Good books are like friends. They’re there when we need them; they help us feel connected; and they stay the journey. This is the story of one long lost chum.
Back in the early 2000’s, I lived in Tokyo for three, memorable years.
My living arrangements during that time were a communal guesthouse. You had your own room but shared a lounge, kitchen, laundry and bathrooms with around 20 other people.
The lounge area included a lopsided bookshelf stocked with an assortment of well-worn paperbacks, 1970’s reference books, a couple of bibles and copies of Lonely Planet guides.
In amongst this sad faced and near-abandoned collection of literary detritus, I stumbled upon what turned out to be one of the greatest fiction reads of my life. Yeah really.
THE GRID is a 1995 novel written by British author Phillip Kerr (1956 – 2018). A newly built, ultra-modern skyscraper controlled by it’s own super-computer begins killing people, one by one.
That may not sound like the makings of a literary MASTERPIECE but, incredibly, because of the way the book’s been written, that’s exactly what it turns out to be.
FAST FORWARD 20 YEARS
Fast forward 20 years and I was now living comfortably back in Aussie Land. My copy of this prized novel had long since been lost/misplaced/discarded or whatever the heck happened to it. Yet I found myself one day filled with a sudden yearning to reconnect with this ‘old friend’.
But do you think I could remember the name of the book? Or it’s author? Fat chance! So I did what any thinking person in my position would do. I posted a query on WE TALK ABOUT BOOKS.
This site boasts no less than 1.2 million followers. An answer corectly identifying the book came back in less than 8 hours.
The next day I ordered THE GRID on-line. Within a week I’d been reunited with my old friend, enjoying ‘their’ company all over again like not a day had passed.
There are so many things I love about THE GRID . But if I had to boil it down to just three they’d most likely be –
One way I judge an author is by the quality of their similes. Phillip Kerr doesn’t disappoint. Here’s a sample –
“Have a nice day”, said Kelly, still smiling like an airline stewardess through a life vest demonstration.
Dukes was as about as sharp as a bowling ball with a physique to match.
A gold standard ideas man Allen Grabel may have been, but when it came to handling a crisis he was as useless as rubber lips on a woodpecker.
“CAD is supposed to speed up the way we work. Instead we’re busier than a cucumber in a women’s prison.“
One of my favourite old-time movies stars Gary Cooper as an uncompromising, visionary architect. It was called THE FOUNTAINHEAD and is probably where my interest in how skyscrapers are built began.
Naturally, a novel that takes place wholy inside a super-tech, ‘smart’ building, every aspect of which is controlled by a sentient, ‘parrallel’ computer (described in the novel as ‘Silicon Valley’s first serial killer’ and ‘a multi-storey lunatic asylum’) is going to have architect and building ‘speak’, but author Phillip Kerr outdoes himself in the degree of detail he brings to world-‘building’.
Bear in mind THE GRID was written before the internet and search engines made the research part of fiction writer’s jobs infinitely easier.
The hundreds and hundreds of descriptive touches Kerr sprinkles throughout his novel to bring the building ‘alive’ in the reader’s mind, is nothing short of breathtaking in it’s scope. Here’s a taste from page 291 –
“It has a clerestory, an atrium, an ambulatory, an arcade, a facade, a refectory, a gallery, buttresses, an infirmary, a vault, a portico, a piazza, a choir…
“A choir?” interrupted Beech. “Where the hell’s the choir?”
“According to the drawings, the first-level gallery is called a choir.”
Beech laughed. “That’s just Ray Richardson’s fancy way with words”.
The rogue and sentient ‘puter that controls the building is named Abraham. Later, Abraham ‘evolves’ into Ishmael, an even more advanced, murderous and ‘unpluggable’ artificial intelligence. Both Abraham and Ishmael ‘speak’ and voice thoughts. Hear for yourself –
I love that ‘not quite right’ English with the run-on words ‘goodnice’ and ‘fineappreciate’, so you know it’s a computer talking. Reminds me of our sap buddies in Nigeria and the wording of some of their giggle-worthy scam emails.
Abraham or Ishamel, depending on who’s running the show, controls every aspect of the working parts of the newly-built skyscraper nicknamed The Grid.
That means the plumbing, all electrics, access codes to different levels and rooms, restricted staff files, timer-release of cleaning chemicals to bathrooms and the roof-top pool, phone communication lines, the exterior window cleaning machines, internal temperature and humidity control – pretty much everything and then a few other things you’ve probably never thought of.
In the hands of a malevelent super-computer hell-bent on snuffing out all 15 employees trapped inside the building over a long weekend, well, you can imagine what trickery it resorts to to achieve it’s destructive aims.
Let’s just say ordering lifts to suddenly plunge 80 floors to oblivion minus the emergency brake is one of the LESS creative ways the author has dreamed up for the building to carry out it’s unsavoury plans.
And you know what else I love?
