"One fragile moment - that's all it takes for a life to be unmade, to shatter into a million pieces that will never fit together the same way. Hard as you try to change it, you'll find - just as I did - that some things, once broken, can't be fixed.
Some things have to re-created completely.
Some people too.
The ancient book says that it took God seven days to create the world. It took him only three days to shatter my little life and remake it in a way that I would've never chosen for myself. It's always like that - one story ends; another one begins.
This is my story, and I couldn't have possibly known how hard it was going to be.
None of us could've known." (pg 1).
In the latest novel in the Outlaw Chronicles from best selling author Ted Dekker, Hacker takes readers where no one has imagined going. Inside the human brain. To say that Nyah Parks is your average seventeen-year-old would be a mistake. Nyah is far from ordinary. After losing her father and brother in a car accident that left her in the hospital with a tell tale scar, and her mother dying a slow death, she utilizes her unique talent for numbers and math to develop her ability to hack into virtually anything. It's the one thing that has enabled her to pay for her mother's ongoing medical expenses, hacking into companies and helping them find the loop holes in their cyber security.
There is only one option to save her mother and that is an experimental treatment that has shown some amazing results, and the only draw back is the need to gain $150,000 as soon as she can. Taking on one of the world's largest corporations BlakBox, she finds a way to infiltrate their system long enough to download a handful of files and then convince them to hire her for just that sum. The only drawback is that it will take working from inside the building and utilizing the talents of her accomplice known simply as Pixel. But it won't turn out half as easy as she expected when she realizes what she has uploaded and they are none to happy to have that happen.
I received Hacker by Ted Dekker compliments of Worthy Publishing for my honest review and received no monetary compensation for a favorable review. Being a huge Ted Dekker fan, I was hooked on this one from start to finish. I can honestly say this one takes hacking to a whole new level. Just when you think there is nothing left for him to dip into, he masterfully does it once again. The writing style is superb and will definitely keep young adult readers engaged. I can only hope that this one makes it to the big screen! It is pure adrenaline, heart-stopping action from the very first page until the chilling end. Hands down for me a 5 out of 5 stars, and one of my favorites from Ted Dekker. This is just one of the novels in the Outlaw Chronicles with Eyes Wide Open, Water Walker and Outlaw joining the bunch! Check out Ted Dekker's interview on Hacker below:
For more information about Hacker, Ted Dekker or where to pick up a copy of this novel , please click on the links below:
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To read more reviews on Hacker, please visit Worthy Publishing's website.
1. Your
main character in Hacker, Nyah, makes
a living by cracking the firewalls of major corporations. What role does
technology play in her development as a character?
TD: Nyah roots a
great deal of her identity in technology. In doing so she defines who she is by
what she does. She even says so at the beginning of the book. I am a hacker. We all do this. For her,
technology is what she knows, it’s what defines her, and provides the comfort
zone. But it’s also her prison, which she comes to discover later.
2. 2. How
does personal loss affect Nyah’s view of God?
TD: When we meet Nyah, we
find her in a place of great suffering especially for someone her age. That
colors everything, just as it does for everyone else. For Nyah, the inescapable
question is, “Why is there such suffering in the world?” Or more to the point,
“Why is all of this happening to me?”
That offense, that feeling of injustice
and unfairness, feeds her entire view of the world, including her view of God
as a distant, uncaring creator.
3. Why
do you consider Hacker a modern-day parable?
TD: Parables are meant to
re-frame the world differently so we can experience it again for the first
time. Hacker takes a simple concept
that many people already believe, that there’s another reality so near to us
that we’re unaware of its presence most of the time, and puts it center stage.
The story doesn’t have a moral or try to make a point per se, because that’s
not what parables are for, but it does ask you to look at the world through new
eyes—Nyah’s.
4. 4. The
central question in each book in this series is, “Who am I?” What prompted you
to explore that question?
TD: The question of identity
is central to all of life and, in fact, most of my own striving and struggle can
be traced back to it. We define ourselves, almost without thinking much of it,
by what we do. I’m a mother, a father, a
man, a woman, a writer, an accountant… The list is neverending. But strip
that all away, as death will one day for all of us, and what remains? Are you,
at your core, really a mother or a father or an accountant? Or are you
something far more and we’ve only bought into the notion that this costume,
which we call the body and our careers and talents, is really who we are?
5. 5. The
series so far includes a 17-year-old who claims she has been buried alive, a
13-year-old orphan with no memory, and a 17-year-old genius computer hacker.
What are the similarities between these characters?
TD: [Laughs.] You’ll have to read the books to find out for
yourself. Ultimately, they are all forced to take a journey that begins in the
valley of the shadow of death and ends on the other side of it.
6. 6. What
role does the unseen play in your books?
TD: An enormous role, because
that’s how it is in real life even in a literal way. Physicists tell us that
the visible universe is a miniscule slice of what actually exists, we just
can’t see the rest. But just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s
non-existent.
7. 7. What
makes your characters in this series “outlaws”?
TD: It’s their journeys, which lead them “out of the law” of
death and suffering into the light. It’s the same journey we all get to take,
and which we’re called to.
8 8. You
grew up as a missionary kid among cannibals in Indonesia. How do you think your
unusual upbringing affects your writing and your faith today?
TD: My upbringing gives me a
unique way of looking at the world. Understand, I grew up among people for whom
spirituality was integral to life. It wasn’t tacked on or part of life… There was
no separation. They believed in the unseen, they witnessed its powers, and
lived as though the seen and the unseen were woven together in a beautiful,
mysterious way.
