Techno-Thrillers discussion

We nominated, polled, and voted. 3 novellas tied for August 2024 Novella of the Month. There just novellas, so why not bang out all 3. Sure.

Randomize by Andy Weir


Publisher's Summary
In the near future, if Vegas games are ingeniously scam-proof, then the heists have to be too, in this imaginative and whip-smart story by the New York Times bestselling author of The Martian.

An IT whiz at the Babylon Casino is enlisted to upgrade security for the game of keno and its random-number generator. The new quantum computer system is foolproof. But someone on the inside is no fool. For once the odds may not favor the house—unless human ingenuity isn’t entirely a thing of the past.

Andy Weir’s Randomize is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

It was a 50-minute audiobook or about 30 minutes at 1.5X, as I listened to it--basically, my commute home one day. I see now, in hindsight, that it's $1.74 for the Audible on Amazon. I just bought it with 1 of my Audible credits from my subscription. My subscription gives bulk pricing per credit of less than $10, which is usually a lot less than a $25+ price for a new release book, but in this case ... I could've bought it direct for $1.74. Damn it.

First book I've heard talk about quantum computing, which as far as I know still isn't a practical thing just yet. Interesting topic, and yet, I still feel like I don't know squat. If Crichton wrote about it, ... you'd get the lightning round version of actual history up to present ... and then a little BS where they take it further.

My review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Fun little story! Not a ton of tension, but interesting plot, setting and tech.