2 out of 4 stars
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Adama by Alvin Berger is a sci-fi thriller with a touch of romance. While attending a meeting in New York City, Matt, a former member of a top secret government agency turned dentist, unexpectedly meets Mallory, a beautiful woman with an interesting job. Matt chooses to tag along with Mallory to Israel where she must investigate a very unique piece of technology, though Matt may have ulterior motives in the matter. The story focuses on the powerful computer, Adama. Integrated into the computer's hard wiring is human DNA. This new technological fabrication makes Adama’s abilities unlike those of any machine ever known to man.
Adama is a relatively short read as the book is only about 170 pages. The narrative moves along quickly as the main characters find themselves in one compromising situation after another. The parts of the story set in Israel were the most enjoyable; the author sets the scene for ample suspense throughout these scenes. Coinciding with the fast pace of the novel, the time spent describing Adama and the computer's evolution into a potentially sentient being are kept short and are not overloaded with technical jargon or lengthy explanations. However, many times, the lack of scientific explanation resulted in aspects of the plot seeming unrealistic. Similarly, the characters easily escaped many dire situations and the explanations for their ability to elude such situations felt rushed and impractical, taking away from the excitement of the book.
The most disappointing parts of Adama were the poorly developed characters. All main characters felt shallow and lacked any chemistry during their interactions. The lack of any real development made the characters fall flat; they were all hard to relate to and none felt compelling. Additionally, the dialogue throughout the story was noticeably stilted and unnatural; many times the dialogue appeared to be used as a way of conveying a large amount of information instead of a way to advance character development or plot.
Unfortunately, Adama could use another round of editing. Though the errors noted where not rampant, they were plentiful enough to detract from the overall reading experience. Editorial errors included the use of incorrect words such as “inpatient” when “impatient” is meant, “qualities” when “qualifies” is meant. The author even uses the term “boson buddies” when the actual terminology is “bosom buddies.” Further, there were some missing words and improper punctuation used at times.
The inspiration behind Adama deserves some merit; technology is ever changing and the idea of DNA infused computers is fascinating. However, the execution of the narrative and the poor character development has led me to rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. If the character interactions were more realistic and enjoyable, I would have considered a higher score. Those who enjoy sci-fi books set in present day and focusing on technology may find this book worthwhile.
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Adama
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