Josh's Reviews > Human Error

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.