It is 2023. The staphylococcus plague of 2006 has killed 40 million people; the crash of '07 has wrecked the economy; and the 2018 assassination of President Emily Forrester has traumatized the US. Dr Gideon Wolfe, professor of criminal psychology, discovers that all information can be manipulated.
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It is 2023. The staphylococcus plague of 2006 has killed 40 million people; the crash of '07 has wrecked the economy; and the 2018 assassination of President Emily Forrester has traumatized the US. Dr Gideon Wolfe, professor of criminal psychology, discovers that all information can be manipulated.
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I read this book about 2 weeks ago and can hardly remember what it was about. Which is weird since I must have liked the book enough to read it in bed before going to sleep (something I seldom do unless I'm caught in the story). I know he wrote this not real recently so a lot of the computer manipulation part is kind of moot--most people know these days that anything can be manipulated. Someone else's head can be "photoshopped" onto someone other body. People these days know to be a bit skeptical about things. Except, oddly, they tend to believe movies--ok, lots of people who don't otherwise read or research facts will simply believe everything in a movie (e.g., Oliver Stone's JFK). There were more "typos" in this book then in his other books. But it was nice to see Carr letting his creativity go to other places. Probably if the series had gone forward, he could have developed things far better then they were, because Carr is a really good writer. I'm kind of glad he hasn't relegated himself to just historical murder mysteries. Hope he continues to explore his possibilities.
pamela1717
Aug 13, 2007
A good concept but fell short.
I really liked the premise of this book. It was based on a thought provoking question: has the information age and technology become the major downfalls of our civilization? Can we use those same technology and information abilities to show man kind how we have been decieved? Although the author's story revolved around these "information terrorists" and their escapades I kept wondering, "Where was the editor?" and I wondered why he portrayed the main character, Gideon, as decisionally incompetent when the author seemed to think he was the common sense strain of the story. I don't feel the story was very thought out. The book was originally intended as a serial story in a publication and possibly that is why it seemed very jumbled with too much information crammed into a tiny space. I read as far as 75 pages from the end. My fellow book club members did not care for it either and they all stated it seemed the author ended the book with a "it's time to end it, what is a quick way I can do it?" manner.
