TriNetre - Archive for May 03, 2005

(no longer updated)

My review of "The Bug" by Ellen Ullman is online at Reviews.com

This novel is set in the year 1984, at a start-up, Telligentsia Corporation, that is developing general-purpose database software. While the story is narrated as a first person account, told by Roberta Walton, a novice quality assurance tester at the start-up (with a Ph.D. in "linguistics of poetics"), the main character is Ethan Levin, a senior engineer in charge of developing the screen interface for the system.

The novel starts with Roberta bringing Ethan a bug, designated "UI-1017", that Ethan dismisses as a user error, since he is not able to recreate it. He blames the incompetence of Roberta for the bug. However, the bug has different plans of its own.
..
As the novel evolves, we see Ethan falling apart, crushed by this devious bug, nicknamed "The Jester" by Ethan's boss and mentor, Harry Minor. Ethan starts to lose his grip on reality, burrowing himself into a physically and emotionally isolated world of his own.
(..)