Student Affairs On-Line The on-line magazine about technology and Student Affairs Gary D. Malaney - Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst Editor Stuart Brown - StudentAffairs.com Executive Editor

Join our mailing list!    First Name        Last Name        School        Email            ©2007    StudentAffairs.com    All Rights Reserved	BOOK-ON-TAPE REVIEW Utopia Child, Lincoln. (2002). New York, NY: Random House Audio Group List Price $52.00, 13 1/2 hour cassettes www.booksontape.com/bookdetail.cfm/6038 Review by Stuart Brown President StudentAffairs.com Stuart@StudentAffairs.com Posted: April 28, 2003     Student Affairs Online, vol. 4 no. 2 - Spring 2003 Listening to Lincoln Child's thrill-ride-of-a-novel, "Utopia," I flashbacked to the 1973 movie, "Westworld," as well as the current suspense gripped television program, "24." "Westworld" portrays a futuristic amusement park populated by humanistic robots whose soul purpose is to heighten a guest's experience at one of the theme-oriented locales. Catastrophe occurs when the robots begin malfunctioning and turn on the vacationing visitors. The entire season of "24" molds the machinations and skullduggery of a Robert Ludlum conspiracy novel into a single day's events. "Utopia" incorporates elements from both sources. The action takes place during a one-day period and the catalyst for the books story line is a theme park under siege by defective-laden bots. The faulty infrastructure, overseen by the Metaneta neural network that governs the parks robots, is the impetus for its creator, Dr. Andrew Warne, and his daughter to visit the futuristic theme park known as Utopia, deep in the Nevada desert. Unfortunately, his arrival is ill timed as a mysterious John Doe sets in motion a diabolical plot to hijack the park. Who is John Doe? What are his real motives? Is he behind the erratically functioning Metanet? The convergence of the two men sets the stage for the novel as the listener slowly becomes enmeshed in the heart pounding action to save the park and its guests from a cataclysmic ending. Child masterfully unfolds layers of deception and intrigue as Dr. Warne and Utopia's robotics expert, Teresa Bonifacio, seek to thwart John Doe's fiendish plan. Complicating matters is Warnes' former relationship with Utopia's overall head, Sarah Boatwright, as well as his precocious 14-year-old daughter, Georgia. The result is an electrifying and pulsating rollercoaster-of-a-novel, which produces real moments of anxiety for the listener - will something happen as a visitor enters one of the park's attractions? Maybe. Maybe not. Child keeps us guessing with heart wrenching results. Plot twists abound throughout the novel producing a wholly satisfying techno-thriller. As someone who hates having plot lines revealed--why does "24" insist on showing scenes from the next weeks episode--let it suffice that "Utopia" has more than its fair share of surprises and diversions, generating many spine-tingling moments. Sometimes the technological minutiae described by Child decelerate the pace of the book, but the author's attention to detail, as well as his imagination in dreaming up such a futuristic fantasy land, deserves praise. One of the most important aspects of any book-on-tape is the reader. His or her intonations and overall feel for the book need to intimately mesh with the listener's expectations. Through the first few chapters, I was not too enamored with reader, Scott Brick. Maybe it was Lincoln Child's prose or Brick's straight ahead approach to the material. But, like the background of Utopia's systems chief, Fred Barksdale, Brick became an acquired taste after the second of the thirteen cassette tapes and I was ready to be strapped in for hours of thrilling excitement. "Utopia" is a well-crafted thriller that will have you driving around the block for a few extra listens.