The Kraken Project: A Novel (Wyman Ford Series Book 4)

Kraken provides for a good read. But, all things considered, it leaves the reader (me, at least) unsatisfied. On a number of points.First of all, the story. What starts as a high strung techno-thriller peters down to a lackluster track-the-bad-guy action story. That the bad guy (girl in this case) is a fugitive AI program raises the interest for a while, unfortunately, the bad-girl-AI very fast becomes a not so interesting good girl, ending its run in a syrupy do-good emphasis…Next, Wyman is depicted in a very two-dim way, lacking depth. This is so even more than in previous installments … he is almost one-dimensional, here!Then, the whole pursuit of the fugitive is told mostly from the fugitive's perspective, depriving the reader of any catching human interest angle on the potentially drama-loaded Wyman-Melissa couple …The presence and actions of the foul algo-traders, no doubt intended to up the thrills, has a very contrived taste, and fails.This novel, just like Spielberg's AI flick, are reformulations of the Pinocchio fable …And the title is truly a misnomer. A much more appropriate title would have been "Dorothy".

Before I get highly critical of Mr. Preston, let me start with the big, big positive: he is one of the best idea men I’ve come across in recent years. Even though it’s been a number of years since I read his novel Impact, the idea that forms the basis of that novel and the images of the holes through the earth and moon haven’t left me. The same cannot be said of the ideas and images of some of the “highbrow” books I’ve read over the same period.In The Kraken Project Mr. Preston once again uses a great idea, even if it’s not quite as original as his previous ones. Here we have the story of a woman, Melissa Shepherd, who develops a strong AI program called Dorothy for NASA meant to control an exploratory mission to Kraken Mare on Saturn’s moon Titan. Dorothy, however, is more than she at first appears and jumps from her NASA computer out into the world. Havoc ensues.So, if Mr. Preston works with these solid ideas, what is the problem? Frankly, his writing never lives up to his ideas. Most of my complaints about Impact and Blasphemy were comparatively minor and did not greatly affect my overall reaction to these books. Here, however, the writing was not even close to living up to the idea. In short, Mr. Preston’s skills just are not sufficient to convincingly convey the “thought processes” of Dorothy.If I’m going to be brutally honest, the first page of this book is so laughably poor that I nearly put the book down. Instead, I charged on and managed to push down my disdain every time Dorothy thought or spoke. To be fair, things improve as Dorothy matures and, when dealing with the human characters, he fares much better (with the exception of Jacob, a fourteen-year-old boy. He is surprisingly weak is presenting us with a twenty-first century teenager). The rest of the plot is basic thriller stuff at which Mr. Preston has plenty of solid experience and this works well enough, if not spectacularly. The ending is a bit of a stretch but something for which I am willing to suspend my disbelief.In the end, this ranks low on my list of thrillers. Still, I expect that the ideas about AI Mr. Preston presents here and his images of the trip to Titan will stay with me. For that, I can forgive a lot. And I definitely am looking forward to whatever clever idea he has up his sleeve for next time. I just hope it comes across better that this one.

I wanted to like this story and there is one thing about it I really liked, but a lot I didn’tI really expect more from Preston regarding three dimensional characters, but everyone here comes out of the technothriller playbook: Evil capitalist, unimaginative FBI agents, megalomaniacal politicians and principles who can’t stand or respect each other, until they do.The AI threat is credible, but raises the same old questions: Why isn’t there a kill code, off switch, cut off, prime directive, three laws of robotics? These are NASA computer geeks, you’d think they’d not make such bone headed mistakes.Dorothy, the AI is supposed to think about a billion times faster than we do and spends most of her time waiting for the humans to make their next move. She keeps making all these threats, but still lets people out fox her. She decides pretty early on that people are a threat and a waste of space, why doesn’t she launch a nuke or twelve?Computer files can be copied, why doesn’t Dorothy copy herself into a couple of million servers?Now there is something I kinda loved about this book. I really liked seeing the internet from the inside. That was very imaginative and fun.

A good tale that kept my attention to the end. I was disappointed that the promise of investigating the seas of methane was not realised - maybe another book? R Jones

Very good read and credible story line. A fantastic page turner with a warning about the power of AI. Some reviews are saying its not credible but I think the author does a good job at explaining a few times about the data visualisation routines and the way it can run with minimal processing power.

This is not the best story Douglas Preston has written. While each chapter is well-written, the story introduces an Artificial Personality which is capable of exploring the Internet as if it was a physical place populated with real persons. And one of the final actions the Artificial Personality takes is downright impossible. Don't set your hopes to high

Half way through the book now and I'm loving every minute.I'm a big fan of Doug and his writing partner Lincoln Child and I haven't been disappointed once yet.This one is Absolutely fascinating! How does he keep coming up with new ideas.Keep up the good work.

I enjoyed this book. The plot was cohesive and credible. The characters realistic and mostly likeable. The descriptions were occasionally excellent. This book kept me reading into the night. Well done Douglas Preston, I shall read more of your books.

Have not read this author before, but will read his work in future.Not at all what I expected, lots of twists and turns. Just when you think it's all over something adds to the tension.A must read book.

A good read so far, albeit rather predictable. I am 3/4 of the way through. I was disappointed there is no trip to Titan yet as that was my main interest in buying this, as I love astronomy, space etc.

Ok

Great read.

Great read couldn't put it down

Brilliant as usual,

Amazing....good job Douglas

The Kraken Project Grew on me. I've read pretty much everything Preston has written, both solo and with Child. I'm a fan of his work. But I have to say this book started really slowly for me. It was slow, and there was a darkness to it that really put me off. I was tempted more than once to abandon the book completely, something that I almost never do. I didn't understand where the book was going, wasn't sure how a story about two people trying to "catch" a computer program on the internet could be interesting, or how a computer program itself would work as a central character to the narrative. In the end, it all worked, and I have to say that Preston delivered a solid page-turner that raised some really interesting questions about life and existence.

Thriller for the future of computers! Unbelievable sequences that result in unpredictable happenings when computers become almost sentient. Scary ideas when a piece of software becomes loose in the net and runs amok.

I really enjoyed this book. It is very exciting and could possibly happen in the future.Wyman Ford is a good character but the computer stole the show as it were.