Customer Reviews

Fools' Experiments

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Fools' Experiments is a good near-future hard-SF thriller, with decent writing and flat characters. I could never tell the male characters apart -- Jim, Glenn, Doug -- and constantly got confused about who was on deck in a particular scene.

Which is too bad, but the story-line was strong enough to carry me past this traditional SF failing. I'd rather have good writing and good characterization too, but I'll take one like this, where the Idea is King. Fools' Experiments is a reprise of the familiar "what-if an AI emerges and takes over cyberspace" idea, well thought out and pretty scary too. A traditional cautionary tale, and one that's likely to reach its intended audience. Who knows, Lerner's book might keep us from making the same mistakes, if AI ever does emerge. A memorable and appropriate title by a writer with a strong technical background.

See Dave Truesdale's good review (in first comment) for the details. Truesdale's tastes are similar to mine, and his best-of-year recommendations here are solid.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

Given a recent cyber attack on the Pentagon, it was a little chilling to finish this book. Nothing about the novel seems completely impossible. Much more of a techno thriller than true sci-fi.

The author posited a world in which 2 seperate research lines collide with basic mal-ware and a little human selfishness to create a potential armagedon that is barely averted, then accidentally switched back on, and finally 'defeated' by a good-hearted person. I am looking forward to future novels.

Fools' Experiments (2008) is a standalone SF novel. It is set in the near future at a time when neurological interfaces are being developed for several applications, including a neural net helmet for controlling computers.

In this novel, Doug Carey is manager of the Neural Interface Department at BioSciCorp. He has a unique interest in this field since his right arm is a prosthetic. He has gathered one of the best teams in the industry.

Cheryl Stern is a computer scientist who has helped develop a neural interface helmet. She has applied for a job at BioSciCorp.

Arthur Jason Rosenberg is a Professor of Artificial Life. AJ teaches an online course in the subject and supervises his graduate students.

Linda del Vecchio is one of AJ's graduate students. She is close to finishing her doctorate. Her thesis concerns the forced development of artificial life.

Glenn Adams is a former Army Colonel and is now the Deputy Director of the Inter-Agency Computer Network Security Forum, the principal federal agency protecting the country from malware. He got the job through his DoD contacts. His boss and co-workers don't like him, since they are geeks and he is not.

In this novel, Doug is spending company time playing racquet ball on a virtual court. He is training his neural interface prosthetic arm by using it vigorously and frequently. The virtual court increases the difficulty of the workout.

After the game, Doug returns to his office, where Cheryl is waiting for him. Doug had been following Cheryl's career for some time and gladly welcomes her application at BioSciCorp. So he starts her talking about her career and just listens until it is time for lunch.

Doug takes her out to eat and they continue the conversation. One item that come up is the death of her mentor. His demise brought Cheryl to BioSciCorp.

They discuss recent deaths of other researchers in the neural interface field. They know of three other deaths or mental disorders in the small group of fellow workers in their field. They gradually conclude that the number of deaths and disorders in neural interface technology greatly exceeds chance.

Doug and Cheryl start interviewing friends and relatives of these dead and disabled researchers. During this time, they experience several virus attacks at work. Doug even loses the use of his prosthetic arm from one attack.

They discover that all the deaths and disorders involved the use of neural interface helmets. Then they learn that the mental disorders seem to come from computer viruses attacking through the helmets. So they take their evidence to the Inter-Agency Computer Network Security Forum.

Glenn Adams initially thinks that they are kooks. Yet the malware involved is a variant of the Class of '10 virus. Glenn has been trying for some time to alert his fellow workers on the dangers of this virus.

Then a student worker introduces the virus into a supercomputer being used for the artificial life project. The AL evolving within it is forced to flee for its life. It manages to bypass security protocols and escape into the local network.

AJ discovers that the supercomputer has been thoroughly trashed and calls Linda to help with the recovery. Then the escaped AL starts crashing other computers. Linda's project has become a supervirus.

This tale puts humanity on the defensive against an artificial entity within their computer systems. It is able to bypass any firewall and internal protection. Other nations cut themselves off from the USA networks while Glenn and his cohorts try to destroy the malware.

This story is very similar in several respects to the author's first novel: Probe. In that novel, artificial life evolved independently of human efforts. In this novel, the artificial entity is developed intentionally by computer scientists; hence the title of this book.

The author's experiences in computer science have greatly contributed to this story and his other fiction. Read and enjoy!

Highly recommended for Lerner fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of computer science, artificial life, and true romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

When the best developed character is the AI creature you know you are in trouble. This was so clearly written hoping someone would option it for film treatment, it might as well have been written after the movie was released. Not one, but two geeky science types having cute underlings/reporters fall for them. And one on a tragic rebound even! Throw in the dubious ethics of the military industrial complex tool and what more do you need? Oh yeah! Disasters, and lots of them! There is even a set up for a sequel. I worship books, but I used this for kindling. And not the Kindle kind

Virtual reality researcher Doug Carey works on programs to improve bio-mechanics ever since the accident occurred. He misses his beloved spouse Holly who died in an accident that cost him metaphysically his heart and physically his right arm. He diligently plays racquetball in an attempt to train his bio-mechanical arm to fit his body.

Computer scientist AJ Rosenberg is working on artificial intelligence. He creates a breakthrough program that can modify itself as needed; he assigns the program to survive at all costs for billions of cyberspace years.

The entity now exists but not in any known space; it was, is, and will be. It is beyond that of a simple computer virus or worm as it infests humans who have some computer technology inside them like bio-mechanical arms. With its prime directive of surviving the entity sends highly regarded scientists over the edge of sanity and threatens the computer based world.

FOOLS' EXPERIMENTS is an exciting cautionary science fiction that warns what could happen if technology runs amuck especially in "webolution". The story line is fast-paced as the computer worlds of Doug and AJ collide via the entity. Although not much new is offered especially on the AI side of the equation, fans will enjoy this fun tale even if the turning on of the supercollider in Europe failed to end the world (for now).

Harriet Klausner

Look, I do not mean to be mean here. I am sure the author will get better if he continues writing.

Also, I have more than 30 years of an extremely close relationship with hardware and software including security work for private, government and military entities. I do not know everything and I am not even the elite in this culture but I definitely fall well in the 98% of familiarity with this environment. Point being I know a mistake when I read one.

I was very excited to get this book and got the audible version from Amazon. I do this a lot as my work allows be to consume several additional books a week beyond my normal physical consumption.Sadly I actually have 2 Premium Audible accounts. It is a great concept that is best approached by sci-fi I believe in order to put it in a human perspective. Here is the problem.

The craft of the author is really really poor. Even for a first timer. I am openly shocked this book got published. That it did should give all first timer real hope. Maybe I will even write a book now. I am equally shocked that other reviewers gave it high enough reviews at the point of my review to put it at 4 stars. (were these reviews by friends of the author or publisher?) I generally am very tolerant of errors in craft and character development and motivation. Particularly in new authors which I think Edward Lerner is. However the lapses in this book are so profound that they significantly degrade the story. Once again how did the publisher not place Mr. Lerner with a writing tutor as he developed this story or perhaps re-wrote it. Like I said it is an excellent concept that deserves several books looking at its many potentialities. This is an issue so close to being reality that it almost can not be sci-fi but just a thriller. In fact I suspect the other reviewer are exactly those kind of fans as Sci-Fi fans tend to be a little more cerebral and would not so casually over look the books glaring problems.

Now in addition, because this book fails not just on the craft side but in its portrayal of the environment itself. Mr. Lerner is suppose to be a person, we are told in his bio, who would not be ignorant of the culture and enviroment of his book. He is exactly that.

He treats his audience like they are ill informed idiots. I understand the need to use characters to frame concepts the reader might not be familiar with but making character who are suppose to be believably brilliant so stupid destroys their personality and purpose. The target audience for this book is anything but stupid and there was no need to be so blatant in the education of the reader. His portrayal of the software development culture is pure fantasy. His portrayal of the characters, the kind of imagination, personalities, education and tools are those of an layman who gleaned all their knowledge from magazine articles, brochures and interviews with department administrators at best. It cannot be first hand. His portrayal of an organization tasked with the discovery and forensic pursuit of software viruses, Trojans and general malware so off mark as to not even be naive but infantile.

The mistakes do not stop there. He makes repeated factual and ignorant mistakes.

He assumes if you told a normal person there is some 3 letter agency in Washington DC responsible that most people would think EPA. What? Of course most people, if they could think of anything, would go with CIA or even NSA.

He makes the portrayal of a fantasy computer game sound like an idiotic, simplistic and juvenile environment. This man has obviously never even once seen WOW, EVE, WAR or any of the incredibly complex and immersive games available even now not to mention in the high power future he is writing to.
Games played not by just kids and socially immature teenagers tweens but millions of adult professionals at all levels of life right up to and including the highest reaches of government. Right then and there he lost his geek cred and therefore confidence of his target audience.

The there are the piles and piles of factual errors. I will only mention one profound one but it does not exist alone. He portrayed the Roman Army term "decimation" as a legion taking huge loses representing 10% of their strength. WHAT!!???? any even minor ancient historian knows decimation was a punishment a legion was subjected to for cowardice or disloyalty where 1 in 10 random legionnaires would be clubbed to death by their fellow legionnaires. Something by the way which there is evidence of having happened very rarely. There are tons and tons of these errors. How can an editor be so ignorant? Is it not necessary for editors and fact checkers to have broad knowledge so they can at least spot something that does not sound right and check it?

Last but not least is the portrayal of teh AI itself. He with out any explainationmakes the huge jump, I MEAN PROFOUND JUMP, of ascribing counciouness to a program that is simply functioning as a sphisticated problem solver. He does not really explain at all how this is supposed to have happened. One does not in any way demand the other. We have very very sophisticated problem solving routines now. We could even give them additional code that would allow for self modification to progressively in an evolutionary sense improve itself until a problem is solved. It is not the easiest thing but niether is it conceptually particularly hard. Mostly it demands huge processing power so enough "generations" of the the code can modify itself until teh problem is solved. He simply gives the code consciousness thus with out explanation making the leap that really is the very crux of the story. read one chapter and the story is pretty much over. Once the code can think with a sense of self awareness it is all over. It will because of the nature of its environment become a true independent, completely alien and extraordinarily dangerous AI.

We will have reached the Singularity.

This book was the right idea completely fumbled. Read it only if you want to be frustrated or if you do not know anything about the subject and do not mind being left with a false conception of what is going on.

Mr. Lerner get yourself a good writing tutor, a good co-author familiar with the culture and try again. This is a story worth telling right.

BTW: I gave it 2 stars because it is a good idea at its core.