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Hammerjack by Marc D. Giller
01/01/2007 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
Pub: Bantam Spectra. 449 page paperback. Price: $ 6.99 (US), $ 9.99 (CAN). ISBN: 0-553-58786-2. Buy Hammerjack in the USA - or Buy Hammerjack in the UK  check out websites: www.bantamdell.com
I dunno. Reading a new author always starts with some expectation. More so, when it's obvious from the start that the writer has a decent flow of words indicating a page-turner. The only problem is that there needs to be a better understanding of pace and emotional intensity to make it gel better.
A hammerjack is someone who pirates software code and sells to the highest bidder. Cray Alden used to do the same but is now employed to hunt down others in the same trade. Unsurprisingly, an assassin is put on his tail to both kill and remove some code that he's also carrying.
The cover blurb indicates Alden is also supposed to be tracking down a super-computer although this isn't emphasised in the story I read. If anything, author Marc Giller has a style that bewitches but falls a little short with the goods. You only get glimpses of what looks like an interesting reality and not so much of its function to really think it's a cyber-reality. If anything, there's more of a 'Johnny Mnemonic' than a William Gibson about proceedings.
When I started reading, I was surprised how quickly I was going through the pages and after swinging past a few deaths which should have been significant to the characters with no emotional intensity to their passing did it dawn on me that Giller was only writing at one pace...very fast. For some of you, a preference for fast food over something you can digest slowly means 'Hammerjack' will appeal to you but 450 pages at this rate will daunt the rest of you. Potentially, if Giller can sort this problem out then it will be nice to say that you saw his early work.
The pace is far too fast for anything to settle in your head. The characters, as far as they go, explain what is going on far more than the events themselves. More importantly, though, you aren't given a chance to care for the characters than die and moved rapidly on to the next page. Consequently, you really do read at a spin and start getting rather punch-drunk or dare I say being hit rapidly with a hammer towards the end of this tale. A little more discipline and Giller will go far. I'm hoping he's developed a little more with the second book.
GF Willmetts
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