computers Archives - Page 2 of 2

Yzabel / July 9, 2017

Review: Void Star

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Not far in the future the seas have risen and the central latitudes are emptying but it’s still a good time to be rich in San Francisco where weapons drones patrol the skies to keep out the multitudinous poor. Irina isn’t rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall, and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It’s a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from ageing.

Kern has no such access; he’s one of the many refugees in the sprawling drone-built favelas on the city’s periphery, where he lives like a monk, training relentlessly in martial arts, scraping by as a thief and an enforcer. Thales is from a different world entirely – the mathematically-inclined scion of a Brazilian political clan, he’s fled to L.A. after the attack that left him crippled and his father dead.

A ragged stranger accosts Thales and demands to know how much he can remember. Kern flees for his life after robbing the wrong mark. Irina finds a secret in the reflection of a laptop’s screen in her employer’s eyeglasses. None are safe as they’re pushed together by subtle forces that stay just out of sight.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

This story takes us on the paths followed by three characters very different from each other: Irina, carrying a brain implant that gives her perfect memory and access to AIs; Kern, a young refugee from the San Francisco favelas, who taught himself through books and martial arts thanks to a laptop found in a dump; and Thales, son of a murdered Brazilian politician, whose life hangs by a thread only because his body may reject the implant that saved his life at any moment.

The world depicted in the novel is not exactly cyberpunk, not exactly transhumanistic, not exactly dystopian, but a blend of all three? Life-prolonging and youth treatments exist… only for those who can afford them. The implant in both Irina and Thales’s brains is exceptional… but. Large corporations dominate everyday life, but the protagonists are different from their more usual cyberpunk counterparts. Earth is going through climate changes and places like Singapore are gradually going underwater, and many people don’t have access to basic necessities… but at the same time, a sense of wonder still permeates the story, if only because of the way the characters are confronted to various threats and obstacles, yet also to hopes and openings towards new paths. Kern’s laptop, for instance, because of what it represents, or could represent, for a young boy living in the streets. Or the inhuman and fascinating beauty of the AIs introduced here, the destructive Cloudbreaker and the elusive Mathematician.

This is both close to us, making it possible to grasp it, with its technologies that we can understand (tablets and phones, albeit somewhat obsolete for the wealthier characters), and at the same time deeply alien and full of mysteries (what would it be like to live with a perfect, artificial memory you can access just whenever, yet that may send you into seizure and kill you?).

‘Void Star’ reads well, although for some reason I felt like taking my sweet time with it, perhaps because unconsciously I didn’t want to finish it too fast? It may sometimes be a wee difficult to follow, since it doesn’t rely on detailed explanations, instead taking its readers through its characters’ travels; I quite liked that, though—I like that in general in SF/F, even though I know I can’t read such stories when I’m too tired, for fear of losing my pace and missing important hints. While some events appeared, as a result, a little confusing, in the end I could still piece everything together. The three main narratives are well interwoven—chapter Y actually holds the missing answers to what happened in chapter X, and so on—and even when I didn’t have all the information to understand their world in the beginning, it wasn’t much of a problem.

Conclusion: Not the easiest read around, due to its (beautiful but sometimes complex) descriptive language and concepts; however, if one is ready to tackle that, this book can be positively fascinating.

Yzabel / April 26, 2016

Review: Illuminae

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman

My rating: [rating=5]

Blurb:

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

Review:

4.5 stars. I had to wait for 4 months to finally be able to borrow it from the library (10 people ahead of me, bah), and I admit I was worried about the whole epistolary/chats/format thing, because it’s too easy to just slap “witty” formatting on pages and call that a good book. Fortunately, the story and characters really hooked me–yes, even though the “chat-speak” on some pages would normally quickly have annoyed me in other circumstances.

There was romance, but not of the stupid kind that casts a shadow on the whole plot. While Ezra and Kady do think about each other, after their world was turned upside down and forced them to reconsider the importance of a breakup for what I shall call “puny teenager reasons”, they didn’t spend their time mooning, groping each other, and sending the rest of their crews to hell just because feeeeeeelings. Contrary to what happens too often in many YA novels (you know, “the world is ending but we’re still too busy pondering who we want to go out with”). It wasn’t the best romance ever, but at least it was far from being the worst I read.

The format: fun to read, although I tended to prefer some aspects over others (the “chatspeak” conversations, for instance, weren’t my favourites). I think this was because of the whole “report” side of it, which made for a strange dichotomy in the narrative: both very factual (“here are recordings from camera X”) and unreliable (how were those recordings recovered and put back together?).

The characters: so I’ll be honest, Ezra and Kady were “good” to read about but not really more. Ezra enlisted to help, not knowing much to what he was signing up for, yet aware someone should help, and gradually revealing a few things about his family that were hard to suspect at first. I didn’t care for Kady much at first, because of her sullen, do-not-want-to-do-that attitude; however, she redeemed herself later, and anyway was more of an action girl with a bit of romance on the side than the usual (and annoying) lovestruck heroine who lets The Boy do all the work.

Yet as far as I’m concerned, the one character I really, really loved reading about was AIDAN. It’s crazy and damaged and desperately trying to latch upon what’s left of its programming, pushing its core directives in directions that may or may not be completely at odds with what the crews of the three spaceships would like (or need). And in doing so, in being so, it was all so human, spiralling towards both destruction and a new awareness.

And, frankly, I just loved that AI. It added at least a full star to my rating. No kidding. And just for AIDAN, I’d read it again. (Also for the unreliable parts I mentioned above, and the way they tie together, and you’d better pay attention to a few tiny details here and there.)

Yzabel / February 26, 2016

Review: The Imitation Game

The Imitation Game: Alan Turing Decoded by Jim Ottaviani

My rating: [usr 4]

Blurb:

English mathematician and scientist Alan Turing (1912–1954) is credited with many of the foundational principles of contemporary computer science. The Imitation Game presents a historically accurate graphic novel biography of Turing’s life, including his groundbreaking work on the fundamentals of cryptography and artificial intelligence. His code breaking efforts led to the cracking of the German Enigma during World War II, work that saved countless lives and accelerated the Allied defeat of the Nazis. While Turing’s achievements remain relevant decades after his death, the story of his life in post-war Europe continues to fascinate audiences today.

Award-winning duo Jim Ottaviani (the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Feynman and Primates) and artist Leland Purvis (an Eisner and Ignatz Award nominee and occasional reviewer for the Comics Journal) present a factually detailed account of Turing’s life and groundbreaking research—as an unconventional genius who was arrested, tried, convicted, and punished for his openly gay lifestyle, and whose innovative work still fuels the computing and communication systems that define our modern world. Computer science buffs, comics fans, and history aficionados will be captivated by this riveting and tragic story of one of the 20th century’s most unsung heroes.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A good general biography of Alan Turing. Not going into many details, as this wouldn’t be really convenient in graphic novel form anyway, but comprehensive enough to encompass the most important aspects of his work.

Sometimes this comics reminded me of “Breaking the Code”—I guess that was because of the different narrators, and possibly also the interrogator’s questions hinting at Turing’s homosexuality, although the focus was less on that here than it was in the play. Interestingly, those “hints” were most often dismissed by the people telling about Turing’s life: his mother (apparently naively) understanding this was about girls, Clarke and others basically shrugging it off (“he wasn’t the only one, and we didn’t care anyway because we were in Bletchley Park to work, not to worry about such things”), a colleague wondering why the hell Alan even broached the subject yet being his friend and working with him pretty fine all the same, etc. This aspect of Turing’s life is always difficult to deal with, IMHO: it shouldn’t matter so much, what matters is hius work, but since it was illegal in the UK at the time, it’s just not something one could overlook, as it impacted his life nonetheless.

Noteworthy is also how his work in Bletchley Park had to be downplayed, and how it had been the same for all the cryptanalystes, scientists, “wrens” and other people involved. Since it was classified information, none were allowed to tell, even after World War II was over, what kind of work exactly they had done. Some were finally allowed to reveal it decades later, after the classified bit was lifted, while others died without never having opened their mouths about it. I felt this was important, as Turing may have been more respected by his peers if he had been able to list his achievements in that regard (and the trial seems to reflect that, with those against him looking at him in belittling ways, as if he had just done “some work” and not been part of something bigger, something much more important—as if all that defined him was that “gross misconduct with another man”, and the rest wasn’t worth being mentioned).

The format is a bit strange, in that, as mentioned above, the story follows Alan’s voice as well as that of another person (his mother, his friends…) and an interrogator. It is disconcerting at first, however the use of different colours (Alan’s voice in yellow, his mother’s in pink, for instance) allows to differenciate between them. Obviously enough, this format follows that of the Imitation Game itself, where a man A has to convince an interrogator that he’s not a man, while a woman B has to convince the same interrogator A is lying and she’s telling the truth. (I say obviously, because I just can’t see how such a narrative set of voices would’ve been chosen at random.)

The drawing style, unfortunatey, didn’t do much for me, and often detracted from what the book was showing, and from some of the ways it went about exploring what may have been Turing’s thoughts: wandering in his own mind, following a trail of paper leading to other great minds like Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, all the while with Turing’s colleagues and friends trying to follow him, follow the trail, but clearly never managing to really catch up… I found it to be an interesting representation of what may otherwise have been tedious. (There’s some science in there, too, and it can easily become confusing to someone who’s not overly familiat with concepts behind Turing’s works.)

Drawing style not withstanding, this was a pretty interesting book, and a good introduction to Turing’s life. There are plenty of references at the end for those who’d like to read more (including Hodges’s “Alan Turing: The Enigma”). 4/5 stars.

Yzabel / July 29, 2015

Review: Collected Fiction by Hannu Rajaniemi

Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction by Hannu Rajaniemi

My rating: [rating=5]

Blurb:

Inside the firewall the city is alive. Buildings breathe, cars attack, angels patrol, and hyper-intelligent pets rebel.

With unbridled invention and breakneck adventure, Hannu Rajaniemi is on the cutting-edge of science fiction. His post-apocalyptic, post-cyberpunk, and post-human tales are full of exhilarating energy and unpredictable optimism.

How will human nature react when the only limit to desire is creativity? When the distinction between humans and gods is as small as nanomachines—or as large as the universe? Whether the next big step in technology is 3D printing, genetic alteration, or unlimited space travel, Rajaniemi writes about what happens after.

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A few months ago, I read Hannu Rajaniemi’s first two installments of “The Quantum Thief”: not so easy to follow novels, but unique in their own right, because of their fascinating blend of science and, dare I say, poetry.

These short stories are a little easier to follow, while retaining this quality, as well as first sentences that almost always manage to pique my interest, combining as they do totally different elements. Typical example: “Before the concert, we steal the master’s head.” We often hear or read that first sentences and first pages are important to grab a reader’s attention, and I think this author manages to do that very well here.

Most of those stories kept me enthralled, although not always for the same reasons. Some of them were clearly set in a distant enough future that men had become digital gods, or launched starships meant to drop servers into spaces just like one would plant seends, aiming to create a network spanning entire galaxies. Other stories felt closer to contemporary times, while toying with Finnish myths and legends (Tuoni…). Not to mention the inclusion of Edinburgh: I very often derive pleasure just from reading about a city I know well and/or live in.

Generally speaking, I would divide these stories into three (somewhat loose) categories:

– The exploring of technology, pushed back to its limits and beyond, and what it means to be a sentient being in such a world. I use the words “beings” here on purpose, since not all protagonists are human: “His Master’s Voice” features two extremely enhanced and intelligent pets, and is narrated by the dog itself. Brilliant.

The same applies to “The Server and the Dragon” (a lone server growing in space, questioning its own purpose), “Deux Ex Homine” (the story of one who briefly embraced a plague turning people into digital deities), “Elegy for a Young Elk”, or “Invisible Planets” (where the protagonist is, in fact, a ship).

“Skywalker of Earth” has its own charm, in between a contemporary alien invasion adventure and a pulp serial—considering the people who initiated the conflict in it, and when they did it (1930s pseudo-science). I also really liked the idea of going open source in order to pool all resources available and fight back.

Certainly closer to our own time period, “Topsight” deals with what’s left of people in the digital world after their death, while “The Jugaad Cathedral” explores the meaning of living in a digital world, most specifically a MMORPG, vs. embracing the “real” world, and blurs boundaries between both.

The one I didnt like so much was “Shibuya no Love”, because its portrayal of Japan and its inhabitants felt too close to caricature. It was probably on purpose, but it didn’t work for me.

– The mythical-tinged stories: “Fisher of Men” (includes Iku-Turso), “The Viper Blanket” (with its bizarre family following ancient rites), “The Oldest Game”…

– The others: “Paris, In Love”, “Ghost Dogs”, or “Satan’s Typist”. The first one was close to urban fantasy, in that the City in it really took on a life of its own. The other two are more the horror-infused type—the ghost dogs especially echoed Gaiman’s wolves in the wall for me.

Definitely a unique collection, one that I will recommend without fear of the science thrown in: maybe the concepts will be lost on some (I won’t pretend I understood absolutely everything either), but it doesn’t really matter. Context, feelings and ideas largely make up for it, allowing to mentally draw a bigger picture in every case.

Yzabel / January 20, 2015

Review: The Silence of Six

The Silence of Six by E.C. Myers

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

“What is the silence of six, and what are you going to do about it?”

These are the last words uttered by 17-year-old Max Stein’s best friend, Evan: Just moments after hacking into the live-streaming Presidential debate at their high school, he kills himself.

Haunted by the image of Evan’s death, Max’s entire world turns upside down as he suddenly finds himself the target of a corporate-government witch-hunt. Fearing for his life and fighting to prove his own innocence, Max goes on the run with no one to trust and too many unanswered questions.

Max must dust off his own hacking skills and maneuver the dangerous labyrinth of underground hacktivist networks, ever-shifting alliances, and virtual identities — all while hoping to find the truth behind the “Silence of Six” before it’s too late.

Review:

(I got an ARC through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

3.5 stars, because the book wasn’t without faults. In fact, I’d probably give it 4 stars in other circumstances—that is, if I didn’t know a lot to the online world, computers in general, and hackers. Some parts I found to be too “didactic”, which would be good for a reader with a less technological background, yet tended to become annoying after a while (I really don’t need to be taught what a DDoS attack is). However, this is a “it’s not you, it’s me” kind of fault, and I don’t doubt it’s precisely what would help another person enjoy the story more.

The events in the last third of the book also seemed to move just a tad bit too fast, making things somewhat confusing. I guess I would have liked to see more hide and seek there? Or a different approach? It’s actually hard to tell. I just know that I went “huh?” in a couple of places.

I liked the main characters, the ways they went through to meeting, and how they generally thought of clever little tricks to avoid being noticed (how to trick facial recognition software, etc.). Perhaps their relationship was a little forced, but it didn’t matter that much within the flow of the story.

The reflections the book leads to when it comes to social media and their impact on our lives, were interesting as well. So many people use their real names on such media, handing out very specific information, without realising that it could be exploited. Reminding this to younger readers (middle-schoolers, the “YA crowd”…) is certainly not a bad idea at all. Anyway, the use of social media, through the giant “Panjea”, was both a reminder and a wink, and I appreciate that kind of things.

Overall, it was a light, fast-paced read that could be quite enjoyable for a lot of readers. Had I been “younger” (less experienced, with less computer/online knowledge than I have now), I’d probably have given it 4 stars.

Yzabel / April 11, 2014

Review: With Zombies (Assured Destruction 3)

With Zombies by Michael F. Stewart

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

The final book in the Assured Destruction series!

Jan Rose may already be expunged from the police department’s High Tech Crime Unit. Her mother’s hospitalized, and Assured Destruction’s on the cusp of bankruptcy. But Jan doesn’t wait on anything, she seeks out the customers who used to keep the family business afloat. That’s when everything starts to go wrong.

A computer virus–aka the Zombie Worm–threatens not only her school and Shadownet, but the entire city. A skull with a chain running through its socket links a powerful gang to her former customers, and holds the secrets to why her father left and the identity of her mother’s boyfriend.

To save her family and the business, Jan must determine who is friend and who is foe. And decide what type of hacker she wishes to become: Gray, white, or black. Not only her life hangs in the balance.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

This third installment in the “Assured Destruction” series was a little different from the previous ones, in that it didn’t follow their format; on the other hand, it tied a lot of things together, and I’d definitely advise reading all books close to each other, otherwise you may miss a few relevant details. In any case, I appreciated the care put into giving answers to several questions (what happened to Jan’s father, who’s actually Peter)… as well as to others I hadn’t envisioned at first.

I enjoyed the trilogy as a whole, and I enjoyed this last novel, too. Once again, it managed to deal with technical and computer-related aspects in such a way that even a layman would easily understand what was going on. I know “techno-babble” can rebuke people, but here, even if internet and networks aren’t their forte, as a reader, they won’t be lost. Jan’s uses of her favourite tools are always explained in a short, efficient manner. Don’t know what a DDoS attack is? Now you’ll know.

I admit I was slightly tempted to call a “too stupid to live” on Janus a couple of times, because some of her decisions were rash and not that well-informed. I would’ve done it if she had been any other teen, with a regular family life and not that many struggles. However, it was also clear that she was at the end of her rope, what with her mother being sicker, having to find more customers, juggling work and school with the spectre of failing her semester looming close, trying to find her father, trying to find money to pay for the mortgage, wondering about Peter’s motives, not to mention the Zombie virus and the problems she got because of that… Since people in general aren’t known for making the best decisions in such cases, her overall attitude was easily explained. (There was a specific turning point in the story, where her behaviour made me frown and wonder if maybe something fishy was going on; that, too, was explained later. Actually, it’s a wonder it didn’t happen sooner.)

Jan’s friends were also wonderful, for sticking with her, devising the Kickstarter[Kickstarter (hide spoiler)] plan, and helping her the way they did at the end. Her being struggling so much, she probably wasn’t there for them as much as one would expect—but everytime I thought that, I also found myself thinking, “Well, would I be a good friend if I had to tread in her shoes? Not so sure.” (I guess this is one of the reasons why I like this character. In a lot of ways, she reminded me of who I am, with all my shortcomings, and this prompted me to question a few things as well.) Janus can be a really good friend, too—e.g. what she did for Hannah in book 2—but there’s also so much you can do for others when you’re overwhelmed. Can she be blamed for sometimes being oblivious? Perhaps, perhaps not.

One thing wasn’t too clear for me, though, and that was Shadownet’s role, especially at the end. Considering who the “villain” was, and that said “villain” would’ve known about it by now, I was a little surprised the Twitter accounts weren’t monitored at the end, when all hell was breaking lose at the mansion, and it was clear Janus might have had a hand in that. Or is this my paranoid self talking? Because monitoring it would definitely have been on my list.

To conclude on this review (and this trilogy): really enjoyable—and, for once, with a female protagonist who is quite tech-savvy and doesn’t spend her time pining after boys. (Did I say we share a few common points? Yes? Thought so.)

Yzabel / April 3, 2014

Review: Script Kiddie

Script Kiddie by Michael F. Stewart

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Jan Rose no longer steals data from the old computers she recycles. She doesn’t need to. As the newest member of the police department’s High Tech Crime Unit, the laptop of a murderer has landed on her desk. Her job: to profile and expose a killer.

But that’s not all.

A creep lurks in the shadows, stalking a friend, and Jan must stop him before the hunt turns deadly. The clock counts down for Jan to save her friend, her job, her boyfriend–maybe even her life.

Review:

[I was sent a copy by the author, as part of my being approved by NetGalley to review book #3, in exchange for an honest opinion. While there was no condition involving writing a review for this one, I still decided to do it.]

I read Assured Destruction in 2013, and really liked it, though much to my shame, I failed to keep track of when the next installments were published. This second volume I found just as enjoyable as the first one, mainly for similar reasons. With each chapter, I wanted to know what was coming next.

After her stint in book 1, Jan, the main character, is still in dire straits, having to balance school, the store, her mother’s illness, Peter’s arrival in their lives, her new relationship with Jonny, and the many hours of community service she owes to the police. Sure, she can stil somewhat rely on Shadownet to vent out, but mostly she’s now confronted to more than she can chew, and frustration’s building up.

Characters & plot:

I like Jan. As a character, she has a lot of potential, some of which she lives up to, and some that still leaves room for improvement. She’s far from perfect; she commits mistakes; sometimes she’s too proud for her own good and doesn’t realise what she’s getting herself into until it’s too late. I guess her fatal flaw would be hubris, combined to her problems to cope with the more social aspects of life. She fancies herself a hacker, but is soon brought back to reality. She imagines her community service as an open door to be acknowledged as part of the police, but of course reality is harsher, and soon she’s reminded she’s still just a kid in many ways (don’t expect cop drama here, and a teenager being propelled as star of the detective show—which wouldn’t be too believable anyway). Her eagerness and overconfidence when it comes to computers/networks land her in trouble.

However, she also tries to fix things and help. When she’s humbled by people who know more than her (and who knows everything at 16!), she accepts her shortcomings and strive to get better. She also shows a lot of courage, involving herself in person—not because she’s too stupid to live (although her mistakes could get her killed), but because she genuinely wants to save other people, while knowing that waiting isn’t an option.

I also appreciated how her relationship with Jonny was portrayed, because it’s light on the romance part. The events of the book unfold on roughly one week, and Jan is very busy… so busy that she can’t keep up with having a boyfriend and doing “what it takes” to keep him. Now, considering what happens, I found this understandable. She’s worried about her role regarding the police, about missing school, about being wrongly accused of hacking, about her mother whose health isn’t great… I can understand that. I can understand a person being unable to keep up, and I think I would have held it against Jan if she had put everything to the back of her mind to be with Jonny all the time and play lovey-dovey, the way it happens too often. I can’t say she always knows how to keep her priorities straight (the carding case is a good example), but that part fits with her personality.

Last but not least, what’s going on with Peter is intriguing. On the one hand, I can understand Jan’s wariness when it comes to this man: he’s new in their lives, and with all the problems the store is facing, of course Jan is going to think he’s up to something. Overall, he’s sweet, caring, understanding, he tries to help her, as if he was doing his best to get her to accept him… Too good to be true? Perhaps he’s just that: a man who loves her mother and wants to earn his place in the daughter’s life as well (fast, considering how bad Tina’s health is). Or perhaps he’s something else. Or more than simply that.

The tech:

I already liked the computer/tech aspect in the previous book, and I still like it here. What happens in Script Kiddy is actually good lessons for teenagers (and for anyone not internet-savvy, for that matter), but not presented as such. They’re integrated within the flow of the story, while dealing with real problems: phishing, how wireless devices can be a downfall, internet predators, and so on.

The way procedures and technology in general are described is also easy to understand. Well, it’s easy for me, as I know enough (though I’m certainly not a specialist), but I think anyone would understand what’s going on. Some things made me frown at first, and think “why is this explained?”; but not everyone knows what IRC is, after all.

Problem?:

A few things bothered me; not enough to prevent me from enjoying the story, but I still feel I should mention them. The murderer’s laptop was one of them: would the police really hand evidence to Jan, let her take it out of the precinct? This I found unbelievable (and considering what happens with it next, it should’ve tipped her off). Also, at times Jan felt just a tad bit immature when it came to the problems in her life, mainly her mother. On the other hand, I can also envision her as the kind of girl who would cope by shutting off and/or focusing on different things for a while, so I’m not completely sure I can chalk that to sheer immaturity, or to the kind of slightly neurotic persona she seems to be developing. There’s just so much going on that at some point, the girl’s doomed to break.

Those put aside, this second novel in the series was really a page-turner, and a good read for me.

Yzabel / September 5, 2013

Review: The Mother Of All Viruses

The Mother of All Viruses by John Kovacich

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

“Let the record reflect that this deposition commenced at 9:15 am on December the 3rd, 2004 at the FBI offices in Atlanta, Georgia. Present for this recording are Special Agent Alvin Dirk, the Honorable Judge Ramiro Vasquez, and the witness, Robert O. Blain. This deposition is merely a recording of the events which transpired at Norwood University and is not now nor ever will be part of any trial or prosecution. Go ahead.”

“My name is Bobby Blain. Most people seem to think it all started when Dr. Jennings hired me, and all the computers started getting hacked. It was easy for people to think that, because I have a history and got myself in some trouble when I was younger. I hacked some computers and almost got the president impeached, but it really started before that, when I still worked for Dr. Karlyn.”

“Dr. Karlyn gave me a chance to redeem myself by allowing me to work on his computer for him. Then one day, this scientist I had never seen before comes and gives Dr. Karlyn a device. I was never told what he wanted, but I think he wanted Dr. Karlyn to help him reverse engineer it. I was only asked to build an interface to attach it to the computer. Dr. Karlyn did the rest. I think he figured out how to turn it on, but when he did, strange things started to happen.”

“We didn’t know it then, but it turns out the device was stolen from a government facility. I don’t know where they got it, that is more classified than this deposition. I can tell you with absolute certainty that they didn’t make it themselves. I’d like to tell you more, but I don’t think I’m allowed.”

“Anyway, someone at the university needed to get Dr. Karlyn out of the way and falsely accused him of inappropriate conduct with a student. He could have fought it, the dean believed him, but he decides to leave the school anyway. Before he goes, he gives his computer to Professor Jennings and he gives me a letter of recommendation, so after I help deliver and setup the computer, she agrees to hire me.”

“The first night it is up and running, at least two attempts are made to hack into the computer. I forgot to mention that even before I deliver the computer, this guy tries to break in and steal something from it, but I was there and he didn’t get anything.”

“I can’t divulge any secrets about Professor Jennings’ project here, but my part is to prove that her process would work if she were given enough computer resources, so I re-write her process to work across a network and run on thousands of computers.”

“That’s when things got really crazy. Someone keeps trying to hack into our computer; someone hacks the entire school and the phone company. Professor Jennings’ secretary is kidnapped. The FBI gets involved, but they’re chasing the wrong people for reasons only they can tell you.”

“Then someone plants a virus on our computer and the next thing we know, it’s spread all over the internet, including some very sensitive government computers. Meanwhile, our project continues to gain speed and surpass anyone’s expectations.”

“When the FBI come in and learn that the device that was given to Dr. Karlyn is actually some super cool futuristic computer that is able to grow and build more circuits for itself, they want to disconnect the computer and confiscate it.”

“That’s when computers all over the world go out of control. The pentagon and all the armed forces are helpless. Air traffic is grounded. All the computer problems are traced back to the professor’s computer. The FBI want it dismantled more than ever, but the academics involved want to get the device to relinquish control over the world before they do.”

“And, well, I guess that’s all I’m allowed to say, thank you.”

Review:

(Book provided by the author through ReadIt & Reap 177 in the Shut Up & Read group, in exchange for an honest review.)

A fairly interesting read—perhaps a little heavy on the technical terms and descriptions? I managed to follow, but someone who’s less computer-savvy and not into quantum physics may actually have a hard time putting everything together. I guess this might count as both a good or a bad point, depending on who’s concerned.

The characters weren’t the most developed ever, but they “worked” in their roles in the story, although I admit I wasn’t really thrilled about Dierdre in the beginning (she seemed too laid back about her project, leaving things to chance).

The story goes through a lot of twists, making the reader unsure about what exactly is going to happen, and as such, it’s quite the page-turner. If there’s one thing I’d find fault with, it’d be its pace, which I found uneven—I had expected the whole end-of-the-world aspect to appear sooner, and this may account for my opinion here.

As for the writing, mostly it was good, but I think it would need some editing in places (I spotted some typos), mostly in terms of tense shifts; there were enough occurrences of present tense suddenly thrown in the middle of the narrative (in past tense) for me to be a little annoyed after a while. Alas, I’m not the kind of reader that manages to ignore this aspect.

Regardless, I had a good time reading this book.