ClichÇd, melodramatic, and thuddingly plotted—but, still, this novel by a Grand Old Man of sf and the world's leading expert on artificial intelligence contains some of the best extrapolation on the nature and creation of AI ever offered in fiction. In 2023, Brian Delaney, under contract to Megalobe, has just achieved a breakthrough in AI when someone engineers the theft of his research and murders all involved. Brian alone survives, but a bullet has destroyed much of his brain. Using Brian's own research, neurosurgeon Erin Snaresbrook grafts an advanced computer into his brain, reintegrating neural pathways, allowing access to memories to the age of 14. Brian learns to interface with the CPU, and downloaded databases become part of his memory. While the army keeps him a virtual prisoner for security and searches for the perps, the new, improved Brian creates a new, improved AI, named Sven. Meanwhile, a criminological AI named Dick Tracy begins to uncover clues to the raid and, once integrated with Sven, sports a new product—a robot gardener—that's programmed with Brian's AI code. Brian finds a clue to his would-be murderer's whereabouts in the programming and engineers his and Sven's escape. Travelling to his native Ireland, Brian then discovers that he can interface directly with Sven. Having found the criminal mastermind, he reveals Sven's existence to the world—and goes back to work a free man. While the authors offer a difficult and realistic resolution- -Brian's machine/mind interface makes him progressively less human- -they also remind us that it's the future with lines like: ``Nostalgia music played quietly in the background, ancient classics by the antique old-timers U2.''
Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1992
ISBN: 0-446-51565-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
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