HALO

Free-lance data-auditor Gonzales is given a contract by the Sentrax Corporation to monitor goings-on aboard Halo, an orbiting colony controlled by an artificial intelligence named Aleph. Seems that badly injured Jerry Chapman will dies unless Aleph can preserve his mentality inside its own computer reality. Assisting Aleph and Gonzales are computer reality interface expert Diana Heywood and Halo's Interface Collective, an association of talented weirdos. Gonzales's Sentrax boss, Traynor, opposes the project and pulls the plug just as Aleph, Gonzales, Diana, Jerry, and the Collective are hooked together. Aleph, annoyed, retaliates by switching off the functions that sustain human life aboard Halo; thus Traynor and Sentrax are forced to back down. Neither ambitious nor original—in fact, mediocre in every respect. Maddox may have talent, but on this showing it's impossible to tell.