I was invited to read and review this title by my friends at Brash Books and Net Galley; it was one of half a dozen that I could check out. I appreciate the invitation, and the other books in that batch have been read by me already and happily reviewed. This one is different; it has not stood the test of time.

So in other words: no, no, no, and no.

Usually I say it is essential to stick with a book till at least the 20 percent mark in order to get a sense of where it’s going and whether it might redeem itself, but I can’t do that here. By chapter three I am ready to throw things.

When this book was originally published, there was a significant portion of the book-buying USA who would have laughed at the notion that it’s not okay to refer to a woman (in our case, a waitress) as having “a nice set of tits”, or calling her “a piece of ass”. Those same people would have told me not to be so touchy about the “N” word (applied for no special reason to the African-American cook in the restaurant.) Probably I would have heard people say that we should just face the fact that some people talk that way, and that the text therefore reflects reality.

I stuck with it long enough to determine that the demeaning nature of the dialogue was not merely placed to determine the nasty nature of a single protagonist, but both the computer scientist and his adversary and potential recruiter say and think these things.

And for me, that was enough.

Stick a fork in me; I’m done!