Books

Press Send

Very few novelists manage to sell the film rights for their first novel.

But John McClaren has sold his for $750,000 to Mike Nichols, director of, among others, The Graduate and Postcards from the Edge.

What makes McClaren more unusual is his background. He puts his mediocre degree down to bad advice from Tony Blair's father, Leo, his law professor at Durham University in the early seventies. After university McClaren worked as a diplomat for eight years before being recruited by Barings, which was looking for someone to run its Japanese office. After a spell in Tokyo he moved to Silicon Valley in the mid-eighties. For the last nine years he has been a successful merchant banker and director at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in London.

Press Send is set in Silicon Valley in the world of hi-tech start-ups and venture capital. McClaren has used his knowledge of the industry to make the technical details of the story as convincing as possible. The hero, Hilton Kask, is turned down at the last minute by a venture capital company for the money needed to develop a revolutionary genetic computer.

(The description of the genetic computer - the breakthrough in artificial intelligence that everyone is still waiting for - was based on a visit to the AI centre at Edinburgh University.)

Days later, Hilton discovers he has terminal cancer, but manages to plan his revenge from beyond the grave. He leaves a mobile phone for his brother Conrad with the instruction scrawled on a scrap of paper to "Press Send".

The book has a plot that Michael Crichton would be proud of. It manages to stay just the right side of believable and it zips along. But the characterisation is weak. A review in The Bookseller describes Press Send as Douglas Coupland meets Nick Hornby; but McClaren's writing lacks the wit or knack for cultural references of Coupland or Hornby. Most of the book is written in dialogue but it's thin stuff, and the main characters are a little too stereotyped to be convincing. Nevertheless, it's an easy read and in the right hands may eventually become a great movie.

Ben Tisdall

Why Things Bite Back:

New Technology and the Revenge Effect

The Revenge Effects of author Edward Tenner are the unforeseen and unintended consequences of developing new technology. As computer users we are among the most vulnerable to such effects. We all hold our breath when we boot our machines. Will the hard drive crash today? How much more paper will our supposed paperless offices spew out? Worse, will we get RSI or suffer the effects of exposure to electromagnetism emanating from the monitor?

These are just some of the alleged effects of computer technology that we all know about, and in this book Tenner makes a compelling case as to why advanced technology tends to create such problems.

It's not just computers: from sport to pest control, the more complex the technology, the more pronounced the effect, according to the Princeton University professor. It's not a new problem: Thomas Edison is quoted in 1878 venting his frustration at the little faults and difficulties he encountered as he developed his technology. It just seems to be getting worse. But as Tenner states: "Bugs, glitches, and crashes have a positive side. They are the machine's way of telling us to diversify our attention, not to put all our virtual eggs in one electronic basket."

The complex systems we now build seem to have the propensity for failure, in some cases with fatal consequences: jets that fall out of the sky thanks to "failsafe" onboard computers being a stark example.

Tenner sees latent breakdown in all complex systems. Why has the universally applauded keyhole surgery resulted in increased re-admittance, due to related problems directly attributable to the initial procedure? Why did the M25 exceed its projected traffic loads for the year 2001, by the late eighties?

Tenner's advice is to become more vigilant. As new technology demands more concentration, it is almost inevitable that things will go wrong.

Users of whatever the technology, be it a tennis racket (be careful of tennis elbow) or vacuum cleaner (watch your asthma) must pay particular attention if they are to minimise their vulnerability. Ultimately, you may find that Tenner is too pessimistic by far, reading far too much into the paradoxes he sees. The paranoid and the neurotic are advised to give this book a wide berth.

Dave Howell

Internet Dreams:

Archetypes, Myths and Metaphors

Human society relies on myths and metaphors to make sense of the world around it. Any paradigm shift in the way society is organised, or communicates, will be understood by applying these archetypes to the new order. In Internet Dreams, Mark Stefik looks at how we are attempting to understand the information revolution, but notes that the metaphors we are using may be inappropriate and misleading. Using the highway metaphor, for instance, may be a misnomer, and completely inappropriate to the internet. As he points out: "Relying on a single metaphorical analogy would deprive us of a richer range of meaning and possibilities." The internet defies the use of one single metaphor to describe it.

Stefik concentrates on four metaphors that shape our current thinking: the digital library, electronic mail, the electronic marketplace, and digital worlds; these are all covered in depth, and he cites papers dating back 50 years in some cases to support them. He explodes what he calls the Gutenberg Myth, and applies this to the internet: as the invention of movable type didn't usher in a new age of literacy, so the internet alone will not bring about a renaissance in communication.

An interesting comparison does emerge, though. As paper for early books was expensive, not everyone could afford to own the books that would deliver literacy. Today, access to the internet is limited to those who can afford the hardware and operating costs.

For much of the book Stefik offers his views and comments on key academic papers he has identified. Each offers its own unique perspective on how we can understand and come to terms with the change we face. The last third of the book looks closely at how we can understand the net. Stefik concludes: "Our search for understanding of the I-way is ultimately a search for ourselves, and the future we choose to inhabit."

PCW Contacts

Press Send

Author - John McLaren

Publisher - Simon & Schuster

ISBN - 0-684-819198

Price - #10.99

Why Things Bite Back:

New Technology and the Revenge Effect

Author - Edward Tenner

Publisher - 4th Estate

ISBN - 1-85702-560-1

Price - #18.99

Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors

Author Mark Stefik

Publisher The MIT Press

ISBN 0-262-19373-6

Price #19.50