#brain jack

[bizarrobrain]

"Brain Jack" by Power Glove (2020)

[mdnghtstrt]

BRAIN JACK - Power Glove

[mpare5]

‘What is your dream?’ Author Brian Falkner asked a room full of year 5 students. Marine biologist, Hollywood actress, lawyer and a room full of nasty criminals made the list. Falkner had to confess to the marine biologist he didn’t really eat dolphins. Relief spread across her face as if she’d sipped warm milk.

Dreams were something you struggled and strived to achieve, Falkner said. It took years of study to become a marine biologist, actress, lawyer or an author. Falkner reached his dream after 30 years of perseverance and passion for writing stories – releasing his first book The Flea Thing. Students listened as Falkner revealed the story layer-by-layer about a boy, 12, who had an unusual dream. He shared what happened until he stopped at a crucial point. ‘Aaahh,’ chorused the year 5s.

To distract them, Falkner pulled out his story ideas goggles and cast the first of his three magic words authors used to develop their story. First was, ‘What if? What if, all around us were hundreds of ‘cool’ ideas. Even right before us,’ said Falkner as he eyed the students, then glanced at their  teachers. Without looking at the teachers, he whispered, ‘What if… your teachers aren’t really human?’ The students eyed their teachers and then Falkner understanding what he meant .

Falkner’s second magic ingredient was ‘research’ where authors looked out for story ideas. Often they ‘stumbled across cool stuff they didn’t know before’. Falkner used ‘research’ to find his next idea for his second book, The Real Thing.  The idea of a secret formula intrigued him. Hence the story of three scientists with the secret Coca Cola formula. After they are kidnapped, a boy is flown across the globe as a ‘taste tester’ to try and work out the secret formula before the kidnappers find out about him. For a second time, storyteller Falkner stopped short again. ‘Aaaaaahhhhh!’ they chorused. Falkner had them at his every word.

The last magical element was ’emotion’ where people wanted to read stories that made them feel connected to the story. Falkner said, ‘Think about real life incidents when writing. Start with something that makes you feel something.’ Falkner shared a powerful emotional experience some 40 years ago, which had students holding their breath and clenching their hand. Another one of his life experiences had come to life through books.

Also technology was fast changing at a pace which Falkner demonstrated for students.

Falkner reminded students that ’Books Change Lives’ when least expected and in unpredictable ways. One book that changed Falkner’s life has allowed him to write full-time — the International bestseller and movie, ‘The Tomorrow Code’ followed by ‘Brain Jack’. Falkner is a master of suspense storytelling and one that students were keen to learn from.

http://www.brianfalkner.co.nz

Maria Parenti-Baldey, primary teacher, writer, amateur photographer and blogger.  www.bigsisterblogs.com

Books Change Lives – Unexpectedly ‘What is your dream?’ Author Brian Falkner asked a room full of year 5 students. Marine biologist, Hollywood actress, lawyer and a room full of nasty criminals made the list.

[denofthewolf]

Book #2- Brain Jack, Brian Falkner

Rating: 7/10

I was thirsting for a good sci-fi book and my cousin suggested this one so I decided that it was worth a try. Decent. Not spectacular by any stretch. Just decent. I liked the ideas in the book of the mind being similar to a computer program, and the plot was pretty good. I felt however, that the author was trying really hard to make the protagonist seem like a "chosen one" type of character, and I felt that the ending was a little too simple and happy.

[99bottlesofeggnog]

Be good. Be nice. Be honest. Live your life as if it matters how you live it. Because it does.

Brian Falkner - Brain Jack

[exploringouruniverse]

I started doing my book report and now I'm looking up the history of Windows operating systems WHY

[myboookreviews]

Brain Jack (Brain Falkner)

368 Pages

~

In a dystopian near-future, neuro-headsets have replaced computer keyboards. Just slip on a headset, and it's the Internet at the speed of thought. For teen hacker Sam Wilson, a headset is a must. But as he masters the new technology, he has a terrifying realization. If anything on his computer is vulnerable to an attack, what happens when his mind is linked to the system? Could consciousness itself be hacked?

~

Rating: 4/5 

~

Favorite Quote: "'We are our memories,' Dodge said. 'That's all we are. That's what makes us the person we are. The sum of our memories from the day we were born. If you took a person and replaced his set of memories with another set, he'd be a different person. He'd think, act, and feel things differently.'"

~

Excerpt

1 | Dirty Tricks

He didn’t mean to. He was actually just trying to score a new computer and some other cool stuff, and in any case, the words “to its knees” were the New York Times’, not his—and were way over the top, in Sam’s view. Not as bad, though, as the Washington Post’s. Their headline writers must have been on a coffee binge, because they screamed

National Disaster

in size-40 type when their presses finally came back online.

Anyway, it was only for a few days, and it really wasn’t a disaster at all. At least not compared to what was still to come.

A juddering roar reverberated off the high-rise buildings, and Sam glanced up as the dark shadow of a police Black Hawk slid across the street. His breath caught in his chest for a moment, as if all the oxygen in the street had suddenly disappeared, but the chopper didn’t slow; it was just a rou- tine patrol. It weaved smoothly between the monoliths of uptown Manhattan, a cop with a long rifle spotlighted in the open doorway by a brilliant orange burst of early- morning sun.

He tried to remember a time when armed police in helicopters hadn’t patrolled the city, but he couldn’t. It seemed that it had always been that way. At least since Vegas.

Gray clouds were leaking a dreary, misty drizzle from high over the city, but low on the horizon, there was a long thin gap into which the sun had risen, teasing New York with a short-lived promise of a sunny day.

Sam cut down 44th Street and turned right at 7th Avenue to avoid beggars’ row along Broadway. He took 42nd to Times Square, where the tall video screens flickered intermittently or were silent and dark. The M&M’s screen still worked, although there were several blank spots that were said to be bullet holes.

Forty-second Street station was crowded—jostling, bustling, shortness-of-breath crowded—at this time of the morning, but he was used to that, and the subway was still the fastest and safest way to get around Manhattan.

He got out at Franklin Street station and took Varick Street down to West Broadway. He quickened his step as he passed Gamer Alley. His nose wrinkled involuntarily at some of the odors that hung around the entrance.

Two dogs were fighting on the corner of Thomas and West Broadway but stopped as he approached. He slowed, not comfortable with the narrowing of their eyes or the jelly-strings of drool dripping from their fangs.

One took a step toward him, a low growl in its throat. The other followed, its lips drawing back from its teeth.

Sam took a step backward. The dogs moved closer, haunches high, stalking him. He stumbled backward a few more steps. A police Humvee cruised past, and he half turned toward it, hoping the cops would stop and intervene, but they either didn’t see or didn’t care.

The entrance to Gamer Alley appeared to his right. As the dogs spread out to cut off his escape, he turned and strode into the smoky unease of the alleyway.

He glanced behind but the dogs had not followed.

The walls of the alley were high, and the street was narrow, a deep saw-cut across a city block. None of the dawn glow penetrated, just a tired dullness that washed through the clouds and was swallowed up by the steam and smoke from the food stalls. Gaudy fluorescent signs appeared indistinctly through the haze, promising the latest in video-gaming technology. The games they promoted outside were innocuous, but everyone, especially the cops, knew that inside, the full range of games, including all the illegal ones, was freely available.

People drifted past. Both men and women with the vacant stares and twitching hands of longtime game addicts.

Sam thrust his hands into his jacket pockets, hunched his shoulders, and moved deeper into Gamer Alley.

A woman in her twenties, fashion-model beautiful, sat on a blue office chair next to an overflowing Dumpster. Her hair was plastered to her scalp by the rain, and droplets of water formed on the end of her nose before breaking away in a rhythmical pattern. She did nothing. She said nothing. She just sat, watching Sam as he made his way down the alley toward her. A game addict for sure.

As he neared, the chair swiveled slightly, and although her head and neck did not move, her eyes remained fixed on him.

He passed her, the chair swiveling more, her whole body turning with it to stay focused on him, her face expressionless.

His shoulders crawled as he left her behind, as if her strange inactivity might suddenly explode into mindless violence.

Ten yards past, he glanced back. She stared at him, unmoving.

“Want to buy a dog?”

The man in a shabby gray overcoat was right in front of him, and he had to stop abruptly to avoid a collision.

“I, er . . .”

“Want to buy a dog?”

The dog in question was in the man’s arms. A mangy cross about the size of a small poodle but of no detectable breed.

“He’s a good boy,” the man said, thrusting the dog forward. The dog snarled and snapped at Sam, missing his arm by a fraction of an inch.

“No, I . . .”

“Hardly ever bites,” the man said.

“No.”

Sam took a wide step around the man as the dog’s teeth snapped together again in midair.

The end of the alley neared.

To his right, a door opened on a second-story fire escape. A man in his fifties burst out of the building dressed only in Mickey Mouse boxer shorts and a Hawaiian lei around his neck. He was carrying a coffee machine. He leaped down the metal steps three at a time and disappeared across the street and around the corner of a building just as two policemen in black tactical gear burst out of the same door, hard on his heels.

Sam escaped onto Church Street with a slight sigh of relief and a relaxing of his nostrils. His cell rang, right on cue, as he turned into Thomas Street, and he tapped his Bluetooth earpiece into his ear.

“Hi, Mom,” he said.

“What kept you?” Fargas asked on the other end of the line, his mouth full of something.

Sam looked up at the building opposite. He caught a glimpse of Fargas behind a window on the second floor, the two black circles of a pair of powerful binoculars jutting out from his long mop of unruly hair. Sam made a discreet waving motion with his left hand.

There was a flash of white from the window that he took as a sign Fargas had waved back.

“Cut through Gamer Alley,” Sam said.

There was a short pause while Fargas digested that. “Quick hit on the way?”

“Just sightseeing,” Sam said. “What are you eating?”

It would be caramel corn. Fargas was the only person he knew who could eat caramel-coated popcorn for breakfast.

“Caramel corn,” Fargas said. “Want some? I’ll toss a couple pieces out the window.”

“Suddenly not hungry,” Sam said. “Can’t think why.”

He walked casually past the Telecomerica building as if he had no interest in it whatsoever. He didn’t even glance at it.

“You sure this is possible?” Fargas sounded a little nervous.

“I’m sure it’s not,” Sam said. “Be no fun otherwise. They’ve got industrial-strength firewalls with a DMZ and a secondary defensive ring with ASA and IPSec. Impenetrable.”

“Then give it away, dude,” Fargas said. “I’m not going to jail for the sake of a hack.”

“Fargas,” Sam said, “you’re my brother and I love you, but you gotta get your head out of your butt before you fart and suffocate yourself.”

“I’m not your brother and you don’t love me,” Fargas pointed out.

“You know you’re the one I’d turn gay for.” Sam grinned up at the window.

“I thought you liked Keisha,” Fargas said.

“I’d definitely turn gay for her,” Sam said. “If I was a chick. How is she?”

“Still not interested.”

“Her words or yours?”

“She’s a sophomore. You’re a senior. That’s just wrong. Should be illegal.”

“Have you asked her for me?” Sam asked.

“You can’t ask her yourself?”

“She’s a sophomore. I’m seventeen. That’s just wrong. She’s got to ask me.”

“Loser,” Fargas said.

Sam said, “Okay, here we go.”

[sedgwicks-buythebook-blog]

Synopsis:

  In the near future, technology has advanced to the point of obliterating keyboards, and screens. Only the rich can afford neuro head-sets, but once you get them they become addicting -- who can resist checking facebook just by thinking about it?

Sam Wilson is just an ordinary teen who loves computers and hacking, until he starts working for a security branch of the government, keeping everyone safe from computer hackers.

But what happens when his mouse and keyboard aren't fast enough to defend against a mysterious neuro-headset hacker?

Review:

  Brain Jack is an interesting, fast-paced, page turner. The technology is so real that it's scary. Brain Jack will make you think long and hard about the future, and what advances you'll be willing to accept when the day comes.

Mystery, intrigue, humour, and fascinating characters make this book a need to buy! This one may not have made me cry, but it was definitely a nail-biter the whole way through!

(March 3, 2013)