WWW:Wake by Robert Sawyer (author of FlashForward whose TV show is probably canceled for good reason) is about an emerging consciousness in the Internet. The main thing it reminded me of was Jane from Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead. The idea is a network gains enough nodes(the Internet or the ansible) that it starts becoming conscious. Where Jane is a fully formed being, this is the beginning of one and the first part of a trilogy that will follow it.

Caitlin has just moved from Austin to Canada with her family. She has several friends, a online blog, a boy who might like her and she happens to be blind. A researcher in Tokyo contacts her because he thinks that he might be able to use a signal processor to give her vision. As they experiment with the processing to see if it will work, side effect pops ups. In the right configuration, she is able to “see” the internet. She can see nodes and the connections between them. And then as the scientist starts looking at this phenomenon, it appears that there is some kind of limited intelligence in the background noise of the Internet.

Caitlin slowly comes to realize that there is a being of some sort who is communicating with her through her signal processor. There is also a couple sub plots. One about a monkey (chimpanzee-bonobo hybrid) who learns to paint people after communicating with sign language over a video connection to an orangutan. The other is about China trying to cover up their handling of a deadly disease outbreak.

The book is obviously the first part of a trilogy, since there is no effort to wrap up several of the subplots. It’s apparent that the book is aimed at a more teen audience, not just because of the teen heroine, but the over explaining of various concepts. It’s not a bad book and I’ll probably read the sequels, but it’s only mildly recommended.