Author: Edward M. Lerner
Publisher: Tor
Binding: Hardcover
Publication Date: November 2008
Another author new to me, one of the benefits of reviewing for Bookspotcentral is that it exposes you to a whole range of books you would not normally consider reading. Lerner has been writing part-time for quite a while now, but has turned to it full time now. He has recently collaborated with Larry Niven on Fleet of Worlds, a review of which can be found here. Fools’ Experiment is something quite different though. A near future science fiction novel focussing on the developments in computer science and the dangers of virtual technology. Personally I think Lerner exaggerates these risks a bit in Fools’ Experiment but it certainly makes for good material for a fast paced and exciting story.
Fools’ Experiment is set in the very near future. The world is more than ever dependent on large computer networks for trade, communication, defence and entertainment. These networks have been increasingly under threat from a growing number of viruses and other malware. Most of these viruses are slightly adapted from of existing ones, but once every so often something new shows up and does a lot of damage. Innovation in computer sciences hasn’t stopped either. New applications are being developed all around the world. One such developer is Doug Carey, an engineer who has lost his wife and his arm in a car accident several years ago. He has been working on perfecting his prosthesis ever since.
Doug’s research is ambitious, he is part of a small but growing group of scientists who try to establish an interface between man and machine. His prosthetic arm translates neural impulses from his brain into motion.The software that accomplishes this is an adaptive bit of programming that could be said to be learning. Doug’s brain and the prosthesis are in an iterative process of getting used to each other. Some scientists have taking it further though, exposing their brain directly to a cyberspace environment. The dangers of this become apparent when a number of researchers die suddenly or are driven to extreme acts, followed by a decent into insanity.
In the mean time experiments are on the way to solve the problem of software designers not being able to keep up with the demand and hardware developments. Researcher AJ Rosenberg and his team are trying a radically different approach of creating software. They are trying to let software capable of learning evolve in to the optimal solution for a given problem. With enough computing power available generations of software follow each other quickly and soon the code has been changed and expanded beyond recognition. By selecting the most successful programs from each generation and letting them go on to the next run they simulate natural selection. What the researchers failed to take into account that one of the most successful strategies in evolution is cheating on the principle of natural selection. It does not take long for their programs to figure that out.
Soon this line of research combined with malware attacks form a lethal threat to modern society, it threatens to undermine the computer networks that run the planet. While AJ’s research turns out to be a threat to national security, Doug’s expertise may yet save the world from a total system failure.
From the start it is quite clear that Lerner has more than a high school education. In fact he holds degrees in both physics and computer science, he also held various engineering job and worked NASA. All of these experiences certainly influenced the book. It contains scenes that convey the dedication to the scientific process that can be found in Kim Stanley Robinson’s work (although Robinson needs a great many more words for it). It also shows the weaknesses of researches, their error’s and a number of pitfalls in their methods that will be instantly recognizable to those with any experience in academia. Lerner cleverly uses these to drive the plot. Conversations between AJ and his assistant Linda, between Doug and his employee Cheryl, or an internal monologue of one of the characters leading to a new insight, these are the key moments in the book.
Fools’ Experiment is a work of speculative fiction so one can place a number of question marks at the science in the book. What I had the most trouble with is the self-awareness that AJ’s creations start to display early in the books. AJ and Linda accuse each other of anthropomorphizing their experiment at one point in the book, the author seems to do it continually. He assumes for instance that the creatures will make it their objective to survive rather than solve the puzzle, that they will value their continued existence and develop concepts of fear and curiosity.Putting it in such terms makes the novel a lot more readable for sure but it is a long way from the current state of software, that can’t properly model many things in the physical world, much less acquire such qualities, to a self aware piece of software with an urge to survive and escape it’s creators. I think he is taking the analogy between software and organic life too far. Then again, many aspects of what drives the evolution of species are poorly understood, there’s no telling really.
While the technological concepts in the novel are interesting and thought provoking, I was less impressed with the characterization in the novel. Most of them strike me as people very much occupied with their profession. Although Lerner tries to put some background on his characters in, and even a bit of romance between Doug and Cheryl, most of the characters remain professionals, scientists and engineers throughout the book, characters you might find in an Arthur C. Clarke novel. Even the romance annoyed me a little when both Cherryl and Doug ask themselves why they are in love at the workplace, something neither of them thinks of as a good idea. Maybe it is because the other is attractive, smart and funny and because neither of you has gotten laid in several years? Thankfully Lerner doesn’t explore the lovers’ uncertainty in much detail.
This lack of background on the characters does keep the book very focussed. It quite a fast paced thriller really. I read it in less time than I expected even with the occasional breaks to consider the implications of the various lines of research Lerner describes. For me that made it a pleasant read, although perhaps not as challenging as it could have been. He has managed to still have me pondering the question of how realistic the risk the technology he describes is, when I am well into the next book already. It may not be the best book I have read from a literary point of view, the book certainly makes up for that with a number of fascinating concepts. If you like a good techno-thriller Fools’ Experiment is definitely worth reading.
