Evans has written a serviceable thriller that explores the implication of the proliferation of drone technology. The pace of action keeps the book moving, though I frankly lost interest about half way through for a while due to the crises stacking up so closely to one another that my emotional investment waned.

My attention was already tenuous because the role of the technology central to the plot lacked sufficient novelty. For example, are we to really believe that these super smart geeks are that surprised to realize the vulnerabilities created by their cell phones? Furthermore, once their vulnerabilities are realized, it seems odd that these super smart geeks can only solve the problem by throwing their phones away, rather than hacking them to emit different signals.

The first-person narrative grates at points and the numerous typos created a slightly slap-dash feel to the novel. James Kowalski loves to compare HVAC ducts on roofs to alien fungus, but beyond that he doesn't have a very eloquent descriptive streak. The reader receives far too many descriptions of explosions whose attempts to one-up each other in describing how wrenching they are leaves one feeling detached deja vu. Kowalski's thought process and internal monologue are also not particularly interesting - mostly involving statements of the obvious - which begs the question why not just have an omniscient narrator to shepherd readers through the story.

The international globe-trotting nature of the adventure reminds me of Stephenson's latest - Reamde - and fans of Dan Suarez will feel deja vu given the topic of his latest - Kill Decision. Such comparisons are unfair, however, because _Swarm_ does not stack up well against these giants. The geek culture through which the characters of Swarm run is self-consciously full of pop-culture and literary references. The characters are smart, though we are more reminded of this through repeated comments about how smart they are rather than demonstrations of their intellect. Where Cryptonomicon (Stephenson's great paean to geeky culture) has multiple page explication of how a character used Van Eck phreaking to read another's email, Swarm simply tells us that a character hacked the system. Whereas Suarez recombines technology trends to envision truly novel and compelling futures, the technologies that Evans deals with are all deeply familiar to anyone who's been reading Wired for the past three years and he doesn't take them into any novel places.

Such comparisons are unfair, however, because books can be effective without being the greatest examples of their genre. If you're looking for some beach or airplane reading and you've already finished all of Stephenson and Suarez's work, then you could do alot worse than Swarm. It is a serviceable summer blockbuster. ( )