 |
PeaceMaker
by Dan Ronco
(Winterwolf Publishing, $15.49, 280 pages, ISBN 0-97527-114-8.)
Review by Stuart Carter
Having read Dan Ronco's PeaceMaker I've come to the conclusion
that geeks and guns  don't
really mix. They're like oil and water -- geeks (computer geeks, to
be specific) aren't easily imaginable as action heroes or gun-toting
ruthless killers. Try it yourself: stop reading this review and try
to imagine Bill Gates packin' a piece. No? What about Steve Jobs carrying
heat and looking like a badass?
They're both fierce opponents in the software arena, probably also
in business, and you can imagine them bringing the house down with some
devastating share options or an ornery computer virus -- which, coincidentally,
is, ahem, a bit like the central premise behind PeaceMaker, in
which the chief executive of VantagePoint Software, maker of Atlas,
the world's most popular computer operating system, has hidden a devastating
computer virus in every single copy sold. To further stretch the coincidence,
VantagePoint Software has been broken up into smaller companies following
some federal anti-trust trials and, would you believe it, Atlas's main
competitor, Goldman Information Systems, has produced an OS called Companion
(and which is actually a better piece of software) but is inexorably
being driven out of business by some fairly sharp practice on VantagePoint's
part.
The PeaceMaker of the title is the virus hidden in the software, the
main part of a SMERSH-esque plan for world domination by The Domain,
a secret and deadly organisation (essentially it's the board of VantagePoint
Software). When Ray Brown, a recovering alcoholic and Vantage Point's
chief software engineer (at least, the chief visible software
engineer), begins to discover some odd code hidden in Atlas things rapidly
spiral out of control and global disaster looms.
Joe Massucci notes on the back cover, it's 'For computer geeks and
Tom Clancy reader alike'. Only ... well, it isn't really, because some
of the computer science seems aimed at my mum (computer viruses that
can electrocute people through the monitor? AIs taking over a young
boy's body??). Similarly, although the action sequences aren't at all
badly done there are plenty of writers around who do it better, so these
two plots seem to compromise rather than support each other. It feels
as though Ronco is trying to cater for two separate markets at once
-- two markets that aren't necessarily very compatible -- and in doing
so just fails to catch either of them.
PeaceMaker is constructed fairly cleverly because we know right
from the very start that a global computer crash is coming; what we
don't know is why or how or quite when it happens. For the first third
or so of the book this is a genuinely gripping read as the excellent
central idea is revealed and the potential for disaster is made shockingly
clear. This is the bit with -- and mainly for -- the geeks. It's when
the guns are introduced and people start to die horribly that things
begin to fall apart. If Ronco had kept this as a more cerebral novel
of 'netwar' then I have little doubt that PeaceMaker would have
been an unusual and top-notch thriller, but unfortunately our programmer
hero decides he has to take on the always rather implausible Domain
rather than going to the police or intelligence services. Shadowy organisations
battle it out, secret complexes get stormed, evil assassins go to work
and the whole book gets rather schizophrenic.
Another minor niggle was the fact both the evil women characters in
the book are, frankly, gagging for it morning, noon and night. Without
wishing to seem too prissily PC, it would have been nice to see a 'good'
female character who also really enjoyed a regular roll in the hay.
As it is there's a faint whiff of misogyny around these (admittedly
infrequent) sex scenes and insinuations, which is a shame because the
women characters in PeaceMaker are otherwise quite strong.
So PeaceMaker is a book with a lot of potential, one that had
me initially hooked, but which took too long to reach its climax and
sadly wasted the energy of that build-up amidst a lot of unnecessary
action scenes. I note that Dan Ronco worked as a senior manager with
Microsoft, which is presumably where the really good, meaty parts of
this book spring from, and if he'd only stuck with what he quite obviously
knows best then PeaceMaker would, I feel sure, have been a compelling
and intelligent book.
Elsewhere on the web:
|
|
