Utopia by Lincoln Child

Utopia by Lincoln Child

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Well I couldn't afford a trip to an amusement park this year so I figured reading Utopia would be the next best thing.

The descriptions of Utopia are great. The details are fantastic, down to the mannerisms of people within the park. I felt like I was there and I'd love to visit this place.

The first chapter makes a reference to meloning, 'When daring young women on rides bare their breasts to the camera' ? Is this really what its called ? I tried googling it, including an image search, and didn't find anything to confirm this. The search results were disappointingly tame, people eating watermelon and doing grab tricks with their skateboards... But this isn't a bad term for the practice.

Dr. Andrew Warne is a computer engineer with a focus on robotics. He is a widower and father to 14 year old Georgia. He has been summoned to visit Utopia, a large theme park known for robotics holographs and thrill rides. He is a large contributor to the park's robotics. Warne created the park's metanet, a meta network that links all the robots to a central processor. The processor studies the bots, creates improvements and downloads an optimized code daily over the network. He brings his daughter with him expecting an opportunity to work on upcoming projects.

Soon after Warne arrives, the park directors inform him they believe the metanet is responsible for random robotic glitches. They request he shut it down, insisting the issue is not due to internal or external tampering. He is downfallen, because he sees the metanet as his life work.

The story points out the dangers of relying on robots to do important mechanical tasks. Utopia robots are programmed to do safety maintenance. The robots loosened dogs instead of tightening them. A car whipsaws through a 70 foot drop, which results in injuries, lawyers etc... I suppose human error could be as detrimental. Hopefully, there will soon be technology for a park like Utopia, and they will employ human quality control. The robot that servers ice cream, Hard Case, also malfunctions. It would be fun to be served ice cream by a robot, but I wouldn't fancy it coming after me with sticky robot claws. The only malfunction I want to experience is receiving a basketball sized scoop of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream. I am diabetic so this would be quite deliciously dangerous. :)

I would love to own a Wingnut, the robotic dog...

As the story unfolds we learn bad guys are responsible for the robotic malfunctions. These domestic terrorists are not your semi honorable, fun loving type of criminals. Their list of demands include not contacting authorities, and continuation of business as usual within the park. If they don't get all of their demands they will kill hundreds, blowing up lines and restaurants.

The bad guys couldn't have orchestrated their acts of terrorism without inside help. It is fairly obvious who their cohort is. We see behind the scenes information of everyone who is innocent. By using the process of elimination, the mystery of the inside man is revealed.

The major plot hole of this story is no one contacts the police. I can understand the stories where the scared parents of a kidnapped child are convinced they shouldn't call the police. But the employees of this park are well educated, and much less emotionally involved. They decide it would be too dangerous to call the authorities. They are obviously not equipped to deal with something like this. The only person with any real experience is a patron of the park who offers his service. But not a single person demands the police be called...

This book is written in 2002. I figure it might take some time to write a book. I have been working on the first page of mine for the last 10 years. I am not sure if it was written after or prior to Sept 11, 2001, but there must be a standard theme park terrorist protocol. I assume it would include contacting the proper authorities.

Regardless of the possible outcome, I can only imagine how questioning would go for the inevitable police investigation and lawsuit. 'Did you immediately contact the police ? Do you mean you didn't contact the police to report threats or deaths in the park, tampered with and moved evidence, and moved and stored bodies. so you could continue with business as usual?' And what about the guy with 2 broken legs? I realize there is an impressive medical facility within the park, but what if he needed surgery ? I believe most of Disneyland's major injuries make it to the media. At Utopia an entire ride of people gets barbequed and its business as usual ? If it weren't for this major story flaw, this book would have been so much better.





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