Kill Decision

While Suarez is most certainly the heir to Crichton or any of your favorite hits from the airport bodega, his writing falls short of any accolade that I've seen here. Will he get adapted to screen? Probably. Does that make him a good writer? Probably not. This work will fit perfectly on your bookshelf between Mieville's proper-nouns-via-ouija-board and that nameless sentient turd who wrote the Ambergris books. A must read for a fan of Cline, Rucker, Ricky Kay Morgan and anyone else writing humdrum speculative fiction sans poetic license. Skip.

Suarez has always relied upon a unique technological quirk to drive his stories. This is no different. The characters are not fully fleshed out, but if you liked earlier Suarez novels you'll probably like this one. I would like to see some growth in his writing skills, specifically in character development, in the future. But I'll still probably read his future novels....

I am, at this point, convinced that Daniel Suarez is the premier writer of techno-thrillers in the US today. He's a better writer than Crichton ever was, and without the misogyny; and he lacks the bloat and jingoism of Tom Clancy. Plus, his technological mcguffins are, generally, believable to this science-fiction geek.

The mcguffin in this book is autonomous killer drones, running on a swarming matrix patterned after weaver ants - the most vicious insects in the world; they take down marabunta and pretty much anything that invades their turf. Our primary heroine is Linda McKinney, a myrmecologist who has modeled the weaver ants' behavior: it is her algorithm that has been jacked for the drones.

When a drone attacks her hut (she's in the field studying the ants), she is rescued by a team of top-secret military operatives led by code name Odin, a man who uses ravens (yes, Hunnin and Muginn) as spotters. She is quickly dragged into an life where nobody but your team is to be trusted, where someone in the US Government is out to kill you, and where reality is defined by social media.

I've already given away a bit too much of the plot. Let me just make a few general comments: the novel starts a little slowly, with some characters who don't really matter to the plot, and who die quickly; but once it gets rolling it's as unstoppable as, well, something really unstoppable. I read the last hundred pages at a single sitting and annoyed my wife who wanted me to do something else, but who understood because she'd already read it.

The only real flaw is that the characters are a little flat and static. McKinney is forced into some changes, but other than that the only person who seems to evolve as a character is pretty minor to the story. The rest, and especially Odin and his team, seem to have no room for change.

That's pretty minor though, because a thriller isn't a novel of character. Overall, this is as good as Suarez gets, and that's pretty damn good.

This is the fourth Daniel Suarez novel I have read (listened to), having recently finished "Influx". "Kill Decision" is the best techno-thriller I have read! I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it even more than "Influx", which I thought was excellent. In "Kill Decision", Suarez integrates complex biological processes, including swarm behavior and the intelligence of ravens, into a credible and fast-moving story line.

Once I started reading it was hooked and read the whole book first day I got it. Worth a read and then a re-read.

This "techno-thriller" novel is a conversation-starter and that's why it appeals as I am involved in a new effort to rein in the kind of technology that Dan Suarez warns of in "Kill Decision." Our campaign seeks the adoption of an international treaty that would require human beings are always "in-the-loop" or meaningfully involved in decisions to select target and engage or use force. This review looks at the real-world lessons provided by Kill Decision.

In his book Suarez imagines a world where drones are no longer controlled by humans, but instead are fully autonomous. It may be a work of fiction, but, as other reviewers have noted, is based on solid research. Suarez is not only a best-selling author, but a technical expert who has spent years developing software and database systems, including for the defense industry.

He is concerned with "autonomous combat drones" that would "fly themselves and make a kill decision without human involvement." The drones that Suarez warns against in Kill Decision are "autonomous--programmed to find and kill their victim, and then to self-destruct." He depicts the many dangers that armed drones could pose if this technology is not checked and permitted to become fully autonomous. The opening chapter, entitled "Boomerang," depicts a nightmare scenario of an unidentified and uncontrollable US Reaper drone malfunctioning over a religious shrine packed with pilgrims and launching missile strikes before it self-destructs, causing multiple casualties in the process.

Odin, the main male character, is a US soldier working for a secret government agency who is tasked with identifying who is behind a wave of terrorist bombings on US soil that turn out to be a series of anonymous drone attacks. Early on Odin observes that armed autonomous drones would be "a revolution in military affairs" as they would "combine all the worst aspects of cyber war--anonymity and scalability--with the physical violence of kinetic war."

The main female character is Professor Linda McKinley, a "myrmecologist" or scientist who studies ants, specifically weaver ants, apparently one of the most war-like species on earth. Throughout her career McKinley says she has repeatedly turned down military-funded research grants so she is horrified to learn about the development of a new military technology that seeks to "imbue a machine with the mind of a weaver ant."

In Kill Decision, Suarez depicts swarms of small autonomous drones designed to cut through metal and the closing chapters of the book are a rollercoaster ride as the two heroes try to stop a swarm of hundreds of thousands of metal-eating drones that are cutting ships apart and demolishing their contents.

Suarez proposes that "cheaper, more manoeuvrable, and expendable" autonomous drones could completely alter modern warfare. Throughout Kill Decision, he warns against their proliferation or an arms race as dozens of countries and private companies rush to develop of autonomous armed drones. He is also troubled with who could own autonomous armed drones and the idea that they could "be quietly controlled by a small number of unaccountable people."

Suarez presents an imaginary US government position that requires "there's always a human involved in the loop to make what they call the `kill decision' - whether to shoot or not." This book was published in July 2012, only five months before the real Pentagon issued its first-ever policy directive on autonomy in warfare requiring the Department of Defense to do exactly that by permitting fully autonomous weapons systems that only deliver non-lethal force.

But unlike legislation, policy can be challenged and changed therefore Suarez asserts that new law is necessary to address the dangers of war by fully autonomous weapons. Kill Decision describes the need for "an international legal framework on the proliferation and use of lethally autonomous robots."

Suarez therefore welcomed the April 2013 launch of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a new international civil society coalition coordinated by Human Rights Watch that seeks to prevent the creation of the weapons he warns about in Kill Decision.

In his July 2013 TED Global talk in Edinburgh, Suarez urged his audience to make sure that autonomous armed drones "remain fiction" by banning their development and deployment. Through his work and his public statements, this fiction writer has joined a new movement concerned with preventing the real and not fictional threat of fully autonomous weapons.

Readers who found this novel "scary" or "terrifying" should not hesitate to channel that fear into positive action by supporting Suarez's call for a ban on fully autonomous weapons and joining the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.

Unless we are very, very careful--and time seems to be running out--the milieu of Kill Decision seems likely to be the future. This should terrify anyone capable of sparking more than one synapse at a time. Which is why Daniel Suarez wrote this magisterial treatment. Daniel Suarez is of course writing a novel, not a treatise, and so he makes a few errors--there are no drones capable of making any decisions on their own, much less the kind that ends a human life. At least, not yet; to date, if someone dies in a drone strike, another human pushed the button. But already drones have made life infinitely dangerous for all seven and a half billion humans now alive. No one can go outdoors and be sure he or she will live to go back in. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. Suarez is unlike most thriller writers in that he takes an idea to a logical extreme and studies it, then constructs a story around that notion and manages to sell it.
This is an excellent book, with several well-rounded characters whose life stories, though only hinted at here, could easily support several other books featuring the same people. However, after you've read it, you'll spend the rest of your life worried ... and I think that is what Suarez wants. I have a personal theory that you can't write what you can't believe (which is not to say you necessarily DO believe it). Suarez seems to realize that if drones do get as smart as he portrays (and given the way the tech business behaves, it's only a matter of not enough time until they are that bright), then ... well, I've already said it: can you really be sure that there's not a target on you? REALLY? We have not given sufficient thought, as a society, to the hazards of drones; and I'm afraid the tech industry doesn't want us thinking about those hazards because we might decide that maybe it's not worth it. If we don't, well, then I'm afraid that the milieu in Kill Decision might just represent the best case scenario. There aren't enough people like Suarez, who can sound an alarm AND tell a rollicking good story. Stories are important and powerful.
If you've noticed that I haven't described anything about the book itself, that's on purpose: to find out about that, buy a copy for yourself. I'm just pointing out, and passing along, some of the things I've learned from this book. A novelist who both knows his stuff and knows how to tell a good tale can sometimes do better than the most credentialed expert in any field. Suarez is one of these.

Nice outlook into the future, which is now

If you like Tom Clancy and Micheal kriton (so?) you’ll love all of Daniel’s books. This one is so relevant!

Awesome read! You won’t be disappointed.