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git commit murder #2
git sync murder
Murder on the Sysadmin Express After accidentally solving two murders, Dale Whitehead hungers to stay in his apartment, hack virtual memory stacks, and forget the whole thing. Instead, his boss sends him to a technology/sci-fi convention in Detroit. He plans to endure his stint at the vendor table, stumble through his presentation, and escape anonymously. A dead body ruins everything. Dale finds himself battling liquid nitrogen ice cream, balky network addressing schemes, the Chaos Machine, and his own reputation, while the corpses pile up. "Wait to see if it happens " Great for troubleshooting IPv6 multicast over wireless. Not so much for murder.
216 pages, Hardcover
Published June 22, 2021
4 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 18, 2021
Dale Whitehead is back at it again. The poor guy deserves a whole Chinese buffet after the crazy events at the tech/sci-fi convention.
Book two brought the familiar sympathies of a tech geek wishing for just a moment for the dream to be real while simultaneously fending off your own endless insecurities. There's plenty of drama in the pages but perhaps the greatest of all is Dale's internal one. Without that earnest interior these books could easily be cliche. Instead they are (sometimes painfully) relatable, entertaining, and thrilling mysteries.
There's a certain level of tech-geek required to get full enjoyment. If you know what IPv6 is, or how to rebase in git, and you like a good mystery then you're going to love this.
Book two brought the familiar sympathies of a tech geek wishing for just a moment for the dream to be real while simultaneously fending off your own endless insecurities. There's plenty of drama in the pages but perhaps the greatest of all is Dale's internal one. Without that earnest interior these books could easily be cliche. Instead they are (sometimes painfully) relatable, entertaining, and thrilling mysteries.
There's a certain level of tech-geek required to get full enjoyment. If you know what IPv6 is, or how to rebase in git, and you like a good mystery then you're going to love this.
August 5, 2021
This is one sequel I've been actively waiting for, and it has many of same elements which made the first book (/git commit murder/) in the (hopefully continuing!) series appealing. There's a decent mystery plot (and who doesn't like a mystery?), but moreover the protagonist, Dale Whitehead, is an extremely interesting, sympathetic, and (and, perhaps sadly, at times) relatable character.
There are parts of the books which perhaps will most appeal to a fairly niche audience: that is, people with some knowledge of the underpinnings of UNIX (also, people who understand computer networking; also, people who know about how members of tech communities interact). If you do know a bit about any of those things, those parts of the book are especial treats. But one needn't be a UNIX guru to read and enjoy the book, any more than one need be a wizard (or a hobbit) to read and enjoy the Lord of the Rings. The author has done careful work to make sure the contexts make any tech discussion comprehensible enough even without specialised knowledge.
The mystery here (as in the preceding book) is interesting, but, again, I think the most appealing aspect is the protagonist. While it's a rather different story and setting, getting inside Dale's head gives me similar feeling to the one I get from the inner monologues of the protagonist in Martha Wells' "Murderbot" series (so I'd recommend this series to fans of that one, and vice-versa).
That is, a character who is extremely capable, but also severely hampered by their own mental processes and the anxieties spun out by them. This is an extremely relatable situation, and so following along with Dale (or Murderbot) is somehow reassuring and affirming in a way that I think is actually quite hard to capture. But Lucas does it here, and he does very well.
There are parts of the books which perhaps will most appeal to a fairly niche audience: that is, people with some knowledge of the underpinnings of UNIX (also, people who understand computer networking; also, people who know about how members of tech communities interact). If you do know a bit about any of those things, those parts of the book are especial treats. But one needn't be a UNIX guru to read and enjoy the book, any more than one need be a wizard (or a hobbit) to read and enjoy the Lord of the Rings. The author has done careful work to make sure the contexts make any tech discussion comprehensible enough even without specialised knowledge.
The mystery here (as in the preceding book) is interesting, but, again, I think the most appealing aspect is the protagonist. While it's a rather different story and setting, getting inside Dale's head gives me similar feeling to the one I get from the inner monologues of the protagonist in Martha Wells' "Murderbot" series (so I'd recommend this series to fans of that one, and vice-versa).
That is, a character who is extremely capable, but also severely hampered by their own mental processes and the anxieties spun out by them. This is an extremely relatable situation, and so following along with Dale (or Murderbot) is somehow reassuring and affirming in a way that I think is actually quite hard to capture. But Lucas does it here, and he does very well.
December 31, 2021
Even better than the first!
This manages to trigger my worst fears of DragonCon, Vendor Summits, and predatory tech firms. But Dale comes so into his own here. He has a reputation, he doesn't want. He doesn't need, it's not his responsibility... but, if there is something he can do, shouldn't he?
The way Dale forges connections with people accidentally while trying to figure out what connects the murders is an undercurrent of sweetness to an otherwise tumultuous stagger to the solution.
Especially fun for techies, but not necessary to enjoy. This actually feels more like an ode to the outsiders, regardless of what put us there.
This manages to trigger my worst fears of DragonCon, Vendor Summits, and predatory tech firms. But Dale comes so into his own here. He has a reputation, he doesn't want. He doesn't need, it's not his responsibility... but, if there is something he can do, shouldn't he?
The way Dale forges connections with people accidentally while trying to figure out what connects the murders is an undercurrent of sweetness to an otherwise tumultuous stagger to the solution.
Especially fun for techies, but not necessary to enjoy. This actually feels more like an ode to the outsiders, regardless of what put us there.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews