OK, not quite a cast of thousands, but a cast of Too Bloody Many.  Tight, action-orientated stories typically have a cast of a few main characters.  Longer, epic stories may have a large, sweeping cast.  This book is an action story with just too many undifferentiated characters.

 

Half way through reading the book you come across a name and you think "Is he the marine?  The fed?  The drug dealer? The first-person-shooter games player?"  Not only are you supposed to remember the names of these characters, you're also supposed to have memorised their various attributes - the blond, the red-head, the biker and so on.

 

And the worst part is: none of them are particularly memorable.

 

Plot-wise, you're in for yet another "old-knowledge to be rediscovered in a race against time" story, kindof like the Da Vinci code only <shudder> not as good.

 

(While we're on the subject, what's with all the stories about old, lost knowledge?  I blame Indiana Jones.)

 

It's a shame.  I did want to like this book.  It's very rare that you'll find a book of fiction that tries to explain the dotted-quad notation for IP addresses.  That alone gets it some kudos.  (I'm trying to ignore the fact that people who don't already understand how IP addresses work don't really want to understand how IP addresses work, and only geeks like me are interested in that kind of thing.)

 

Still, maybe his next book will be better.  I think if he focused on fewer main characters and brought his plots up to date instead of relying on old, lost knowledge, he could put together a nice techno-thriller.

 

This isn't it, though.