Geek Mafia 3: Black Hat Blues; a heist novel for hackers
Rick Dakan's third novel in his Geek Mafia, Black Hat Blues, is every bit as good as the two previous, rollicking volumes -- and shows the signs of a writer who's flexing new literary muscles with every book, getting better and better as he goes along.
The Geek Mafia premise is simple: a group of hackers have reinvented themselves as a crew of big-con grifters who use technology to exact elaborate revenge from the bastards who screw them -- and the world -- over. Oh, they pull straight-ahead cons, too; they're not philanthropists or anything. But they've got a (developing) ethic about who is and isn't fair game, and a lot of the tension in the books springs over disputes over this classing "honor among thieves" conundrum.
Black Hat Blues picks up where Mile Zero (the second volume) ended; the crew is in Key West, politicized and energized, and ready to kick ass. They decide to go after some very big game this time, a slimy DC beltway insider who richly deserves it -- but first they have to recruit some new talent from various hacker cons around America (these scenes are just fabulous, accurately portraying some of the weirdest events you'll ever attend). And things go well -- until they don't, and now the crew is in way over its head and the danger is dialled up to 11.
Clever, engaging, sexy, geeky -- Rick Dakan's independently published books are fantastic material, real heist/caper novels for the Happy Mutant set; as with the previous two volumes, the design is great (Rick's got a friend who's a great a graphic designer), but the book has an unfortunately high typo and copyedit-problem count, an occupational hazard of the self-published.
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As an avid fan of caper fiction, and of many things geek (not so much "G33K"), this sounds like an author to check out. Thanks for the tip!
Although I must admit a certain prejudice against self-published works. Granted, there may be many diamonds in the rough, but all my experiences with friends of friends self-published "masterpieces" has been unfortunately turned out to be just rough.
This review/recommendation alleviates my qualms to a great degree, but I must admit there's a skeptical voice in the back of my head asking "If his first two novels were that good, why hasn't he landed a contract yet?" Is there an excerpt available for download?
"If his first two novels were that good, why hasn't he landed a contract yet?"
I don't know a lot about this author, and I'm kind of too lazy to search for the answer, but my first thought would be that given the subject-matter of his books, one of his reasons for self-publishing his books might be a purely ideological reason?
@#2 Failix: one of his reasons for self-publishing his books might be a purely ideological reason?
I'd only accept that if he were offered a good contract and turned it down. But no literary agent in the world would condone that kind of nonsense! Even Cory Doctorow is happy to maintain his relationships with his publishers, and by doing so he's brought CC licensing into the mainstream. If established publishers are eager to work with an ideologist (idealogue?), then the ideologist will happily work with the publisher.
I've had enough contact with wannabe-writers to know that "I'm self-publishing for ideological reasons" means "I couldn't get a contract."
I don't know the ins and outs of self publishing, but couldn't the "high typo and copyedit-problem count" be solved by a little, what's that new word that everyone was talking about last year... crowd sourcing!
Encourage your first batch of readers to read with a pencil or highlighter (or red pen, if yer into the whole schoolteacher scolding fantasy) and have them submit their notes with the promise of a free, signed, revised version (V2.0 if you will) in the near future.
Is this feasible or just a pipe dream?
I burned through this entire trilogy in a week, and its been years since I've read fiction. The book is creative commons, so the crowdsourcing editing postulated here certainly is feasible.
I can believe that the authors politics conflicted with what many publishers might feel comfortable touching in a book like this (left of centre).
I recommend starting with his first book (Geek Mafia). Try before you buy (check out the creative commons version online). I used the online-version to read when it got to dark in the car to keep reading.
Still having the copy problems? I downloaded his first book, and never got through it - I had the worst time trying to get past the typos and bad copy problems.
Anyone know if he's going to release this as a free download, as he did with the first two?
It's more likely he self-publishes because it gives him greater control over his work and he gets to pocket more of the money. In this day, you can even get your self-published books on Amazon (as his are), so why pay for a big publishing house if you don't need one? It's not like there are that many independent bookstores anymore.
Besides, it's what he's used to. Prior to writing books, he wrote RPG gamebooks, which are generally published by small RPG houses. He's written D&D books and is the creator of the popular City of Heroes RPG, so I imagine the quality of his work is at least up to par.
The first two books are available as free CC-licensed downloads. Has anyone heard if this one will be available?
charging that much for a relatively average size paperback makes me want to avoid purchasing the ebook as well. It just seems a little odd.
my g33k dysl3x14 kicked in, and I first read the description as "every bit as good as the two previous, rickrolling volumes". Which sounds pretty interesting, if improbably in print:
"So, you see," she whispered, taking off her blouse, "once they knew who was spoofing their IP address it was
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
THE END
Actually, as a correction, the books are NOT self-published. They are published by PM Press, an independent press founded by folks who were a part of AK Press. They are as legit as they come and put out a lot of good books. Check PM Press' site [which Cory links to] for examples.
It's possible that Cory had advance copies that hadn't had final copy edits, but all publishers [especially indies on often shoe string budgets] are open to copyediting and proofing issues.
[Disclosure, I work for PM's distributor, but am a big fan of their work at AK and have find their stuff to be as good as it gets in quality and production.]
Jef
TWIMC:
I read and LOVED the first two novels in this series. Dakan's a really interesting guy, an exciting writer, and one that I think is going to keep us entertained and thinking for a long time to come.
alright! rikko got boinged! hes incredibly talented and imaginative, and a good guy to boot! last year, he had a cthulu themed halloween party with dry-ice bubbling brew. potent stuff! hope you sell lots of books rick!