Another favorite part of Deus Ex was a chapter that had a subheading offering the reader to skip a chapter I urge you not to do this It s one of the best parts of the book My takeaway from Deus Ex is to remember something I will quote I see it as of a warning for vigilance than anythingHumans evolved from chimps into chumps And everyone with something to sell knows it Page 273 Deus Ex Effing Machina is 762 pages of sheer fun and an opportunity to think and learn I am eager to see where the author takes the story from here Rick has a great sense of humor and knows how to use it The writing in this book reminds me a little of Douglas Adams because it combines dire situations with a natural sort of hilarity that one might find in reality A friend once told me when the chips were down.

Continuing the hilarious science fiction techno thriller comedy begun by Apocalypse du Jour in Deus Ex Effing Machina four social outcasts accidentally destroy the global economy ushering in a post scarcity economy But in a post scarcity economy money and monetary power will atrophy Rich and powerful oligarchs would rather destroy the world than lose control But something stranger dangerous and definitely funnier is on the loose The outcasts and others try to stop nuclear catastrophe while tracking down a phantom kibitzing AI Customer Service Carol speaking your blither is my burden How may I abase myself for you To Carol Draper other humans Homo alleged sapiens as she referred to them were a necessary inconvenience of life She preferred fast computers and elegant software To her humans were gooey messy jellyware and as far as she could tell barely smart enough to be toilet trained Carol was a scrawny little fairy of a woman five foot zippo and maybe a hundred pounds when wearing lots of wet clothes and carrying a bag of cement Her hair was brown and her face pleasant with an expression of contentment since her mind was usually far away in the Beautiful Land of Intricate Software Systems BLISS Her co workers referred to her as Tinkerbellasaurus Rex Though never within earshot Preferably never when she was within ten miles She was small and easy to miss so they never knew if she might be just a few cubicles away They only uttered that nickname nervously warily furtively like skittish mammals in a world of large ravenous predators The Colonel stood up still facing General Yee He looked around No place to retreat No way to attack Should he run Should he stand still The General sighed I ve beaten your tech but I need one thing on video for all to see Your death He stood up and pulled his pistol from its holster I m sorry Colonel Perhaps it shouldn t but today might makes right They say when hope is lost all that remains is style The Colonel looked the General in the eye General are you willing to bet your life on this Yes said the General aiming The Colonel made a tiny nod to himself answering the question that recurs now and then to combat is this the moment You can t hear something coming at you at Mach 3 which is about 1 kilometer per second faster than a rifle bullet The sound trails far behind it And no one could see the Humvee a black speck on the horizon skimming the ocean surface But everyone could see its rooster a blade of white water a hundred feet high advancing at Mach 3 like the shark fin of God coming at them so big and so fast that their brains went bye bye leaving no forwarding address Dalton looked at the spectacle with new appreciative eyes He stared at the Kirov battle cruiser then at the giant dragon then the Yamato And he stared extra hard at the Tardis Finally he said to Shirley You know by comparison I didn t have much of a life before I met you Deus Ex Effing Machina The Gravtech SeriesBook 2After reading the first book in the Gravtech series Apocalypse Du Jour there was no way I would miss the sequel Deus Ex Effing Machina I was mesmerized by the first book and again I became absorbed in this volume It is an edge of your seat ride through the aftermath of the events in the first story Deus Ex is another fast paced entertaining and thought provoking tongue in cheek look at life after the accidental discovery of antigravity technology that brought about the eventual collapse of the global economy to make life better for everyone. Deus Ex is a humorous work of speculative fiction that will also give the reader much to think about There are some serious considerations that will crop up in this tale but are presented in such a way that makes considering some of the grimmest situations fun to contemplate. Following the invention of antigravity the four scientists who accidentally created the technology have all become billionaires and continue to work for the new company that is still developing and learning the consequences of their invention In the meantime there are those who would exploit this new tech for their own advancement and nefarious reasons The global economy has become one where there is plenty for everyone and that is difficult for some to accept while others take to it without problems A group of oligarchs see opportunities to use the tech to further their agenda But the company is trying to investigate the problem of a hacker who has an agenda that is difficult to understand Further this hacker has a skewed sense of humor that is baffling everyone No one can seem to get what this person wants if it is even a person Then there are several nuclear devices traveling to major cities in the U. S set to create mayhem and destruction on a massive scale and they seem impossible to stop And it is not clear who is behind that little plot and there are numerous possibilities for the responsible party. So numerous problems and no easy solutions makes for a ride faster than a speeding bullet and just as dangerous The characters in Deus Ex are all extraordinary individuals but are written in such a way they could be very real people In this story all the people introduced in Apocalypse are back but some are expanded. My favorite in this one is Ted Boingy Binghamton He is the CEO of GravWorks A former game programmer he possesses a monster sized sense of humor Boingy will find the humor in all situations no matter how grim He s the kind of boss I would want to work for He seems very laid back but he demands top performance from his people but he does it without being overly demanding He likes donuts and dunking them in his coffee my kind of guy Another favorite character was an octopus living in a Boston aquarium I ll just leave that right there. My favorite point of plot in Deus Ex is the mixture of various subjects to make the story thought provoking and informative There is a mixture of science both real and made up along with history philosophy politics human relations war and peace and economics While all the elements are fictitious they all are relatable to situations we can read about every day in the news While the reader will want to get on to the next element of the story never lose your sense of humor. I gave my highest recommendations for Deus Ex Effing Machina along with the previous book in the series Apocalypse Du Jour The author warns the reader that before reading Deus Ex it would be wise to read Apocalypse and I completely agree Oh and while I m at it I ll warn you to beware of the interrupting bovine creature you re going to have to read the book to get that Richard Jurmain

Deus Ex Effing Machina: The Gravtech SeriesBook 2 By Richard Jurmain

English

762

Kindle Edition

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It wasn t uncommon for me to stop reading and contemplate what I had just read, The characters in this story are all believable so even the absurd will seem plausible: The length of the novel might seem intimidating but the book reads quickly and is absolutely worth the time