Author C.G. Masi's forthcoming novel looks at how technology developers go about their business in a corporate environment.
Many thanks to the loyal readers of this blog, who have put up with a low posting frequency over the past few months. My excuse is that I've been trying to get my next book into production. It's nearly there, so I should be able to provide more frequent posts to this blog.
Readers who enjoy my commentaries on how technological advances affect current events will have a lot to interest them in the book, which should be in bookstores around mid-summer. Entitled Red, it is a novel whose main characters work in a private applied-physics research company. The title comes from the nickname for the central character, Judith McKenna, who is a tall, athletic, young mathematician, who tosses everything away to search for her missing father after the authorities have exhausted all conventional means of finding him. Her faltering quest is saved by Doc, her mentor and sometime lover, who shows her how to organize the scientific and technical resources she didn't even realize were available to solve the mystery.
To reach her goal, she needs to learn techniques of organization, resource allocation, team building, and decision making under uncertain conditions. If you thought such issues were dry and academic, it's because you haven't seen them played out in the emotionally charged, risk-filled environments where real-life technology developers live and work, where millions of dollars, careers, and even lives are often at stake, and any mistake can lead to disaster.
If you think that's hyperbole, take a look at what's happening right now in the Gulf of Mexico.
We're now doing the final polish edit on Red. The schedule calls for that to be done before the end of June, at which time the book will go directly into production.
Most of the work is now in the hands of others, so I will have more time to devote to looking at how technology interacts with society, which is the focus of this blog. I plan to start by sorting through the issues surrounding the Gulf oil disaster. What actually happened? Who should really be pointing fingers at whom? Are the actions contemplated by the Obama Administration likely to help the situation, or make it worse?
Hopefully, I can help make sense of it all.
