I’m a big fan of Daniel Suarez ever since I read the Daemon series a few years ago. Well, I recently finished another one of his books, Influx, and found it just as enjoyable.

Jon Grady is the protagonist in the book. Jon is a, more or less, self-taught physicist who invents a way to redirect gravity at will. Unbeknownst to Jon (and virtually the rest of the world), there’s a branch of the US government called the Bureau of Technology Control (BTC) who’s job it is to attenuate humanity’s technological discoveries. You see, humanity is composed of foolish children that require their wise Uncle to keep them away from the hot stove of technological innovation because we could just burn ourselves.

So, the BTC kidnaps Jon and destroys his work before the world can shoot their eyes out with it. Well…the BTC keeps his work for themselves…you know, to safeguard it. While in the clutches of the BTC, Jon learns that they’ve been doing this sort of thing for some time now: cold fusion, quantum computing, cancer elimination, even immortality have all been discoveries suppressed by the BTC all the while imprisoning or even murdering their founders. All these discoveries they’ve used to strengthen their own organization, of course. You know…in the name of protecting the people, democracy, and all that.

Jon is subsequently imprisoned and tortured as his torturers seek to understand and replicate his brain and his unique problem solving abilities. Eventually, Jon escapes and sets off to try to let the world know about this evil organization so that he can bring it down and free the other imprisoned geniuses.

Influx was a fun and exciting read. At the end, Suarez cites several sources of inspiration including Michio Kaku, someone else on my To-Read list. If your schedule is as nuts as mine is, Influx makes for a nice escape in-between the band and basketball practices.