Author and Silicon Valley insider, Po Bronson, writes a very funny novel about four quirky guys with the right stuff who want to create something that matters in the realm of computers.From cutting edge software and hardware development companies to Palo Alto think tanks, the plot follows the creation of a less than $300 computer from a list of low priority projects at the think tank level to the actual modeling of a prototype that gets one rival top dog engineer's undies in a knot.The trials and tribulations that face the group compare to the highs and lows of an EKG with enough back-stabbing, personality manipulation and corporate espionage to keep the reading at a wonderous pace up until the last 20 or so pages. The crafting of the dramatic persona, especially the four progtammer/hardware specialists hinges closely to the usual stereotypical portrayals of techno geeks seen in movies and television shows.However this does not detract from the fun level of the story; indeed one gets the sense that these portrayal closely model reality.What does detract is the rather abrupt ending which winds down what could have been an all out page-turning business adventure with a stop-on-a-dime conclusion that certainly did not satisfy me. Perhaps having seen the rather burlesque film version of this novel, I naively was expecting more bells and whistles and a more thorough troncing of rival engineer and threat Benoit.It never came, but perhaps that is due to the fact that I know nothing about the world of Silicon Valley where Bronson's could-be spoofs on the computer industry's behind the scenes star would lose their bite.Happily, the novel does not force a romance between Caspar and his housemate as in the movie version; here the attraction is noted and the reader can use his imagination to determine the outcome. Thank you, Po.
All in all, I enjoyed the novel; I just wish it had a longer ending.
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