Cassandra Virus by K. V. Johansen

From the Publisher

It's the near future. Computers are faster, cars run on fuel cells, and there's not much to do in the small town of Easter River if you're thirteen and not into team sports. Helen Chan-Fisher is happy enough trying singlehandedly to save the world's remaining amphibians from chytridiomycosis, but her friend Jordan O'Blenis is at a loose end. He may be a genius, but it seems like no matter what he tries to do, his robot-building older sister Cassie did it first. Then he has his great idea, an idea so great even Cassie hasn't done it. He'll write a programme for a virtual supercomputer, one that can live on the Web, and grow and spread and learn ....

Children's Literature

Thirteen-year-old Jordan O'Blenis and his friend Helen Chan-Fisher are genius-level children who want something more challenging to do on summer vacation than create computer games and play Go. Cassie, Jordan's graduate student sister, has charge of him while their archeologist parents are in Belize on a dig, and Helen's mother chairs the computer science department where Cassie is completing her master's thesis on robots. Barred from the university by the odious Vice-President Ruggles and his insufferable assistant Ms. Dormer, Jordan and Helen spend their days at Jordan's house, pursuing the activities they most enjoy. Helen, an incipient biologist, searches for newts to add to her collection, while Jordan decides to create a supercomputer program. He succeeds so well that Cassandra, as he names the program, takes on a life of her own. She spreads through the Internet and installs herself on connected computers, but Jordan insists to Helen that she is not really a virus, that she is harmless. Then he starts to get e-mail messages from Cassandra. As he corresponds with her and realizes how much information she has access to, he becomes aware of the ethical implications of what he is doing. He also becomes fond of Cassandra, who develops a personality and an ethical system of her own. Meanwhile, Dr. Ruggles and Ms. Dormer find out about Cassandra and assume that she is Cassie's creation. When they cannot get the program--which they think they will be able to use to learn secrets they can sell--they call in Ms. Dormer's brother, an agent of Bureau 6, a government security agency. He and his partner break into Cassie's office and take all her thesis materials. Helen discovers wherethey are staying, and she and Jordan break into their motel room and steal Cassie's materials back, hiding them when the agents give chase. Finally, Jordan must decide what to do about Cassandra. He cannot bear to delete her because essentially she has become alive, able to see and create. So he burns all the disks that contain a hard copy of her code, leaving Cassandra herself to explore the Internet and to play Go with Jordan and Helen when she feels like interacting with her friends.

Laura Woodruff - VOYA

Thirteen-year-old Jordan O'Blenis expects a boring summer in his small town of Easter River. His sister Cassie, off at Muddphaug University working on her robots, and his parents, away on an archaeological dig, have left him and his best friend, Helen, to entertain themselves. Helen, who is heavily into amphibians, favors days of tramping through swamps, whereas Jordan would much rather design computer programs. One fateful day, while cleaning a hairball out of his sister's supercomputer, Jordan has a stroke of genius. Days and weeks of feverish work follow, resulting in the birth of Cassandra, the first "living" entity in technological history: a Web-wide program that thinks for itself and can access information in any existing computer. Almost immediately, federal secret agents get wind of Jordan's invention and begin to take steps-sometimes violent-to confiscate Cassandra for their own nefarious purposes. Horrified, Jordan knows that he must save his creation without revealing its whereabouts. Set a bit further into the twenty-first century, this novel includes messages about energy conservation and endangered species. Endearing characters, including Cassandra, add depth to this fast-paced, futuristic, middle school thriller that will spend little time on your science fiction shelf. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2006, Orca, 153p., Trade pb. Ages 11 to 15.

Alan Review

This novel is disturbing, not only because it is at times illogical, but because the basis for its plot has been largely mined before in the 1983 Ally Sheedy/Matthew Broderick film, War Games. The main character, Jordan O'Blenis, bears a striking resemblance to the Broderick character in the film. In the novel, Jordan and his female sidekick begin to communicate with a computer Jordan builds one summer, to which the writer devotes an entire page. Once Cassandra, named after his sister, is up and running, it can hack into any computer in the world, can read email, can remove software and hard drives. The government wants to shut Cassandra down, just as the computer in War Games is determined to have hacked into NORAD, the early warning system established by the U.S. military to warn of incoming missiles from Russia. There are differences, largely made from the writer's choice to set this book in the near future, but only the most computerwise and reluctant of readers will follow this novel through its anticlimactic ending.

Holley Wiseman - KLIATT

Jordan is a boy genius when it comes to computer code, while his best friend, Helen, would rather explore streams and ditches. While Helen pokes around outside, Jordan spends his time inside working on a supercomputer program. "You are Jordan O'Blenis": this is how The Cassandra Virus greets Jordan. Cassandra also wishes Jordan "Good morning" and remembers the names of his friends and pets. Although Jordan insists Cassandra is not a virus, future implications of her use soon grow out of control and Jordan is faced with the biggest decision of his life. Appealing to tech-savvy teens, The Cassandra Virus is a quick read that includes predictions for the future. Jordan and Helen symbolize computer programmers and environmentalists of the future, and point out that we must pay attention to the integrity of our environment and the safety of cyberspace. KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2006, Orca, 153p., Ages 12 to 18.

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-Robot parts lay all around Jordan's house, where he shadows his sister, Cassie, a graduate student studying computer engineering. Technology runs amok when the bored computer geek designs a program that develops a mind of its own. Experimenting with "go" game programs leads Jordan to develop a supercomputer that somehow spreads throughout the university network, borrowing information to become more intuitive. Jordan uses Cassie's computer parts to create a robot that responds to voice and visual commands, and a self-serving administrator wants to use it for sinister purposes. Tension mounts as Jordan and his friend Helen are threatened by dangerous men who trash Cassie's lab and, after finding nothing, set out for Jordan's house. Ultimately saved by his robot, Jordan urges authorities not to destroy his benevolent virus, which even apologizes to those whose privacy "she" invades. Computer junkies will enjoy the technology aspects as well as the characters, whose humor and normal kid behavior will make readers believe this is all within the realm of possibility.-Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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