Periodically intriguing but ultimately frustrating science fiction.
A science-fiction tale dealing with artificial intelligence attempts to cross itself with a political thriller dealing with state-sponsored torture.
In the year 2025, young scientist Luper Beauchamps has just secured a dream job with Silicon Valley powerhouse Wes Lane Inc. testing cutting-edge biological computers known as “neurospheres.” The problem-solving skills and scientific acumen of Luper and his team soon result in dramatic improvements to the neurospheres, much to the delight of their ambitious boss, Quade Barras. However, their success also creates difficulties–as the biological computers grow smarter, they inch closer to achieving a state of true, humanlike self-awareness, thereby making them subject to a complicated web of rules and regulations designed to ensure the ethical treatment of A.I. entities. Computer ethics expert Broc Fulton guides Luper and his colleagues through this ethical minefield, and their conversations constitute an occasionally thought-provoking foray into a conversation begun by Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics and continued by many science-fiction writers since. Unfortunately, Rydon chose to bury this subplot under a plodding, poorly executed political thriller. In that plot, Luper and his friends increasingly suspect a connection between their ethically challenged boss Quade, the experimental new neurospheres and the military base and “Central Asian Embassy” adjacent to the facilities of Wes Lane. This storyline fails to thrill for several reasons: the novel is slowed to a crawl by dull descriptions of Luper’s laboratory work; the characters are one-dimensional; the wooden dialogue makes the characters all sound like one another; and the protagonists are prone to volunteering anomalous anti-American remarks, such as Luper’s comment, “I’m glad I’m not American…I’d hate to be born so stupid.” The attempts to describe how mankind will grapple with the ethics of emerging artificial intelligence are this novel’s strongest moments.
Periodically intriguing but ultimately frustrating science fiction.Pub Date: July 15, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4092-1296-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
