104:92 The Truth Machine by James Halperin

Written in 1995, it imagines a future where a brilliant man is haunted by a tragedy from his past and vows to use his incredible intellect to try to assure that society survives and in a better form than is predicted. He invents the Truth Machine which is 100% accurate and eliminates deceit from our world. It takes years to invent and even longer to become wide-spread but eventually people give up their privacy and they are everywhere. It imagines a future where disease is basically wiped out as is famine and poverty and crime is virtually unheard of and criminals are swiftly caught and punished. A bit of a fanciful tale in that but it's interesting to see how things take shape.

Of course, it would be a dull book if that was all there was to it. The main character, Pete, has done some awful things to ensure the completion of the Truth Machine. We follow his story as he deals with the emotional toll of his actions and his eventual disclosure of the truth. It gave a human element to the story that otherwise would have been fairly boring.

My only complaints about this is that I found the ending a little too pat, a little too nicely wrapped up in a pretty bow, and I understand that the main character had to be brilliant and would naturally be drawn to other brilliant people but again we had the complex of everyone in the book was brilliant/beautiful/wonderful in most ways. Yes, Pete had his demons and had anxiety issues but still, it would be nice to have some people that were more "human" rather than superhuman.

Page count: 416p/28,617p ytd