Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy this terrifying look at the (very) near future.
4.5 out of 5
A super quick read. You can literally finish this while enjoying a cup of coffee.
Nick Thacker is really excellent at character development, and given the incredibly short (30 total pages) nature of the short story he didn’t have nearly the amount of space as normal — but you still felt for Dorian. We know up front that he’s an author. We quickly learn that he is also a programmer of sorts. You also find out that he and his wife aren’t doing well and as the reader you’re not sure why. Mr. Thacker gets all of this in very quickly and still has pages left to develop and “finish” the story.
Needless to say, it is still left somewhat open (this could have be stretched into a full novel VERY easily). And it could also be continued in future releases.
I loved how short it was (and I knew it was a short story) but I want more now.
Dorian is a vain programmer who just wants to be left alone to write his masterpiece. He’s a jaded AI developer with a family who wants nothing to do with him, working for a stagnant tech company.
In his spare time, he’s also working on a secret project, combining the latest areas of research from his company into one forward-thinking prototype that he knows will change the world.
But it must start with changing his own world.
Nick is a writer, but you already knew that, so he won’t waste your time.
If he were to describe his work (which is exactly what he’s trying to do here), he would say it’s a mashup between Jurassic Park, National Treasure, The Da Vinci Code, all of James Rollins’ stuff, some of Clive Cussler’s stuff, a little of Michael Crichton’s stuff, with a side of adrenaline, testosterone, and the good parts of the Michael Bay movies (but only the GOOD PARTS).
His soon-to-be-written Wikipedia page says that he lives in a cabin on a mountain in Colorado with his wife and daughter, and enjoys being terrorized by the three dogs and tortoise that share his life and do nothing but eat food and cost him money.
He would love for you to hang out with him on Twitter or on his website, www.nickthacker.com.
