False Positives

by Kim Aleksander

In 1972, a gifted student at Berkeley writes the first computer virus. When it’s run on the university mainframe it simply vanishes. Thirty-five years later, a government computer system issues ostensibly baseless assassination orders, and its creator goes in search of the ghost in the machine. What she discovers is a legacy black-ops program from the Vietnam Era that is alive and killing today. As she fights to prevent her brainchild from becoming a weapon for government-sanctioned murder, Marnie McCloud is pitted against adversaries hell-bent on wielding the machine with Machiavellian ruthlessness to achieve their political ambitions. Joined by an eclectic band of characters, she plots to bring down the system before it is used to start a war of biblical proportions, and in doing so, she becomes marked for termination by her own creation.

Genres: Thriller

317 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 25, 2011

About the author

Kim Aleksander has worked with computer technology for over twenty-five years and holds a Master’s degree in Information Systems Management from the University of Liverpool. He was raised in California, spent his twenties in Hawaii, and moved to Asia in 1999. Presently, he lives in a jungle in Thailand with his wife, two sons, a Jack Russell terrier, and a few ducks.

FALSE POSITIVES is his first novel.

Reviews

[The TBR Pile *Book review site* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full Review: http://thetbrpile.weebly.com/1/post/2...

False Positives was a page turner. I found it absolutely captivating. We started off with three distinct threads to the story and about halfway through they started to twist and converge on each other. Then things really started to heat up as characters were revealed, truths learned and lies unearthed. The main leads were great and played off each other very well. The settings were diverse, we went from Tehran to Bangkok and onto the USA via Vietnam. The descriptions were vivid, making me feel I was there. The pace was cracking and the ending was hopeful, if a bit sad. A great book for scifi/technothriller fans.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't get past the character "President George Bush" portrayed as a charming, intelligent, savvy, truthful, funny person. I could no longer enjoy the book.

[Debra Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big Brother is watching you. The government is amassing great quantities of data about its citizens and feeding it all to a supercomputer that analyzes it for the purposes of weeding out anyone that poses a danger to the United States. It’s fiction, right? Who is to say, but this is the premise behind FALSE POSITIVES.

The story starts in 1973 when a brilliant UC Berkeley graduate student creates the first computer virus during a drug-induced haze. The program is loaded into the computer, but seemingly disappears without a trace. Fast forward to 2007 and traces of the virus are beginning to corrupt the US’s most powerful supercomputer. Marnie McCloud, a computer expert, is hired by the government to program “Junior” (her name for the supercomputer) and she is the one that begins to see traces of the virus in the recommendations of terrorists that “Junior” spits out. She takes it upon herself to try and track down the original programmer to undue the corruption, but there are some that don’t want her to find him.

The author takes the reader on a thrill ride that will keep the most die-hard thriller fans entertained. Christian and Muslim ideology is featured extensively and Mr. Aleksander’s knowledge about these 2 religions as well as computer programming is impressive as he weaves a heart-pounding story. The characters are well-fleshed out and there are quite a few surprises revealed.

One criticism is that the book could use the eyes of a good editor. There were many typos throughout the book and they continued to jar me out the story. I also skipped over much of the computer programming paragraphs, not because they were inaccurate, but because I didn’t really care how the computer worked and I was eager to get back to the story.

[T.W. Dittmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a conspiracy thriller that revolves around a computer program being used to pick targets to be eliminated in the name of national security. The plot is nothing new, but the author adds bits and pieces from his own knowledge of how computer programs work to the mix, which sets it apart from the norm. It is put together well, in logical order, and is easy to follow.

The story begins with the much maligned Phoenix Program of the Vietnam conflict, and carries through to toaday's War on Terror. The scenes travel from the former Saigon in Vietnam, to Washington D.C., to the Patpong district of Bangkok.

The strongest point of the book is the cast of characters. All of the main characters are filled out nicely, with some of them able to bring a smile to my face.

The writing is straightforward and direct, and the text contains about the normal amount of grammatical errors for a work of this origin.

All in all, it was an enoyable read.

[Margaret Tidwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't say enough good things about this book. Once I started reading it I literally couldn't put it down. It is an amazing book! When I got it I wasn't sure if I would like it but in the end I loved everything about it. It is well written and I love how it ties some of what is happening in the world into the book so it seems like it could really be something that truly happened.

[Kim (Wistfulskimmies Book Reviews) · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my review please visit http://thetbrpile.weebly.com/1/post/2...

[Doreen Dalesandro]

Mr. Aleksander has a Jack Russell!

[Kim Aleksander]

I wrote this, so it's kinda hard to review it.