In the world of Techno-Thrillers, the gadget or the machine is as much as part of the story as the human characters. Techno-Thrillers are fast paced, exciting stories, often science fiction or military (or both), that are well-researched and ideal choices for readers who like lots of detail, love to learn new things and wonder why and what if .
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Mona by Dan T. Sehlberg
“Eric Söderqvist, professor of computer science at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, has invented Mind Surf: a thought-controlled system that allows people with disabilities to browse the web. Samir Mustaf is a former MIT professor whose daughter Mona was killed by an Israeli cluster bomb five years earlier. He has just developed the most sophisticated computer virus the world has ever seen, for the purpose of a cyber attack against Israel’s financial system. Eric’s wife Hanna falls into a coma — struck by an aggressive and previously unknown virus — after having tested her husband’s invention. The doctors are at a loss. Although everyone around him thinks he’s gone mad, Eric is convinced that his wife has been infected by a powerful computer virus known as Mona, and that the only way he can save her is by tracking down its creator.” publisher
The Kraken Project by Douglas Preston
“NASA is building a probe to be splashed down in the Kraken Mare, the largest sea on Saturn’s great moon, Titan. It is one of the most promising habitats for extraterrestrial life in the solar system, but the surface is unpredictable and dangerous, requiring the probe to contain artificial intelligence software. To this end, Melissa Shepherd, a brilliant programmer, has developed “Dorothy,” a powerful, self-modifying AI whose true potential is both revolutionary and terrifying. When miscalculations lead to a catastrophe during testing, Dorothy flees into the internet. Former CIA agent Wyman Ford is tapped to track down the rogue AI.” publisher
The Director by David Ignatius
“Graham Weber has been the director of the CIA for less than a week when a Swiss kid in a dirty T-shirt walks into the American consulate in Hamburg and says the agency has been hacked, and he has a list of agents’ names to prove it. This is the moment a CIA director most dreads. Weber turns to a charismatic (and unstable) young man named James Morris who runs the Internet Operations Center. He’s the CIA’s in-house geek. Weber launches Morris on a mole hunt unlike anything in spy fiction one that takes the reader into the hacker underground of Europe and America and ends up in a landscape of paranoia and betrayal.” publisher
Rogue Code by Mark Russinovich
“Cyber security expert Jeff Aiken knows that no computer system is completely secure. When he’s called to investigate a possible breach at the New York Stock Exchange, he discovers not only that their system has been infiltrated but that someone on the inside knows. Yet for some reason, they have allowed the hackers to steal millions of dollars from accounts without trying to stop the theft. When Jeff uncovers the crime, the NYSE suddenly turns on him. Accused of grand larceny, he must find and expose the criminals behind the theft, not just to prove his innocence but to stop a multibillion-dollar heist that could upend the U.S. economy.” publisher
The Circle by Dave Eggers
“When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. … What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.” publisher
