Robert J. Sawyer 9 min read

Blind since birth, teenage math prodigy Caitlin Decter receives an experimental implant to restore her sight, and instead begins to see the structure of the World Wide Web, where something is waking.

Robert J. Sawyer's 2009 novel (here an author's extract) opens his acclaimed WWW trilogy. Sharp, warm, ingenious. Read it for the beginning of a superb modern SF tale about the spontaneous awakening of a consciousness within the internet, told through a brilliant blind girl's eyes, blending real science, big ideas, and genuine heart, from a master of accessible hard SF.

In its time

Published in 2009, during the 2000s, open-culture and post-scarcity visions.

Reading it

9 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).