Status
Checked out
Genres
Collection
Publication
G.P. Putnam's Sons (2014), Edition: Reprint, 464 pages
Description
Fiction. Literature. Thriller. HTML: The New York Times bestselling author and master of the medical thriller returns with a top-notch fusion of groundbreaking medical science and edge-of-your-seat suspense. George Wilson, M.D., a radiology resident in Los Angeles, is about to enter a profession on the brink of an enormous paradigm shift, foreshadowing a vastly different role for doctors everywhere. The smartphone is poised to take on a new role in medicine, no longer as a mere medical app but rather as a fully customizable personal physician capable of diagnosing and treating even better than the real thing. It is called iDoc. George's initial collision with this incredible innovation is devastating. He awakens one morning to find his fiancée dead in bed alongside him, not long after she participated in an iDoc beta test. Then several of his patients die after undergoing imaging procedures. All of them had been part of the same beta test. Is it possible that iDoc is being subverted by hackers�??and that the U.S. government is involved in a cover-up? Despite threats to both his career and his freedom, George relentlessly seeks the truth, knowing that if he's right, the consequences could be lethal.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member JenLamoureux
I will start this review by saying that I really wanted to enjoy this book. Robin Cook was one of my favorite authors when I was a teen, and I found the idea behind this book intriguing.
The idea had so much promise.
Unfortunately, the execution is awful. I've considered the fact that my standards
First, the third person omniscient narrator makes the book unbearable to read. Who's the main character? Everyone. It is clearly everyone because we are made privy to everyone's internal thoughts. Even if we weren't, every single character in this book takes the opportunity to provide clear, spoken exposition of every thought s/he has--repeatedly. The dialogue is stilted, terribly written, and unrealistic. Details are told rather than shown in a way that would have gotten every chapter cut to ribbons in any reasonably literate undergraduate writing workshop. Also, I hate every single character. The only likeable person dies at the beginning of the first chapter. Everyone else in the book serves as a flat, wooden vehicle to nudge the protagonist along what I suppose passes for a plot.
The protagonist is so self-involved that he starts to think he's a harbinger of death for everyone he cares about. You know, instead of maybe questioning why a patient dies for no apparent reason right in the hospital itself.
There's no emotion I can identify with from any character. And every time iDoc comes up, it's accompanied by the same exhaustive monologue about how wonderful and revolutionary it is. The characters' voices all blend together into a robotic monotone of being surprised over plot twists the reader knows about before they even happen. Why does the reader know this? Because the book constantly pulls you off onto the sidelines where things are explained in exhausting detail. Oh, and let us not forget the liberal inclusion of cliches around every corner. I'd say you could play a fun drinking game where you take a shot each time you spot a cliche... but alcohol poisoning probably isn't all that fun.
Then we throw in a little bit of "hacking" (and why for the love of god didn't the author bother to consult someone who actually knows something about it?) to find "evidence" of wrongdoing. Add in a nebulous government body interested in how the computer has 'learned' to kill problematic patients because they want to cut healthcare costs. Round it out with a private corporation that apparently employs ex black-ops for its routine security...
Oh, there's also a main character everyone describes as brilliant and observant, who can pick out subtle shadows on MRIs but can't see an obvious conclusion sitting on the end of his nose. The author goes to great lengths to reinforce how smart and observant the protagonist is, detailing the reasoning behind every decision he makes in the book. I could go on, but the point of this review was to hopefully save others time they would have spent reading this book.
So there you go. What could have been a great idea, murdered by horrible writing.
The idea had so much promise.
Unfortunately, the execution is awful. I've considered the fact that my standards
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are a good deal higher now. However, I suspect that one of three things has happened here 1) Cook is resting on his laurels and seriously phoning it in, 2) The publishers have hired the cheapest ghostwriter they could find to get this published, or 3) The books I read back in the 90s were not nearly as good as I recalled.First, the third person omniscient narrator makes the book unbearable to read. Who's the main character? Everyone. It is clearly everyone because we are made privy to everyone's internal thoughts. Even if we weren't, every single character in this book takes the opportunity to provide clear, spoken exposition of every thought s/he has--repeatedly. The dialogue is stilted, terribly written, and unrealistic. Details are told rather than shown in a way that would have gotten every chapter cut to ribbons in any reasonably literate undergraduate writing workshop. Also, I hate every single character. The only likeable person dies at the beginning of the first chapter. Everyone else in the book serves as a flat, wooden vehicle to nudge the protagonist along what I suppose passes for a plot.
The protagonist is so self-involved that he starts to think he's a harbinger of death for everyone he cares about. You know, instead of maybe questioning why a patient dies for no apparent reason right in the hospital itself.
There's no emotion I can identify with from any character. And every time iDoc comes up, it's accompanied by the same exhaustive monologue about how wonderful and revolutionary it is. The characters' voices all blend together into a robotic monotone of being surprised over plot twists the reader knows about before they even happen. Why does the reader know this? Because the book constantly pulls you off onto the sidelines where things are explained in exhausting detail. Oh, and let us not forget the liberal inclusion of cliches around every corner. I'd say you could play a fun drinking game where you take a shot each time you spot a cliche... but alcohol poisoning probably isn't all that fun.
Then we throw in a little bit of "hacking" (and why for the love of god didn't the author bother to consult someone who actually knows something about it?) to find "evidence" of wrongdoing. Add in a nebulous government body interested in how the computer has 'learned' to kill problematic patients because they want to cut healthcare costs. Round it out with a private corporation that apparently employs ex black-ops for its routine security...
Oh, there's also a main character everyone describes as brilliant and observant, who can pick out subtle shadows on MRIs but can't see an obvious conclusion sitting on the end of his nose. The author goes to great lengths to reinforce how smart and observant the protagonist is, detailing the reasoning behind every decision he makes in the book. I could go on, but the point of this review was to hopefully save others time they would have spent reading this book.
So there you go. What could have been a great idea, murdered by horrible writing.
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LibraryThing member LivelyLady
This is so close to being real that it is scary. Once again, Cook has taken us to the brink with suspense. When a medical student's fiancé dies in bed, he discovers that she was part of beta testing for a new phone app meant to replace the shortage of primary care physicians. As it unfolds, others
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close to him are effected. I could totally see this app being used in the future! However I only gave this 4 stars because I thought Cook made the main character appear a bit too naïve considering he was a doctor in training and considering he suspected something wrong. But I could not put this down. Would be a good movie. Show Less
LibraryThing member nyiper
As usual, current, exciting, moves right along in story fashion. Not "quite" sure if he is personally really and truly trying to educate the public about "possible government interference," or not ---this could easily be politically tinged in this day and age. It was almost funny to be reading this
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in May of 2014 and the story takes place mostly in June of 2014---but of course, given the material, as he admits in interviews, things are changing so fast that everything quickly become out-of-date. Show Less
LibraryThing member nyxnekhbet
Having worked in Information Technology for my entire 20 year career, the last 15 split between healthcare and health insurance... This story hit just a little bit too close to home. I think the scariest part is that it's completely believable that the government would be involved in something like
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this and I don't think it requires you to be a conspiracy nut. If you want of those people who thinks the ACA is implementing death panels I don't recommend this book. If you want to have something that's gonna keep you up reading until one in the morning and then have you mulling over every passage then I say go for it. Show Less
LibraryThing member HenriMoreaux
There was a couple of things I didn't like about this book, it features George Wilson from Death Benefit & Nano yet seems to re-write his history with Pia Grazdani indicating that whilst he did fly around the world for her, and was infatuated with her he was never in love with her which seems to
The story was okay, but the Fatal Cure deja vu was quite strong and the contradictions with the preceding novels bothered me when Wilson declares he has never loved anyone else but his now current fiancee. It would likely be more enjoyable if you hadn't read his earlier works but in having done so this one just seemed like it followed a bit of a formula and was an updated version of Fatal Cure only using technology rather than cost cutting bureaucracy as the villain.
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contradict what happened in the preceding novels. I also felt this was kind of a rehash of Fatal Cure only with the motivations and circumstances mixed up a bit. Then there was the whole just pop a drop of blood on your iPhone's touchscreen and it will automagically scan the blood for you, that was a bit absurd, seemed like lazy writing not to go to the effort of at the very least inventing some sort of attachment if not a new device that the patient would use rather than just making up something that clearly isn't at all realistic. The ending, like Nano also seemed rather abrupt, as if the page count and been reached let's just wrap it up. The story was okay, but the Fatal Cure deja vu was quite strong and the contradictions with the preceding novels bothered me when Wilson declares he has never loved anyone else but his now current fiancee. It would likely be more enjoyable if you hadn't read his earlier works but in having done so this one just seemed like it followed a bit of a formula and was an updated version of Fatal Cure only using technology rather than cost cutting bureaucracy as the villain.
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Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2014-01-14
Physical description
464 p.; 4.19 inches
ISBN
0425273857 / 9780425273852
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