The Developers

by Ben Woods

Overview

Matt Severnson has assembled a team of hard-working, quasi-geek individuals to build a revolutionary website for a northern Michigan city. The system becomes a big hit despite the group members' idiosyncratic traits. Fast food addiction, incessant sexual tension and heated bingo competition constantly distract the team. While the opportunity arises to build the first nationwide, government-sponsored high-speed Internet portal, the issue comes second to Matt's relationship with Katy, the team's co-leader. They cannot hate each other enough to halt their steamy romance, but they can't love each other enough to share anything but a fish dinner.

The Developers mixes the insane and obscene with technology, romance and pop culture. But while the book's web development group tries to make its mark on the virtual world, it encounters pre-eminent issues that will soon be shaping the Internet of the future: Are individuals losing their remaining privacy due to the World Wide Web? Will online social interaction eventually replace in-person gatherings as a necessary means?

Product Details

BN ID:	2940013363519
Publisher:	Spumoni Press
Publication date:	05/01/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	368 KB

About the Author

Ben Woods is a technology and humor columnist who is published on various websites, including WHAS-11 in Louisville, and ihigh.com, a high school web portal. He worked in the newspaper business for eight years and has been published in a variety of printed publications.

A Purdue University graduate with a Communication degree, journalism concentration, and English minor, Woods currently is a software engineer for AOL in Baltimore. With experience both as a writer and a computer programmer, Woods can relate highly technological ideas to the masses with ease and in a satirical way.

Editorial Reviews

Ben Woods lucidly and quite pleasantly describes some of the issues surrounding the establishment of a new company in the internet age. He clearly understands plotting and structure and can put together a story with a good rhythm and pace. I look forward to reading further installments from Malorett or from wherever his imagination sets to work next.

John Walsh

The book touches on some interesting issues, particularly when the developers are contacted by the U.S. government about developing a national "Super Information Portal" that would force internet users not only to connect to the internet via government networks, but to willingly have their internet usage tracked by the government. The developers have to wrestle with the possibility that the technology that they invented will be used by the government to keep tabs on every per person in the US.

Gaby Arevalo

"The Developers" is a startlingly original and somewhat curious debut novel. The earnestness of the writer, the diversity of the characters, the originality of the presentation and the clarity and understatement of the prose combine to make it one of the most surprising releases of 2005. Woods' first book gives reason to expect some kind of masterpiece somewhere down the road.

Paul Kopasz

It doesn't take a super sci-fi buff to see the potential implications of an Internet superpower and the American government operating out of people's homes hand in hand. Imagine having a serious love jones while trying to begin a new chapter in the world of technology. With the recent Internet chatter that has been surfacing about larger, more powerful Internet companies the book's message appears to be eerily relevant. This is a must for anyone who really dug 1984 or Brave New World.

Katie Richardson

If you liked 1984 or Brave New World, you will love The Developers. It's a novel about a team of geeks who are trying to build a web for a Michigan town that will give total access of everyone's home to the government. The paranoia of Big Brother watching is prevalent throughout the book and makes for a suspenseful read. Woods gives us all something to think about in an age of technology, terrorism, and invasion of privacy.

Joyce DeBroux