Human Error

by Paul Preuss

"[W]onderful, enlightened, and convincing beyond any reasonable expectations of what a science fiction novel should be." —Greg Bear

Compugen has become a giant player in the tech field overnight by making genetically altered viruses into "biochips" that are replacing silicon chips as the brains of computers.

Toby Bridgeman and Adrian Storey are an odd-couple of scientists—Toby, the programmer, and Adrian, the sloppy genius and genetic artist, have formed an enduring friendship and produced Epicell, a biochip so powerful that it will make all others on the market obsolete and save Compugen from financial disaster—if it can be rushed out fast enough.

But Epicell, elemental living virus, is so awesome in its capabilities that tests have not yet established any limits to its multiplication or its computing sophistication. Adrian wants more testing—he believes that Epicell is potentially dangerous. Instead, it is rushed to market to save the failing company.

Then those in contact with Epicell begin to come down with bad colds—the virus has spread outside computers, living and growing in the human body. Adrian, and perhaps the human race, are doomed unless Toby can reprogram the Epicell inside Adrian—and inside himself.

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Cyberpunk

325 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Paul Preuss is an American writer of science fiction and science articles, who also works as science consultant for film companies. He is the author of numerous stand-alone novels as well as novels in Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime series, based upon incidents, characters, and places from Clarke's short stories. (source: wikipedia)

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Human Error blurs the lines between tech-fi and horror and largely succeeds in doing so. The only problem is that it takes a very long time for the horror element to embed itself in the technology. That, and a whole lot of nonsensical scenes and equally nonsensical dialogue hinder what could’ve been a pretty decent book.

Written in the mid 1980’s when computers were in their infancy, there’s a lot of unknown about their capability and capacity to change ‘modern’ ways of working. Here, the author attempts to fuse organic with artificial intelligence to form a suite of computers which can ‘think’ and solve real world problems just as good as, if not better, than humans. Whilst far-fetched and completely unrealistic, the noise surrounding computers in the mid 80’s meant there was a degree of apprehension and excitement attributed to this unknown qualitative computing mechanism. The plot doesn’t age well, but I could see how it’d have more impact closer to the original publication date.

Silly story aside, the downfall really is the dialogue and strange characters; their behavior, mannerisms, social interactions…the list goes on – they’re just not well written and that really dampers the reader experience. Cool cover on the mass market paperback edition though.

[Jorj-Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A real page turner

This book was so well written. The sto4y is exciting and thought provoking. Every character is interesting and well developed. I was sad when it was over. I wanted more. I could not put this book down.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

im quite convinced if this was written after 1985 it would have been far more homosexual (if that is even possible)

[Darran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Released in 1987 and still to this day credible in its possible scenario. I found this book to be fascinating, exciting, hopeful and scary. A book that I will definitely be picking up to read again.