In the near future a coder finds more than he bargained for within the system
4.75 out of 5 stars.
In the future; you get to do whatever makes you happy. If you’re an incredible programmer, you will program. If you want to go to space, you’ll go to space to help out. Everyone is happy, everyone is helping out the greater good. Simon Bank is one of these people, he goes through the system trying to cause chaos – “teaching” the system and its coders where there are errors or could be issues. He thinks he is working on a secondary system and not affecting the actual system – but he learns that may be mistaken and he finds out another bombshell while in there trying to see what he has done.
Riva writes at a fast pace but allows you to feel like you are right there in the action. Simon’s point of view was interesting and I was drawn in quickly to him. Once you get further into the story – it gets really confusing for a little while and feels like it is never going to end. Push through! I promise the ending was unique and unexpected for me. I really thought I had pinned down how this book was going to end, and I was dead wrong.
You can tell that Riva has had experience in some of the fields that he writes about because there is a great amount of detail given to explain different things within the book. I love stuff like that, where you can tell the author has done his research.
This book has some big turning points, and to write a more in-depth review would be a spoiler, and I don’t want to give away anything big.
Throughout the book, I knew that there was a second book planned, and I flip-flopped numerous times while reading on whether I was going to want to continue in this world. But, by the end I definitely will be eagerly awaiting the next book in the TAG series.
All life on earth is about to be terminated by an entity as old as the galaxy itself. To make matters worse, Simon has broken everything already.
In a future world that is run by computer systems and that is without want, how can a man find his role? Then, if the very computers he works on to try to make them more human suddenly try to kill him, revealing a secret so vast that it affects every living soul on the planet, can that man be a hero?
These are the questions that face the stumbling, comic, and certainly flawed Simon Bank. His job is to work with the System’s artificial intelligence, making it fit more perfectly into human society so that it can keep the country running smoothly. But when the System threatens the peaceful world he knows, Simon suddenly must rush to save his own life, as well as the life of everyone on earth. Forced to reassess everything that he thought he knew, he is caught within circumstances way beyond his control.
Simon’s only hope is to rely on intellect and instincts he didn’t know he had, and on new friends, not all of them human, to change himself and all humanity. And he doesn’t have much time.
Peter Riva has worked for more than thirty years with the leaders in aerospace and space exploration. His daytime job for more than forty years has been as a literary agent. He resides in New York City.
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Likewise, I really do like books where the author has done all the research they need, really know their stuff, and that it comes across in their books as so. This sounds like a sci-fi read and seeing as I love that genre, I think I will like it a lot.