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Gridiron
by
Philip Kerr
Los Angeles, 1988
Ray Richardson, a brilliant architechnologist, has created a dazzling new building: 'The Gridiron', in the heart of L. A.
The Gridiron represents the state-of-the-art in smart buildings: every aspect of the building, from temperature control to security, is controlled by an intricate computer system. On the eve of the building's official opening, a team gat...more
Ray Richardson, a brilliant architechnologist, has created a dazzling new building: 'The Gridiron', in the heart of L. A.
The Gridiron represents the state-of-the-art in smart buildings: every aspect of the building, from temperature control to security, is controlled by an intricate computer system. On the eve of the building's official opening, a team gat...more
Paperback, 384 pages
Published
June 6th 1996
by Vintage
(first published 1995)
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A group of architects is building an intelligent skyscraper for a chinese company in Los Angeles while some students protest for the human rights policy in China. There is a feng shui adviser so floor 4 is for the data procesing center, written in1195 it was a massive parallel grid the kind of Silicon graphics and for the architects with Intergraph CAD real hardware and software in the time, one software engineer had a fatal neurologic breakdown, there are clinical laboratory sensors in the toil...more
A story which makes for a really good escape from the ordinary. I liked just about everything about the story except for the ongoing chess game which I just decided to skip through after a while. I had hoped for a more creative ending but I was overall happy with the book. I'm more into self-improvement and personal development books, but from time to time I like to escape into fiction, and this one really didn't let me down. I read this one shortly after it was released many years ago, and it a...more
I cannot say this was a bad book: its storytelling is fluent, you can't say you get bored along the way... But I have to admit it was somehow cheesy. The motivation of the computer for all it does is... freak, the ways Kerr uses technical concepts is just about believable, there's no deep wisdom, no moral in the novel (apart from the predictible "Techonology is not always the answer; we need to get in touch with physical reality")... Gridiron is "readable", but not the wonder A Philosophical Inv...more
Originally posted on: http://andyparkes.co.uk/blog/index.ph...
I received at Christmas. I’d completely forgotten I’d added it to my Amazon wish list so it was a great surprise, especially when I discovered it’s out of print so I appreciated the effort taken to track it down.
The title of the book comes from a high tech building nicknamed “The Gridiron”. The book was originally published in 1995 and a lot of the technology described within would be still considered high tech now (testing employee...more
I received at Christmas. I’d completely forgotten I’d added it to my Amazon wish list so it was a great surprise, especially when I discovered it’s out of print so I appreciated the effort taken to track it down.
The title of the book comes from a high tech building nicknamed “The Gridiron”. The book was originally published in 1995 and a lot of the technology described within would be still considered high tech now (testing employee...more
This is a smart building thriller out of the Michael Crichton school. A page turner, and a pleasurable read - but maybe not for the right reasons.
I always enjoy reading out-of-date techno thrillers. Crichton's Disclosure for example, is hilarious for its cutting-edge discussions of 4x speed CD ROM drives.
The ultra-modern tower at the centre of Gridiron (also published as The Grid) features an enormous tree in its sky-high atrium, and much tech wizardry, all controlled by the building’s brain, an...more
I always enjoy reading out-of-date techno thrillers. Crichton's Disclosure for example, is hilarious for its cutting-edge discussions of 4x speed CD ROM drives.
The ultra-modern tower at the centre of Gridiron (also published as The Grid) features an enormous tree in its sky-high atrium, and much tech wizardry, all controlled by the building’s brain, an...more
Zwei Bücher in einem Einband mögen etwas unpraktisch und unhandlich sein, aber in diesem Fall hat sich die Anschaffung wirklich gelohnt. Die beiden Stories sind unglaublich faszinierend und gleichzeitig extrem erschreckend. So zeigt Philip Kerr in zwei ganz unterschiedlichen Geschichten einen einfachen Sachverhalt: Alle Technik der Welt schützt uns weder vor der Natur noch vor der Technik selbst. Wirklich lesenswert!
I wouldn't say it was *good*, but it was entertaining. If you're a geek there is some quite amusingly outdated 'futuristic' technology, and some concepts that the author has got just plain wrong (I don't think he understands basic rope techniques either). A quick read, and a bit of fun... who doesn't like the idea of an intelligent building on a rampage?!
May 09, 2012
Hristina Ivanova
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
bestsellers
Well... My experience with this book was bitter-sweet.It never really attracted me,but I wanted to finish it anyway.
It wasn't interesting to begin with.Also, the author ,thinking about sci-fi,described the world we live in today.I know that it was written nearly 20 years ago,but still....there wasn't enough of anything for me in this book,maybe it would have been more appealing if I read it in the mid 90s.
It wasn't interesting to begin with.Also, the author ,thinking about sci-fi,described the world we live in today.I know that it was written nearly 20 years ago,but still....there wasn't enough of anything for me in this book,maybe it would have been more appealing if I read it in the mid 90s.
Would you like an intelligent house that not took the dishes, cleaned all the rooms, takes out the garbage and get rid annoying people (for good)-
Who wouldn’t! What can you aspect from this novel : action,a bit of horror, moral and ethical dilemmas, devious scheming and a mad mad IA ----
Who wouldn’t! What can you aspect from this novel : action,a bit of horror, moral and ethical dilemmas, devious scheming and a mad mad IA ----
Ha ha, so bad! Absolutely none of this book is even remotely plausible. I think most monkeys know more about computers than Philip Kerr. That would be fine if the story was any good. Read the glowing reviews on the back cover for even bigger laughs!
I very much enjoy Phillip Kerr's writing. This book was interesting since it showed Architecture and technology crossing paths in a futuristic Space Odyssey way. I would recommend it
A somewhat predictable book about technology that has grown out of the control of its creators. Obviously feels dated, as a book from 1995 that is supposed to be high tech.
A colleague mentioned this title to me -- seems metaphorical for my life. Only one copy is still available at the library and it is "checked out."
I have read this book before in the past and just decided to read it again. It is quite a good story, but a bit on the technical side every now and then.
Very Good; "Smart" building run by out of control computer locks a group in the building and starts killing them off as a game.
i should have put it down. i knew i should have put it down. i did not put it down. i'm an idiot.
Apr 24, 2010
Barbara ★
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
mystery-thriller,
read-2010
This is a gruesome tale of a "smart" building that goes beserk. The newly built building is maintained 100% by Abraham, a computer which learns as it experiences various things. The office building isn't ready for habitation yet and the designers and computer engineering team is caught in the building when people start dying under suspicious circumstances. The action really rachets up when the computer locks down the building and starts picking off the team members. A hi-tech nightmare that may...more
this is a great "non-technical" read on a very important technical subject.
Very thrillig - at times almost to much... Great read.
A "smart building" goes all Jurassic Park on its inhabitants.
This abridged audio version was probably quite enough of the book for me. With one exception (a reference to "an eye for an eye"), I can only imagine that the parts not included were mostly exposition.
Entertaining, interesting to imagine the possibility of how such a thing could happen. The building has very inventive ways of knocking off its inhabitants.
This abridged audio version was probably quite enough of the book for me. With one exception (a reference to "an eye for an eye"), I can only imagine that the parts not included were mostly exposition.
Entertaining, interesting to imagine the possibility of how such a thing could happen. The building has very inventive ways of knocking off its inhabitants.
Borrowed this audiobook from Cracker Barrel (when I still used to patronize them, before I found out that it's a homophobic company). I think I might have heard the abridged version, but based on the reviews I see here, that's quite enough, I think.
****9/11/11 - Memory is an odd thing. According to BookCrossing I actually read a hard copy of this book in May 2004.
****9/11/11 - Memory is an odd thing. According to BookCrossing I actually read a hard copy of this book in May 2004.
Es un 'thriller' que transcurre en un edificio inteligente en el que se suceden muertes extrañas. Se lee de un tirón, pero no es un gran título. Cuando Kerr reproduce los razonamientos del ordenador del edificio aburre y, aunque no llega al ridículo, no se queda demasiado lejos.
Theme would have been dated in 1975, let alone 1995. Same
old thinking computer takes over. Can't get even the most trivial details of software or hardware right. I was rooting for the computer to kill them all but it didn't.
old thinking computer takes over. Can't get even the most trivial details of software or hardware right. I was rooting for the computer to kill them all but it didn't.
Sep 21, 2007
Maria
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
amantes del thriller
Shelves:
novela-negra,
en-la-bily
libro menor en su obra pero muy adictivo: un edificio domótico se vuelve loco....me lo leí en un viaje Barcelona-Madrid en tren cuando no habia AVE...no mire por la ventanilla ni una vez.
A modern fully-automated building goes mad... fun!
I couldn't get past the first chapter of this book. Typically I'm all over tech books, but I couldn't even get started with this one. Horrible.
This book is a little weird, but I like it. I can't put a finger on WHY I like it, I just do.
fast-paced and interesting
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Kerr has published eleven novels under his full name and a children's series, Children of the Lamp, under the name P.B. Kerr.
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