What do you think?
Rate this book
Echelon #1
Echelon
“Imaginative and intuitive . . . [Josh] Conviser mines and mints a nonstop stream of visual images.”—Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files
In the time it takes to read this sentence, Echelon will intercept more than 70,000 phone calls, e-mails, and faxes.
Operated by the National Security Agency, Echelon is the most pervasive global eavesdropping network in history. Today, Echelon will capture three billion electronic communications.
Imagine what it will do tomorrow.
In the near future, war is unknown, conflict has vanished, and life is picture-perfect. Or so it seems. Once merely a surveillance net, Echelon has severed its ties with the United States to become the covert power shaping world affairs. It manipulates the data flow at will, snuffs out dissent, and controls information–and thus the world–with an iron fist. But after years of silent dominance, Echelon stands on the brink of collapse.
Honed, armed, and bioengineered to the hilt, Ryan Laing, a veteran Echelon operator, is thrust into a dark conspiracy to overthrow Echelon and draw the world into new violence and chaos. With his handler, Sarah Peters, a neo-punk hacker out of Scotland, Laing embarks on a desperate race through the halls of power and across the globe–from the flooded beachfront of Venice, California, to a murderous jungle in Southeast Asia–to find out who in Echelon is playing God . . . and what greater hell will soon be unleashed.
In the time it takes to read this sentence, Echelon will intercept more than 70,000 phone calls, e-mails, and faxes.
Operated by the National Security Agency, Echelon is the most pervasive global eavesdropping network in history. Today, Echelon will capture three billion electronic communications.
Imagine what it will do tomorrow.
In the near future, war is unknown, conflict has vanished, and life is picture-perfect. Or so it seems. Once merely a surveillance net, Echelon has severed its ties with the United States to become the covert power shaping world affairs. It manipulates the data flow at will, snuffs out dissent, and controls information–and thus the world–with an iron fist. But after years of silent dominance, Echelon stands on the brink of collapse.
Honed, armed, and bioengineered to the hilt, Ryan Laing, a veteran Echelon operator, is thrust into a dark conspiracy to overthrow Echelon and draw the world into new violence and chaos. With his handler, Sarah Peters, a neo-punk hacker out of Scotland, Laing embarks on a desperate race through the halls of power and across the globe–from the flooded beachfront of Venice, California, to a murderous jungle in Southeast Asia–to find out who in Echelon is playing God . . . and what greater hell will soon be unleashed.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
14 people are currently reading
117 people want to read
About the author
Josh Conviser
2 books13 followersJosh grew up in Aspen, Colorado, went to high school in Santa Barbara, California and graduated from Princeton University in 1996. He has lived in Europe, Asia and Australia. An avid mountaineer, he climbed in ranges around the world, including the Himalayas, before giving up the mountains for the jungles of Hollywood where he pursued a career in screenwriting. He is the Executive Consultant on HBO's series, Rome, and has several films in development. Random House published his first novel, ECHELON, and its sequel, EMPYRE. Josh lives with his wife and daughter in Santa Barbara.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 4, 2009
This is a trashy novel. Not Dan Brown trashy, but close. Mostly, just very over-wrought narration with characters about whom we are always told and never shown. But it has some OK action, and was compelling enough to finish reading the book. I also have the sequel, but I'm wary of picking it up and reading it, lest it suck me in as I curse whoever it was that taught (or failed to teach) Josh Conviser how to write.
August 21, 2015
Pretty good, but not extraordinary... Lot of technobabble.
October 13, 2016
Whoa, hits pretty close to home with the continued push into AI. Had a bid of Ready Player One as well as they dove into the "Matrix" like world. I really enjoyed this as it may be a precursor for our eventual future.
February 23, 2011
Echelon was a good read, but not great. I enjoy cyberpunk and this certainly had all the best elements of that in it. Definite flavors of William Gibson to it with it's technological advancement and vast conspiracies but with it's own style and tone.
Reading it felt a bit like I imagine it must be like to ride a luge. As you get close to the end things seemed to fly by with multiple twists that left me reeling. Which can be exhilarating, however in this case it left me feeling a bit breathless and confused as to how the story went from the beginning to end and still all tied together. The reveals were inventive and well timed for all that there was a rushed feeling to it.
The story is about a vast conspiracy to control society by controlling the information flow. Ryan Liang, an Echelon agent brought back from the dead through nanotechnology grows suspicious of who is controlling the flow and whether their motives remain peaceful or have turned dictatorial. He is assisted in this venture by the standard crew of the hacker who gets into his mind and helps guide him through the missions, the computer whiz who navigates the flow like he was born there, and the underground crony with all the hook ups to necessary supplies (for a price of course!). Enough high speed chases, violent confrontations and tricked out bio mechanics to please a Michael Bay fan, however the characters all fell a bit flat. There is some character development but a lot of it is of the standard variety that you can see coming a mile away. I didn't feel anyone learned too much or changed from who they were initially even though they (Liang especially) goes through some intense experiences both emotionally and physically.
There were two real draw to the story. The big picture, the reasons why the characters are doing all of this. The concept of one group having infinite control over all information was fascinating and it is taken to an extreme here. Echelon keeps things happy and conflict as minimal as possible and this seems to affect society in ways that we may not have though of. When information is exchanged digitally it can be changed, what are the ramifications of this for society?
The other truly enjoyable part of this book was the technology. It seems a mostly natural extension of what exists now, granted more then a few years in the future but still mostly feasible. It certainly was not played off as a wonderful cure for all humanities ills but it also didn't fall into the terrible trap of 'scary science' that inevitably brought us all down. Humans are very much the source of the sometimes horrifying things that are and have been done, the technology is portrayed accurately as what it is, a tool.
Overall it was an interesting story but I had to force myself through the last of it. I was glad I did because the end was satisfying but it was not as enjoyable as I had hoped for.
Reading it felt a bit like I imagine it must be like to ride a luge. As you get close to the end things seemed to fly by with multiple twists that left me reeling. Which can be exhilarating, however in this case it left me feeling a bit breathless and confused as to how the story went from the beginning to end and still all tied together. The reveals were inventive and well timed for all that there was a rushed feeling to it.
The story is about a vast conspiracy to control society by controlling the information flow. Ryan Liang, an Echelon agent brought back from the dead through nanotechnology grows suspicious of who is controlling the flow and whether their motives remain peaceful or have turned dictatorial. He is assisted in this venture by the standard crew of the hacker who gets into his mind and helps guide him through the missions, the computer whiz who navigates the flow like he was born there, and the underground crony with all the hook ups to necessary supplies (for a price of course!). Enough high speed chases, violent confrontations and tricked out bio mechanics to please a Michael Bay fan, however the characters all fell a bit flat. There is some character development but a lot of it is of the standard variety that you can see coming a mile away. I didn't feel anyone learned too much or changed from who they were initially even though they (Liang especially) goes through some intense experiences both emotionally and physically.
There were two real draw to the story. The big picture, the reasons why the characters are doing all of this. The concept of one group having infinite control over all information was fascinating and it is taken to an extreme here. Echelon keeps things happy and conflict as minimal as possible and this seems to affect society in ways that we may not have though of. When information is exchanged digitally it can be changed, what are the ramifications of this for society?
The other truly enjoyable part of this book was the technology. It seems a mostly natural extension of what exists now, granted more then a few years in the future but still mostly feasible. It certainly was not played off as a wonderful cure for all humanities ills but it also didn't fall into the terrible trap of 'scary science' that inevitably brought us all down. Humans are very much the source of the sometimes horrifying things that are and have been done, the technology is portrayed accurately as what it is, a tool.
Overall it was an interesting story but I had to force myself through the last of it. I was glad I did because the end was satisfying but it was not as enjoyable as I had hoped for.
December 22, 2008
Josh Conviser's Echelon is not quite a recommendation--its sequel, Empyre, had been something I'd spotted mentioned by John Scalzi over on his blog. I thought the premise sounded interesting, and I like me a good espionage-flavored SF thriller, so I thought I'd jump back and check out the first of this particular pair of books.
What I got for my read was a not half-bad story, though parts of it were notably flawed. Three areas hit me in this regard: one, the book needed another copyedit pass. While the errors I found weren't hugely jarring, they were still noticeable little bumps in the flow of the story. Two, one scene in particular partway through the book came across to me as one cliche after another, which made it difficult to read--especially given that up until that point, Conviser's handling of dialogue was much smoother. The contrast was therefore much more noticeable, and the characters spend way, way too much time hammering on the particular cliche of "we were given a chance to play God!". Three, I felt out of sorts about his general handling of female characters. His female lead is generally okay, but there's only one other female character of note in the entire thing, and she's almost an afterthought at the end of the plot, not showing up until the final few chapters. Up until then the only other signs we have of female characters aren't really characters at all, but rather, oversexed constructs in "the flow" (this book's much more advanced version of VR/the Net/etc.) who are manipulated mostly by male characters. Which reminds me, pretty much, of a lot of the characters I used to run into while MUSHing, and not in a good way. ;)
To balance this out, though, I should also add that the book does have some good solid action scenes. Conviser does have a way with pacing, and although his style doesn't match the razor clarity of Charles Stross, there's a certain eclectic rhythm to it when he's not weighting his characters down with cliched dialogue. All in all it is clear this is a first novel, but it's not a bad attempt; there's promise in his prose, and hopefully it will come into better focus as he keeps up with his work. Two and a half stars.
What I got for my read was a not half-bad story, though parts of it were notably flawed. Three areas hit me in this regard: one, the book needed another copyedit pass. While the errors I found weren't hugely jarring, they were still noticeable little bumps in the flow of the story. Two, one scene in particular partway through the book came across to me as one cliche after another, which made it difficult to read--especially given that up until that point, Conviser's handling of dialogue was much smoother. The contrast was therefore much more noticeable, and the characters spend way, way too much time hammering on the particular cliche of "we were given a chance to play God!". Three, I felt out of sorts about his general handling of female characters. His female lead is generally okay, but there's only one other female character of note in the entire thing, and she's almost an afterthought at the end of the plot, not showing up until the final few chapters. Up until then the only other signs we have of female characters aren't really characters at all, but rather, oversexed constructs in "the flow" (this book's much more advanced version of VR/the Net/etc.) who are manipulated mostly by male characters. Which reminds me, pretty much, of a lot of the characters I used to run into while MUSHing, and not in a good way. ;)
To balance this out, though, I should also add that the book does have some good solid action scenes. Conviser does have a way with pacing, and although his style doesn't match the razor clarity of Charles Stross, there's a certain eclectic rhythm to it when he's not weighting his characters down with cliched dialogue. All in all it is clear this is a first novel, but it's not a bad attempt; there's promise in his prose, and hopefully it will come into better focus as he keeps up with his work. Two and a half stars.
April 8, 2014
I really don't know how I got this ebook on my Nook. It must have been offered free or super cheap. Echelon is not the type of book I would normally read and I almost didn't. I'm one of those readers- the kind who says, "Well, it's here so I may as well give it a go."
So, I did and I can't say I'm sorry. As I read I kept thinking, "this book is not for me" and yet I kept reading! I think I would have enjoyed it more as a movie with the kinks worked out and fewer words I had never seen in print much less used in a conversation.
Futuristic, techno-geek, spy thriller would be my best descriptive words. It is fast paced. The characters didn't feel real but then again, how many people do you know who have died and been brought back to life by drones? Not a book I would read again, nor would I read the sequel. But, sometimes it's good to be pushed outside of our comfort zone and that includes the books we read.
So, I did and I can't say I'm sorry. As I read I kept thinking, "this book is not for me" and yet I kept reading! I think I would have enjoyed it more as a movie with the kinks worked out and fewer words I had never seen in print much less used in a conversation.
Futuristic, techno-geek, spy thriller would be my best descriptive words. It is fast paced. The characters didn't feel real but then again, how many people do you know who have died and been brought back to life by drones? Not a book I would read again, nor would I read the sequel. But, sometimes it's good to be pushed outside of our comfort zone and that includes the books we read.
July 31, 2010
Made nigh-immortal by nanobots and working for a super-secret shadow dictatorship called ECHELON, Ryan Laing is, of course, going to get tangled in a web of deceit and corruption. The fund lies, however, in unraveling the web, and author Josh Conviser doesn’t let us down.
Highly reminiscent of THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, THE BOURNE IDENTITY and plenty of other on-the-run-from-a-hugely-powerful-organization films and novels, Laing and his partner, a spunky girl who’s obviously in over her head, have to find a way to defeat an organization that knows everything going on at any given second around the globe. Fortunately, Laing is infested with nanobots that can heal nearly any injury, and this allows Conviser to find asymmetrical solutions to the traditional action set-pieces.
More: http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/sci-f...
Highly reminiscent of THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, THE BOURNE IDENTITY and plenty of other on-the-run-from-a-hugely-powerful-organization films and novels, Laing and his partner, a spunky girl who’s obviously in over her head, have to find a way to defeat an organization that knows everything going on at any given second around the globe. Fortunately, Laing is infested with nanobots that can heal nearly any injury, and this allows Conviser to find asymmetrical solutions to the traditional action set-pieces.
More: http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/sci-f...
November 6, 2009
punk sci-fi novel of intrigue and shooting things. interesting, to say the least. set in the future (*what* a surprise) with the classic tortured anti-hero in the spotlight of this slim book. not so classic? it starts with his death. luckily, this doesn't mean that we get dragged back in time to watch him propel himself toward what we know is his inevitable death. Instead, the poor guy gets brought back to life using high-tech "drones." soon the company he works for (which controls all of the world's information flow) is falling apart around him and only he and his beautiful handler can get to the bottom of. oooo ahhh. despite my slightly sarcastic summary, i really quite enjoyed this one. the characters were realistic (enough) and the plot twisty as a twizzler.
January 2, 2008
The writing is simply not very good in that it's all over the map with metaphors and wild descriptions of things in the universe without much context for the existence of those things. There were some good ideas, but overall this is not actually worth making it all the way through the plot via the writing that was used.
December 22, 2018
This book had an interesting premise. Unfortunately, I never felt engaged; instead, I was continually trying to get a grasp on the world presented. I did enjoy parts of it, and I kept waiting for it to get really good, but I ended up feeling disappointed. I thought the story had a lot of promise and just didn't quite deliver in the end.
August 30, 2008
I went to Old Nassau with the author, so it was a trip to read his stuff (and see how he slipped in some references to friends/locations). This book was good, tight, seriously action-packed, kind of like Matrix on steroids. I will definitely plan to read the sequel.
August 24, 2010
I enjoyed the beginning, but as the book progressed, it became too obvious and even more disappointingly, ridiculous-I mean aliens? Really? and then its never followed up with why, how, more info.... just a deus ex machina...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2013
Not terrible, but this sort of story has been done much better already. The writing is a little amateurish, some of the plot points seem completely arbitrary, and the characters are the blandest sort of cardboard. Plus, some of the cheesiest sex scenes this side of a Harlequin romance.
January 25, 2016
Material Concept Was Interesting Due My Career At Phone Company! The Writing Style Is Average, But The Plot With Clever Ending Quite Outstanding!
Basically, AN enjoyable Read Unfolding Story From My Deceased Uncle's Library! Memories Of "1984" Themes By Computer Science-Fiction!
Basically, AN enjoyable Read Unfolding Story From My Deceased Uncle's Library! Memories Of "1984" Themes By Computer Science-Fiction!
November 15, 2016
Too many characters
For this book there were more characters than necessary. They needed more fleshing out to help the storyline flow smoothly. Elysium parts of story were quite unique.
For this book there were more characters than necessary. They needed more fleshing out to help the storyline flow smoothly. Elysium parts of story were quite unique.
December 31, 2007
An okay adventure yarn that tries to be cyberpunk and fails miserably. Yet there's a happy ending and it isn't nearly as dry as other attempts at cyber punk.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews