The Jericho Iteration - Softcover

Steele, Allen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0441002714 ISBN 13: 9780441002719

Publisher: Ace, 1995

Synopsis

In the year 2013, after a massive earthquake has devastated much of the U.S. and left thousands of people homeless, investigative reporter Gerry Rosen becomes a fugitive in his own city when people close to him start to die. Reissue.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Steele picks the unlikely setting of an earthquake-devastated St. Louis, circa 2012, for his hardcover debut. As the city's residents struggle to rebuild their lives, operatives from the Emergency Relief Agency (ERA) conduct nocturnal raids against the homeless and swagger like Nazis. Gerry Rosen, the sophomoric narrator and a journalist for the Big Muddy Inquirer, has his suspicions of these ersatz storm troopers validated when a friend and coworker is murdered. The Tiptree Corporation, a local hi-tech outfit, seems implicated. While Rosen wallows in gratuitous self- pity and guilt over the death of his son and his impending divorce, his investigation reveals an unlikely conspiracy between Tiptree and the ERA to overthrow the federal government using a new laser satellite. Rescue comes in the amoeba-like form of Ruby Fulcrum, a Tiptree-designed computer virus/artificial intelligence that escapes into the national computer network and speaks to Rosen with his son's voice via pocket PC. Once the pair join forces, Fulcrum literally turns the laser against the ERA, democracy is protected, and Rosen has the biggest scoop of his career. But Rosen seems emotionally untouched by the experience: He does not come to terms with the loss of his son or wife. Not much to satisfy the reader here, just a puppy-dog characterization of artificial intelligence, detective novel repartee, and hopscotch leaps of plot. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

Steele (Labyrinth of Night) makes his hardcover debut with this brisk thriller set in an earthquake-devastated St. Louis in the year 2013. Eleven months after the quake, the city remains under martial law, policed by the troops of the federal Emergency Relief Agency. When hard-up reporter (and narrator) Gerry Rosen-whose son was killed and marriage ruined by the quake-gets a mysterious message meant for his best friend, fellow reporter John Tiernan, Rosen thinks he's stumbled onto a big story about corporate underhandedness. It soon becomes clear, however, that the story is far more important and dangerous than that. Tiernan is murdered, Rosen's apartment is ransacked by ERA troops and the reporter finds himself on the run, racing against time and ERA soldiers to fathom a conspiracy that threatens the entire country. Steele keeps the action moving at a breathless pace right up to the nail-biting climax. There's little that's new in his near-future setting, though-or in his plot, which treats its basic ingredients, artificial intelligence and corporate conspiracy, in a formulaic way, making this an entertaining page-turner but nothing more. (Nov.) Nonfiction
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ace
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0441002714
• ISBN 13: 9780441002719
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 288