What Swordfish wanted to be | Geek Mafia

Fun and exciting read | Geek Mafia | Rick Dakan

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	• Geek Mafia Rick Dakan Blue King Studios, 2006 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 23 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Fast paced storyline that holds your interest!

I was enticed by this book by the title alone, I envisioned The Matrix meets Goodfellas...and that's exactly what I got! The storyline is believable, the characters are dynamic and it leaves you wanting more at the end like every good story should. I was not able to put this book down from start to finish and I highly recommend reading it for yourself, then moving onto Geek Mafia: Mile Zero!

What Swordfish wanted to be

G33k Mafia is a blast! This book is written with the freedom of the Illuminatus! Trilogy (but without the sheer confusion of the absurd), with the free-wheeling sensibility of Still Life With Woodpecker (but without quite so much ideology), and a bit of every fun con-job movie you've ever seen tossed in with a dash of BoingBoing for fun.

It's an indie press title, and occassionally it shows - but that's almost always in things like a missed typo here, or a homonym replacement there. They're few and sporadic, and don't detract from the quality of the story.

And the story - well. Its only ideological treatise is that "freedom is good", in a very chaotic-good kind of way. In a rare instance, the backjacket blurb does a good job summarizing the plot - "comicbook writer cum game designer is about to get fired when sexy con lady and her gang of friends help him screw over those about to screw him over - and his life is never the same" is an even shorter summation.

Either summary does this story a disservice - it's a plot-driven vehicle with quirky characters, all of which remind me (at least a little) of people I've met. And that vehicle drives down a twisty road - not so twisty that you can't guess about where you'll end up (that's pretty obvious from the beginning), but you won't end up exactly where you thought you were headed, and the way you get there's got a few surprises up ahead.

Well worth the price of admission. It's what Swordfish wanted to be - and failed.

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Fun and exciting read

I downloaded this book as an ebook and read on my Blackberry which only added to the feel of the feel of the book. It is a light, fun, fast read. The book gets even more depth once you've read it and you find out some about the author. If you like comics, video games, and technology this book will without a doubt intrigue you. I also very much support the authors decision to release this under the Creative Commons Copyright.

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An intelligent and funny caper

A great read! It's got twists and turns, smart funny characters, intelligent cons and brilliant outrages committed against America's rich right wing, a mix of cool technology, suspicion, courage, politics and love...who could ask for more from a novel? You don't even have to be a geek to love it, the fast-paced well-plotted story carries the technology along for a ride rather than the other way round. Read it.

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Just plain fun

This book was just a fun read. It's a mix of light-tech hacker crime with some mild espionage / spy elements, or maybe the other way around. While the author seems to be aiming for the self-proclaimed geek crowd, the story is more than accessible to the non-geek. I think the average reader would be more thrown off by the constant barrage of comic book references than the tech details.

The writing style is a tad plain, and the book felt a little jumpy and unfocussed at times, but I can say (being careful not to spoil anything) that everything does fit together in the end. It just may not seem like it at the time. So, when you get the the third or fourth gear change in the book and are wondering where in the world things are going, just try that the author is taking it somewhere fun and just let yourself enjoy the moments as they come.

Overall, I highly recommend Geek Mafia as a short, fun, geeky read.

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Fired from a job he hated at a company he loved, videogame designer Paul Reynolds is drowning his sorrows in late-morning margaritas when he meets an alluring, pink-haired conwoman named Chloe. With her gang of techno-pirate friends, Chloe helps Paul not only take revenge on his former employers, but also extort a small fortune from them in the process. What more could a recently unemployed, over-worked videogame designer in Silicon Valley ask for?

In return for Chloe?s help, Paul agrees to create counterfeit comic books for one of her crew?s criminal schemes. In the process finds himself drawn right into the center of their wild, seductive, underground world. He falls in for their fun loving, drug fueled "off the grid" lifestyle almost as fast as he falls head over heels for Chloe. Wary of the Crew?s darker side, but eager to impress both the girl and the gang, Paul uses his game design expertise to invent a masterful con of his own. If all goes according to plan, it will be one for the ages. But can he trust any of them, or is he the one who?s really being conned?

Inspired by author Rick Dakan?s own eventful experiences in the videogame and comic book industries, "Geek Mafia", satisfies the hunger in all of us to buck the system, take revenge on corporate America, and live a life of excitement and adventure.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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