My Rating: 
Author: Daniel Suarez
Narrator: Jeff Gurner
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
Publisher’s Summary:
The shocking techno-thriller that cements Daniel Suarez’s status as the heir to Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy – a terrifying, breathtaking, and all-too-plausible vision of the world’s near future.
Unmanned weaponized drones already exist: they’re widely used by America in our war efforts in the Middle East. In Kill Decision, best-selling author Daniel Suarez takes that fact and the real science behind it one step further, with frightening results.
Linda McKinney is a myrmecologist, a scientist who studies the social structure of ants. Her academic career has left her entirely unprepared for the day her sophisticated research is conscripted by unknown forces to help run an unmanned – and thanks to her research, automated – drone army. Odin is the secretive Special Ops soldier with a unique insight into the faceless enemy who has begun to attack the American homeland with drones programmed to seek, identify, and execute targets without human intervention.
Together, McKinney and Odin must slow this advance long enough for the world to recognize its destructive power, because for thousands of years the “kill decision” during battle has remained in the hands of humans – and off-loading that responsibility to machines will bring unintended, possibly irreversible, consequences.
But as forces even McKinney and Odin don’t understand begin to gather, and death rains down from above, it may already be too late to save humankind from destruction at the hands of our own technology.
©2012 Daniel Suarez (P)2012 Penguin Audio
My Review:
Ever since I had finished listening to Daemon and Freedom (follow the links for the rave reviews) I had been dying to see what Daniel Suarez would do next. Both of his previous books completely blew my mind and have earned a place near the top of my favorite techno thriller novels.
Expectations were pretty high by the time I finally pushed play on Kill Decision. The first few minutes of this book really sucked me into the story. I found myself thrilled, horrified and scared half to death that this scenario could actually happen. I suppose that the fact that the story is so believable is what made this book and Suarez’s previous books so great.
As the story begins to unfold we find ourselves following the activities of a Special Ops BAMF named Odin. Odin and his misfit team of elite soldiers immediately screamed “series” to me. About halfway through this book I kept hoping that they all don’t die so that I can enjoy more of their adventures in the future.
Kill Decision is slathered with lots of techno babble, awesome weapons and incredibly creative and cool countermeasures. As a fan of techno thrillers I was in heaven! Kill Decision is one of those books that I can easily see myself coming back to and enjoying multiple times in the future.
Audio Production: Jeff Gurner was great once again. He managed to handle all the different languages that were sprinkled throughout Kill Decision very convincingly. As in Daemon and Freedom there were a few sound effects and treatments added to the chapter marks of the audiobook. Usually I don’t care for that type of thing but I have enjoyed it in each of Suarez’s audiobooks.
Overall: I’m pretty sure that all the people that were around me were wondering why my mouth was gaping open for 13 hrs! Kill Decision kept me on the edge of my seat. There were so many times that I felt like I completely spaced out while listening to this book. I was so focused on the action going on that I wasn’t really paying attention to my surroundings!
I highly recommend this audiobook to all the techno thriller fans out there.
Disclosure: I purchased this audiobook from audible.com
