Deal

by Joe Hutsko

A fictional recreation of the rise of Silicon Valley and the computer industry follows Peter Jones, a brilliant inventor, and Matthew Locke, an entrepreneurial master, as they clash for control of Via Computer Inc. 75,000 first printing. Tour.

317 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Susan Dennis]

I'm not sure what to say about The Deal. I picked it up off the 'paperback new releases' table at my mystery bookshop. I can't figure out why in the heck it was even for sale at a mystery bookshop. No dead bodies and precious little mystery of any kind. The plot is full of holes and fairly obvious from the getgo. The story is about corporate politics at computer companies. What is so confusing to me is that I could barely put it down. It's one of the few books that kept me up way past the time my eyes would have closed. I couldn't stop reading it. It was one of the strangest book experiences I've had in a long time.

[Jay]

This seemed to me to be a semi-roman à clef about Steve Jobs and his departure from and return to Apple. I read Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography a few years ago, and I immediately recognized the basic outline of events featuring John Sculley, IBM, Microsoft, and Joan Baez.

I really liked this book when it focused on the computer industry. Sitting in on board meetings and reading emails between executives kept me turning pages and curious what would happen next. In addition, there are prescient descriptions of a handheld computer with voice-recognition software -- closely resembling what we know as the iPhone and Siri. That's especially impressive when you remember the novel was published back in 1999.

But I was disappointed by the difficult-to-believe character actions in the final chapters, especially when one character starts pointing a gun at different people.

I'd rate this one 2 1/2 stars. I really wish I could give it 3.

[Joe White]

It was hard to read this without trying to overlay real people and companies such as Jobs, Wozniak, Scully, Gates, HP, IBM, Apple, MSft, Dec, and others. Near the 2/3 mark the book does draw on the upcoming iphone type devices and near the end incorporates speech recognition, which 12 years after publication is still a ways off. The characters weren't memorable and the plot was more or less predictable. It is still better than a lot of suspense fiction that draws on hard core plot and violence, and had I read this 10 years ago, it might have rated a 4.

[Eric]

This is an older book that my dad had lent me awhile back that I finally got around to reading in December. It was a fun read - a suspense/business intrigue novel set in the late 90's I believe (it was definitely a little dated) with two companies that seemed like parallel universe versions of Apple and IBM.

[Laurie Stoll]

I have a really hard time saying anything negative about any book I read. I think of the author and what they put in to writing and getting published.

The Deal had too much technology and not enough story. Because of the technology and when this book was written the story is also out-dated.