stockpiling weapons for fighting demons.
The techno part is that demons have been plaguing man for millennia and just as time has changed and things that draw and fascinate people changes so do the demons. It’s going to be up to those that walk the light to fight the rising dark.
I really enjoyed this story, it was a great mashing of genera’s. But I admit that it didn’t flow well and had a rough ending. Having said that it was worth the read. I will definitely be checking out other books by Benjamin Percy.
I received The Dark Net from the publisher for free. This has in no way influenced my opinion of this book.
jbronderbookreviews 