Subject: REVIEW: "Vengeance in Death", J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts)

From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan and Trevor" <[email-masked]>
Date: 26 Mar 2000 18:46:04 -0500

Vengeance in Death by J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts)
	Review Copyright 2000 Robert M. Slade

I have no idea why this book is cast as science fiction, or supposedly set
sixty years into the future.  Aside from the odd mention of androids,
robots, and stunners, it proceeds pretty much like any current hard boiled
cop story.  We are told that aircars and helicopters flit constantly
through the canyons of New York (and wouldn't *that* be really likely),
but the chases that happen stick almost exclusively to two dimensions.

The book also seems to have some pretensions as a romance, but all the
tender love scenes appear to occupy a maximum time of thirty seven
seconds, with little foreplay aside from some yelling and screaming.  This
is actually a very masculine romance.

There isn't any understanding (or explanation) of the current level of the
technology used, let alone where progress might take it.  If you try to
trace a phone call, the caller can "jam" you from the other end.
Digitized video can be altered (surprise!) but apparently nobody has heard
of digital watermarking, a technology that is readily available now.
Failing to "register" computer equipment with some kind of security agency
ensures that no information can be obtained, even when data is transferred
to or from the secured location from a public net.  Nobody has heard of
digital cash, either, although somehow a "transfer" of funds -- which
implies a source and a destination -- is untraceable.

Fiction this may be, but science it is not.

%A   J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts)
%C   200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY  10016
%D   1997
%G   0-425-16039-4
%I   Ace/Berkley/Boulevard/Charter/Diamond/Jove Books
%O   www.berkley.com/berkley [email-masked] [email-masked]
%P   357 p.
%T   "Vengeance in Death"

======================  (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
[email-masked]  [email-masked]  [email-masked] [email-masked]
        Profanity: the linguistic crutch of the inarticulate.
http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev    or    http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade