What do you think?
Rate this book
Raven
How do you fix a computer glitch that disappears before you get a good look at it? How do you negotiate with a hacker who doesn’t seem to want anything?
Colorful sixteen-year-old Fireball and her elite team of classmates from Cinzento Secure’s corporate academy must do exactly that. They’re investigating a hack at a prestigious bank, and the bizarre network issues they've observed are turning out to be something stranger than Team Raven has ever encountered.
That Something grows more serious by the minute, reaching tendrils outside the bank and into critical infrastructure. As the team races to keep the hack from costing lives, a new question is added to the mix: why is someone stalking their newest team member?
Colorful sixteen-year-old Fireball and her elite team of classmates from Cinzento Secure’s corporate academy must do exactly that. They’re investigating a hack at a prestigious bank, and the bizarre network issues they've observed are turning out to be something stranger than Team Raven has ever encountered.
That Something grows more serious by the minute, reaching tendrils outside the bank and into critical infrastructure. As the team races to keep the hack from costing lives, a new question is added to the mix: why is someone stalking their newest team member?
- GenresScience Fiction
213 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 20, 2020
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 2, 2020
Page turner!
So apropos for the times we live in! Children need to see their own faces in the media they consume, a mirror for what they could be. I love the depth of characters, each person is more than the token diversity placeholder.
So apropos for the times we live in! Children need to see their own faces in the media they consume, a mirror for what they could be. I love the depth of characters, each person is more than the token diversity placeholder.
March 29, 2021
I recived this book for my thirteenth birthday and... I really enjoyed it. My dad gave it to me ( he is an acquaintance of the author), because he also works in tech and security. The only reason I did not give it 5 stars is because of context. As the daughter of a tech geek I understand more of the systems and functions of all of the infrastructure. I still love this book and would totally would recommend it.
Read
October 5, 2020Hello, I hope you enjoyed RAVEN! If you want more from the Cinzento Academy crew, you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram @suedeyloh, or subscribe to my mailing list at https://EvilPlanToSaveThe.World/Subsc.... My blog is also there!
June 21, 2020
I think this book would have appealed a lot to me as a middle scholar; I liked that it didn't dumb things down, and even though at the time I didn't have any CS background, I did love reading books about "hackers" and I particularly loved . And I liked books portraying teenagers as competent and rational.
Maybe because I'm not really in the right age group, I found myself figuring out a lot of the plot twists significantly before the characters did, but there was one that completely blindsided me and which made me smile when it was revealed.
I did feel that there were kind of a lot of characters for story of its length, and I found it hard to get a real sense of most of them, aside from Fireball, Noob, and Scrappy. But maybe they'll be explored more in other books.
Maybe because I'm not really in the right age group, I found myself figuring out a lot of the plot twists significantly before the characters did, but there was one that completely blindsided me and which made me smile when it was revealed.
I did feel that there were kind of a lot of characters for story of its length, and I found it hard to get a real sense of most of them, aside from Fireball, Noob, and Scrappy. But maybe they'll be explored more in other books.
April 28, 2020
Easy reading and inoffensive in any respect, this YA tale is no more or less than a modern-day, tech-arena Famous Five-style mystery, about an elite, teenage group of cyber-security gurus who investigate when their employer’s biggest client is targeted by an ominous, highly sophisticated hacker. Whilst this may not sound like the most dramatic or action-packed storyline, it actually gets pretty exciting, and gripping, too. Sue Loh clearly knows her subject, and is obviously something of a tech-wizard herself, yet thankfully she manages to prove her credentials without the temptation to baffle the reader; the tale is complex, sure, but never out of reach for most. That is quite unusual in an author: to give full, heavy jargon weight to their story, yet at the same time ensuring it is simplified enough for all to understand without undermining any of its seriousness; she allows the reader into the world and expertise of her characters, without showing off, or alienating – think Doctor Who in the David Tennant years. Raven engages, and is entertainment for its own sake, by a qualified author. I have to say, in fact, that it is pretty good all round.
An undeniably well written, entertaining and quality work, with polished grammar and punctuation which are right on the button. Loh is a good, professional author, who writes wonderfully, developing her characters well and crafting good banter and dialogue in their interactions – reminding us that whilst being system geniuses, they are also teenagers. To tell the truth, I do feel a little bit bad, because there are many who will rate the book higher than my 4 stars, and good for them – I did perhaps base some of my rating on my own personal taste; this isn’t really my cup of tea, generally, if only because of the clichés which are analogous with this particular genre. It is firmly aimed at a young adult audience, though not necessarily because its jargon is particularly out of reach of others – rather, the sci-fi pop culture references will not be on every reader’s wavelength (e.g. Marvel hero references, etc.). That said, it will have something of a broad appeal, I think, and I can’t think that there will be many readers who won’t enjoy reading it. Additionally, it is actually a pretty good idea for a story, with an interesting, and somewhat unique antagonist, for its most part. Overall, I would summarize by saying that this book is something of a triumph for Loh, and certainly worth a read.
An undeniably well written, entertaining and quality work, with polished grammar and punctuation which are right on the button. Loh is a good, professional author, who writes wonderfully, developing her characters well and crafting good banter and dialogue in their interactions – reminding us that whilst being system geniuses, they are also teenagers. To tell the truth, I do feel a little bit bad, because there are many who will rate the book higher than my 4 stars, and good for them – I did perhaps base some of my rating on my own personal taste; this isn’t really my cup of tea, generally, if only because of the clichés which are analogous with this particular genre. It is firmly aimed at a young adult audience, though not necessarily because its jargon is particularly out of reach of others – rather, the sci-fi pop culture references will not be on every reader’s wavelength (e.g. Marvel hero references, etc.). That said, it will have something of a broad appeal, I think, and I can’t think that there will be many readers who won’t enjoy reading it. Additionally, it is actually a pretty good idea for a story, with an interesting, and somewhat unique antagonist, for its most part. Overall, I would summarize by saying that this book is something of a triumph for Loh, and certainly worth a read.
September 8, 2020
Sue Loh's debut novel packs a punch with relatable characters who save the world in a thrilling tech-infused story line that is guaranteed to be a page turner, whether you are a pre-teen aspiring to enter the world of tech, a fan of the young adult genre who relates with the complexities of finding an identity for oneself, or a parent of a teen nurturing the next generation of movers and shakers of society. "Raven" delivers on that multi-dimentional appeal as the characters engage in a high tech chase of whodunit-ry while they see themselves learn and grow under a new dynamic, as a new team member is added to an elite cybersecurity squad at Cinzento. You know the technical investigation that Team Raven goes through has a truly genuine feel to it, told by the author who is a supremely talented software developer herself (having diagnosed tons of performance and security issues in software used by hundreds of millions of people around the world). Yet, it's not all about the tech. Sue reminds you that tech is built by humans for humans, it is meaningless without humans, and that we mustn't forget that connection.
The twisty-turvy plot is adeptly told with some great imagery of Seattle, whether it is an action scene on a King County Metro Bus or a sweeping view of the Puget Sound, which has me hoping for a screen play one of these days🙂
I cannot wait for deeper introspection of some of the principal characters in the books that follow!
The twisty-turvy plot is adeptly told with some great imagery of Seattle, whether it is an action scene on a King County Metro Bus or a sweeping view of the Puget Sound, which has me hoping for a screen play one of these days🙂
I cannot wait for deeper introspection of some of the principal characters in the books that follow!
June 16, 2020
This is a book targeted to teens. It gives them a lot to work with and should generate a lot of dinner table conversations. For example, like all teen books there are different relationships between the teens themselves. The main characters are young men and women that work as equals on the team and there is some boyfriend/girlfriend moments though it's not a focus of the book. The book also uses political and organizations power issues to put the teens in situations that a lot of adults would recognize. From the technical perspective, it didn't dive in so deep that a teen would be lost but it would inspire a teen to consider all the pieces of technology and where they might have fit into the team.
February 10, 2024
*** Liked it, but not everyone who loves the genre would
: Recommended for novel lovers who crave accurate depictions of cybersecurity.
: Recommended for fans of "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez, 2006.
: Recommended for fans of near future stories involving large language models.
I'm always on the lookout for a good cyber novel. By good, I mean the author doesn't treat the cyber pieces of the story like Harry Potter magic; a lot of hand waving about what the hacker is doing (with no real detail and most of the time unrealistic) and a lot of pontificating with nonsense phrases like "I'm in!" I want the cyber pieces of the story to be real or at least real enough. This week, books like
: "Reamde" by Neal Stephenson, 2011.
: "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez, 2006.
: "The Blue Nowhere" by Jeffery Deaver, 2001.
are my favorites, but I change my mind depending on my mood. There are many choices. Checkout the Cybersecurity Canon Website.
https://icdt.osu.edu/cybercanon/
(Cybersecurity Canon -> Book Reviews -> Genre -> Fiction/Cyber Novel)
to get a list.
Sue Loh, in her book, "Raven," is a great edition to this category. She gets the technical details right in addition to writing a compelling story that cyber nerds like myself enjoy. It's a YA novel meaning that the target audience is young teenagers, but don't let that dissuade the adults in the group. YA just means there isn't a lot of violence and sex and the budding romances are of the teenage variety. But the tech she describes is quite advanced and that's what I love about it. Loh brings some credentials to the task too. She's been a Microsoft Software Engineer for over 20 years and as of this writing, she's the system's lead for one of my all-time favorite computer games: Minecraft.
The story orbits around a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) called Cinzento. As a side hustle, the company also manages a boarding school ( Cinzento Academy) for gifted cyber nerds. The Academy sorts the students into teams and gives them group projects to support the MSSP (I love that idea by the way. What a great way to train young people in all things cyber). As the title of the book announces, the story is about how Team Raven tackles a worldwide cyber event.
The "Evil Hacker" that Team Raven is up against is a Large Language Model with domain experience in cybersecurity. Raven's team members nickname it "Hack." Hack's intrusion kill chain campaign methodology is too discover any internet system that has poor security, penetrate the system, copy itself to the victim system (so now, each victim system is running it's own independent version of the Hack Large Language Model), contact the "Hack" command and control network to download a database of offensive tools that have worked in the past, move laterally within the victim's network using the database of tools, and then fix the security issues as it moves.
Come to think of it, the kill chain methodology is reminiscent of the "Daemon" AI described in the Daniel Suarez novel of the same name (2006).
As Hack moves exponentially across the internet, those security fixes start to break critical infrastructure systems like transportation systems and medical systems that can't operate with the fixes. That's when Team Raven gets involved. When the Hack tool database doesn't have a tool that Hack needs to move laterally, the large language model invents one on the spot and shares it back out to the Hack network.
And as they say, this story is "ripped from the headlines." Loh published her book in 2020; about two years before OpenAI released ChatGPT to the world. She was writing science fiction about a piece of software that absolutely passes the Turing Test; a test for AI systems to decide if a human can tell the difference between another human and a machine. At a certain point in the story, Team Raven struggled with the idea of terminating Hack because it felt to them that Hack might be a sentient being. Two years after publication, ChatGPT showed how this kind of future is not that far away.
So, I liked this book. It's a bit too teenagery in some places for an old cynical cybersecurity veteran like myself. There's a fair bit of exposition by one character or the other as they try to explain the tech (this is really hard to do well and Loh does it better than most), and there is a bit of a Scooby-Doo ending as the villain (the human behind the creation of Hack) explains his motivations. But those are nit picks.
If you're looking for a light beach read that gets the cybersecurity details right, "Raven" is an excellent choice.
References
Daniel Suarez, 2006. Daemon (Daemon, #1) [Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
Jeffery Deaver, 2001. The Blue Nowhere [Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
Matt McAvoy, 2020. “Raven” by Sue Loh [Book Reveiew]. Matt McAvoy Book Review. URL https://www.mattmcavoy.com/my-blog/-r...
Neal Stephenson, 2011. Reamde [Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Rick Howard, n.d. Daemon and Freedom [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/daemon-and-freed...
Rick Howard, n.d. Reamde [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/reamde
Rick Howard, n.d. The Blue Nowhere [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/blue-nowhere
Staff, n.d. Raven by Sue Loh [Book Review]. BookLife. URL https://booklife.com/project/raven-45996
Staff, 2020. RAVEN [Book Review]. Kirkus Reviews. URL https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
: Recommended for novel lovers who crave accurate depictions of cybersecurity.
: Recommended for fans of "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez, 2006.
: Recommended for fans of near future stories involving large language models.
I'm always on the lookout for a good cyber novel. By good, I mean the author doesn't treat the cyber pieces of the story like Harry Potter magic; a lot of hand waving about what the hacker is doing (with no real detail and most of the time unrealistic) and a lot of pontificating with nonsense phrases like "I'm in!" I want the cyber pieces of the story to be real or at least real enough. This week, books like
: "Reamde" by Neal Stephenson, 2011.
: "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez, 2006.
: "The Blue Nowhere" by Jeffery Deaver, 2001.
are my favorites, but I change my mind depending on my mood. There are many choices. Checkout the Cybersecurity Canon Website.
https://icdt.osu.edu/cybercanon/
(Cybersecurity Canon -> Book Reviews -> Genre -> Fiction/Cyber Novel)
to get a list.
Sue Loh, in her book, "Raven," is a great edition to this category. She gets the technical details right in addition to writing a compelling story that cyber nerds like myself enjoy. It's a YA novel meaning that the target audience is young teenagers, but don't let that dissuade the adults in the group. YA just means there isn't a lot of violence and sex and the budding romances are of the teenage variety. But the tech she describes is quite advanced and that's what I love about it. Loh brings some credentials to the task too. She's been a Microsoft Software Engineer for over 20 years and as of this writing, she's the system's lead for one of my all-time favorite computer games: Minecraft.
The story orbits around a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) called Cinzento. As a side hustle, the company also manages a boarding school ( Cinzento Academy) for gifted cyber nerds. The Academy sorts the students into teams and gives them group projects to support the MSSP (I love that idea by the way. What a great way to train young people in all things cyber). As the title of the book announces, the story is about how Team Raven tackles a worldwide cyber event.
The "Evil Hacker" that Team Raven is up against is a Large Language Model with domain experience in cybersecurity. Raven's team members nickname it "Hack." Hack's intrusion kill chain campaign methodology is too discover any internet system that has poor security, penetrate the system, copy itself to the victim system (so now, each victim system is running it's own independent version of the Hack Large Language Model), contact the "Hack" command and control network to download a database of offensive tools that have worked in the past, move laterally within the victim's network using the database of tools, and then fix the security issues as it moves.
Come to think of it, the kill chain methodology is reminiscent of the "Daemon" AI described in the Daniel Suarez novel of the same name (2006).
As Hack moves exponentially across the internet, those security fixes start to break critical infrastructure systems like transportation systems and medical systems that can't operate with the fixes. That's when Team Raven gets involved. When the Hack tool database doesn't have a tool that Hack needs to move laterally, the large language model invents one on the spot and shares it back out to the Hack network.
And as they say, this story is "ripped from the headlines." Loh published her book in 2020; about two years before OpenAI released ChatGPT to the world. She was writing science fiction about a piece of software that absolutely passes the Turing Test; a test for AI systems to decide if a human can tell the difference between another human and a machine. At a certain point in the story, Team Raven struggled with the idea of terminating Hack because it felt to them that Hack might be a sentient being. Two years after publication, ChatGPT showed how this kind of future is not that far away.
So, I liked this book. It's a bit too teenagery in some places for an old cynical cybersecurity veteran like myself. There's a fair bit of exposition by one character or the other as they try to explain the tech (this is really hard to do well and Loh does it better than most), and there is a bit of a Scooby-Doo ending as the villain (the human behind the creation of Hack) explains his motivations. But those are nit picks.
If you're looking for a light beach read that gets the cybersecurity details right, "Raven" is an excellent choice.
References
Daniel Suarez, 2006. Daemon (Daemon, #1) [Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
Jeffery Deaver, 2001. The Blue Nowhere [Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
Matt McAvoy, 2020. “Raven” by Sue Loh [Book Reveiew]. Matt McAvoy Book Review. URL https://www.mattmcavoy.com/my-blog/-r...
Neal Stephenson, 2011. Reamde [Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Rick Howard, n.d. Daemon and Freedom [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/daemon-and-freed...
Rick Howard, n.d. Reamde [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/reamde
Rick Howard, n.d. The Blue Nowhere [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/blue-nowhere
Staff, n.d. Raven by Sue Loh [Book Review]. BookLife. URL https://booklife.com/project/raven-45996
Staff, 2020. RAVEN [Book Review]. Kirkus Reviews. URL https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
September 15, 2020
Very entertaining!
A very entertaining plot that captures your imagination and curiosity as it unravels into a fictitious world of computer hacking and the consequences of greed. Surely can be turned into an exciting thriller for all ages.
A very entertaining plot that captures your imagination and curiosity as it unravels into a fictitious world of computer hacking and the consequences of greed. Surely can be turned into an exciting thriller for all ages.
February 14, 2021
4 stars for the messaging and importance of this work to introduce a younger generation to cybersecurity in an action-packed plot. I feel like the worldview is fairly inclusive and empowering of different genders, races, etc. Some parts of the plot felt like loose threads without previous foreshadowing/build-up from the character's past actions, like the thread with Scrappy.
I'd personally rate it 2-3 stars if not for the importance of the messaging due to the flat characterizations of 16-18 year olds that act like 10 year olds. For some reason, it really bothered me that this book features characters that act middle grade but are being marketed as YA. I know I'm not alone in this opinion, as I've seen other reviewers on Goodreads and Amazon note that it's a good middle grade read. If that's not the intent of the writer, then I would strongly encourage more test readers that are middle grade and YA to determine what age group the voicing resonates more strongly with.
CW: recent parental death, stalking
I'd personally rate it 2-3 stars if not for the importance of the messaging due to the flat characterizations of 16-18 year olds that act like 10 year olds. For some reason, it really bothered me that this book features characters that act middle grade but are being marketed as YA. I know I'm not alone in this opinion, as I've seen other reviewers on Goodreads and Amazon note that it's a good middle grade read. If that's not the intent of the writer, then I would strongly encourage more test readers that are middle grade and YA to determine what age group the voicing resonates more strongly with.
CW: recent parental death, stalking
July 31, 2020
I really think this book would be great for a cartoon. It is definitely a great read for middle graders and maybe that's why i think it would be great as a cartoon.
The action has a good pace and the characters are unique in their own ways. More than that, the characters act their age but they are also influenced by their environment which is a very fine detail. The author knew how to build them so they appear as realistic as possible.
The tech terms might not be easy to keep up with or grasp from the start unless you are interested in this area but there are many associations to make you understand what the characters are talking about.
Overall, this is a great read.
The action has a good pace and the characters are unique in their own ways. More than that, the characters act their age but they are also influenced by their environment which is a very fine detail. The author knew how to build them so they appear as realistic as possible.
The tech terms might not be easy to keep up with or grasp from the start unless you are interested in this area but there are many associations to make you understand what the characters are talking about.
Overall, this is a great read.
March 6, 2023
Surprising
I'm probably as far from being tech savvy as it's possible to be so when I started to read this I wasn't sure I'd understand it, I need not have worried it's brilliant and written in such a way that even the most complex tech references actually made sense even to me. Add to that great storylines with twists and turns to keep you turning pages and a cast of characters that you are either going to love or hate this book draws you in from the beginning and doesn't let go till the last page a brilliant read, Baz.
I'm probably as far from being tech savvy as it's possible to be so when I started to read this I wasn't sure I'd understand it, I need not have worried it's brilliant and written in such a way that even the most complex tech references actually made sense even to me. Add to that great storylines with twists and turns to keep you turning pages and a cast of characters that you are either going to love or hate this book draws you in from the beginning and doesn't let go till the last page a brilliant read, Baz.
February 7, 2021
As one of the first YA-fiction books I’ve read that’s ingrained with computer science (and as someone working in tech), it was a refreshing read! I wish I’d read it when I was younger as it would’ve inspired me even more to pursue the field.
Overall, the hack and conspiracy in The Raven is a definite page turner.
Overall, the hack and conspiracy in The Raven is a definite page turner.
September 9, 2025
Ending was a bit rushed it felt. But good story and character development in such a short book
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews