Transmission - Hari Kunzru

Catch-up continued. Two nights ago. At the risk of sounding like one of those jerks that used to come into the store screaming about how wonderful Daniel Pinkwater is and how they have to own 87 copies of the book he read on NPR even though they've never even seen the illustrations... I heard a piece about the book Transmission on NPR. (It is a grown-up book, so Daniel Pinkwater wasn't the guy doing reading, so it isn't the same anyway). And I immediately wanted to read it—to the point that I requested that the library get it so that I could read it. And I read it. And it was super.

Basic premise. Indian computer programmer gets a sketchy job in the states, gets here, finds out that, "Oh, crap, the computer job market isn't so great here", gets laid off, creates a virus so that his company will need more manpower to figure it out, assuming that they will hire him back, and it just goes from there...

Across America citizens started to look with suspicion at the computers on their desks. These machines—which had always terrorized them in small ways, by crashing, hanging, demanding meaningless upgrades or simply scolding them in the persona of an annoying cartoon paper clip—were now revealed to harbor something more sinister, something with an agenda. This was it, the enemy within, a technological fifth column in the homes of ordinary Americans. By the time talk radio got hold of it, a consensus had emerged that the attack should be avenged in blood.

I want to read his other book, which is completely unrelated, but I really liked this one. And hey, he won the Whitbread for the other one.