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The Prince and the Program

Book Review of The Prince and the Program (The Mordred Saga #1), by Aldous Mercer

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The Prince and the Program

I bought a copy of Aldous Mercer‘s The Prince and the Program.

Description from Goodreads:
Mordred Pendragon, the Bastard Prince, has done a Bad Thing—again. Exiled to Canada for seven years, he has to find a job to pay his bills. For reasons he refuses to reveal, Mordred decides “Software Engineer” has a nice ring to it. And though experience with “killing the Once and Future King, my father” and “that time in feudal Japan” makes for a poor resume, he is hired by a small tech startup in Toronto.

In the midst of dealing with a crippling caffeine addiction and learning C++, Mordred thinks he has finally found someone to anchor him to the world of the living: Alan, the company’s offsite lead developer. Except that Alan might not be a “living” entity at all—he may, in fact, be the world’s first strong AI. Or a demon that mistook a Windows install for the highway to Hell. Or, just maybe, the ghost of Alan Turing, currently inhabiting a laptop.

Mordred’s attempts to figure out his love life are hampered by constant interference from the Inquisitors of the Securitates Arcanarum, corporate espionage, real espionage, a sysadmin bent on enslaving the world, and Marketing’s demands that Mordred ship software to the Russian Federation. Then Alan gets himself kidnapped. To save him, Mordred must ally himself with the company’s CEO, who will stop at nothing to rescue her lead developer so he can get back to work. But the Prince doesn’t just want to rescue Alan, he wants a Happily Ever After—and he will travel beyond Death itself to get one.

Too bad Alan is perfectly happy as a computer.

Review:
I studied the softer sciences. I’ll admit that. But, among other things, I’ve read Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! and The Quark and the Jaguar. I had classes in the Alan Turing Building at The University of Manchester, which also hosts a yearly Cryptography Competition in the mathematician’s name. I married and share passions with a man who earned a physics degree from Imperial College, London and have a 1200 page copy of Misner, Thorne & Wheeler‘s Gravitation on my coffee table RIGHT NOW, as his light summer reading.

Heck, my own father got a physics degree on a NASA fellowship late in life (i.e. when I was old enough to discuss it with him). The man was giddy as a kid at Christmas whenever you got him on the topic of neutron physics at UTSI. We had a salvaged Georgia Tech laser in our basement for Christ’s sake. So, even though I studied Humanities, I’m no stranger to the basics of harder sciences. I’m not about to be running out and solving any formulas, but I’ve always kind of been surrounded by them.

I’ve also read most of the geektastic fair—all the LOTRs, all the Douglas Adamses, most the Pratchets, Asimovs, Gibsons and so on. I’ve even spent plenty of time with the Arthurian legends. I consider making it through The Mists of Avalon a crowning achievement. Despite all of this, I WAS NOT GEEKY OR MATHEMATICALLY INCLINED ENOUGH FOR THIS BOOK.

It is really, really funny and I got the humour, 100%. I may not have caught every joke, but I got a lot of them. I laughed a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the characters. But even as familiar as I was with things like Turing Tests, statistical game play, or open office (both Capitalised and not) torture methods, there was just always a vague hovering sensation that something was going over my head and I did not like that. I mean the book has Easter Eggs for God’s sake.

As much fun as I had with this book, I also spent a lot of it not entirely sure what exactly was happening. I found a fairly repetitive pattern of laugh, get lost, catch up, laugh, get lost, catch up, etc that left me vacillating between almost euphoric happiness and scrunched brow consternation. (Especially toward the end, when space/time I’m fairly sure folded or looped in some fashion.) So, in the end I found it a fairly so-so read. It has been suggested to me that perhaps there were a few symmetries missing in the Reimann tensor. *Shrug* maybe

It was however well written and fairly well edited. I’d still happily recommend it.

BTW, there’s an awesome review of this book over on AnnaLund2011, that’ s worth a read. It’s pretty much the review I wish I could have written.

Acrobat

Book Review of Acrobat, by Mary Calmes

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Acrobat

I borrowed a copy of Mary Calmes‘ M/M novel, Acrobat. (Thanks, C.)

Description from Goodreads:
Forty-five-year-old English professor Nathan Qells is very good at making people feel important. What he’s not very good at is sticking around afterward. He’s a nice guy; he just doesn’t feel things the way other people do. So even after all the time he’s spent taking care of Michael, the kid across the hall, he doesn’t realize that Michael’s mob muscle uncle and guardian, Andreo Fiore, has slowly been falling in love with him.

Dreo has bigger problems than getting Nate to see him as a potential partner. He’s raising his nephew, trying to leave his unsavory job, and starting his own business, a process made infinitely more difficult when a series of hits takes out some key underworld players. Still, Dreo is determined to build a life he can be proud of—a life with Nate as a cornerstone. A life that is starting to look like exactly what Nate has been looking for. Unfortunately for Dreo—and for Nate—the last hits were just part of a major reorganization, and Dreo’s obvious love for Nate has made him a target too.

Review:
I’m rating this fairly highly, maybe even higher than it deserves, simply because I enjoyed it. Yes, all the Italian got on my nerves. ‘Cause, you know, I don’t speak Italian. And Nate was far, far, far too perfect a Marty Sue to be believable. Honestly, he was almost too perfect to even like (though EVERYONE seemed to). Plus, all the side characters were larger than life and therefore also irritatingly shiny. Oh, and the random BDSM references were out of left field and didn’t really further the plot any. Oh, oh and I wanted to gag for the last quarter of the book, because it was all just soooo sappy as it drug itself around to make sure EVERYONE got their schmaltzy happy ending.

So, yeah, I have complaints. But Dreo makes up for almost all of that. So does the fact that the book is a bit of a slow burn. (Though once things get started the relationship never slows down and everything suddenly feels rushed, rushed, rushed.) So, this book is one of those odd combinations where a lot of individual aspects of it annoy me and would usually put me off, but I still somehow ended it surprisingly satisfied. I guess sometimes there really is no accounting for taste…even to yourself.

Dark Space

Book Review of Dark Space, by Lisa Henry

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Dark SpaceI borrowed an ecopy of Lisa Henry‘s Dark Space. (Thanks A.)

Description from Goodreads:
Brady Garrett needs to go home. He’s a conscripted recruit on Defender Three, one of a network of stations designed to protect the Earth from alien attack. He’s also angry, homesick, and afraid. If he doesn’t get home he’ll lose his family, but there’s no way back except in a body bag.

Cameron Rushton needs a heartbeat. Four years ago Cam was taken by the Faceless — the alien race that almost destroyed Earth. Now he’s back, and when the doctors make a mess of getting him out of stasis, Brady becomes his temporary human pacemaker. Except they’re sharing more than a heartbeat: they’re sharing thoughts, memories, and some very vivid dreams.

Not that Brady’s got time to worry about his growing attraction to another guy, especially the one guy in the universe who can read his mind. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just biochemistry and electrical impulses. It doesn’t change the truth: Brady’s alone in the universe.

Now the Faceless are coming and there’s nothing anyone can do. You can’t stop your nightmares. Cam says everyone will live, but Cam’s probably a traitor and a liar like the military thinks. But that’s okay. Guys like Brady don’t expect happy endings.

Review:
I quite enjoyed a lot of this book. Lisa Henry can seriously write. I’ve not read a lot by her, but everything I have has been excellently penned. This is no exception. It’s also touching and a little thought provoking.

Brady and Cameron were a wonderful pair. I enjoyed Cameron’s quietly apologetic nature and Brady’s outwardly calm terror. In a lot of ways, their personalities and behaviours, given their circumstances, were believable. Though I might have expected a little more dissonance in Cameron’s attempt to return to humanity and I was vaguely uncomfortable with Brady’s almost obsessive need to accept a title before he could accept his feelings (especially since, in terms of M/M tropes, it felt a lot more like GFY than anything else).

I was also a little confused about how sex with an alien could enable communication. I accepted it as part of the fiction that kept the plot rolling, but it also felt a little like an obvious artifice to enable Henry to take the story where she wanted it to go. In other words: a convenient (if not uncommon) plot device, rather than any natural growth of the story. And I disliked having to read the first person rape.

I was also a bit disgusted with the shiny happy ending. It too felt forced and unnatural, given how dark everything had been to that point. For the most part, however, despite my few quibbles, I ended the book more happy than not.