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The Tesla Testament

« H E Personal :: Technology :: email
posted Monday, 6 March 2006
CIMEntertainment offered me the privilege of reading a draft of "The Tesla Testament" last week. The author's been dribbling hints about it to me for a while, even letting me read the first chapter a while back, so I had to take the opportunity.

It's a really cool book. The story is that of one of Nikola Tesla's research projects, being revived for the purposes of terrorists, and one man's struggle against them. It's written as a thriller, which is unusual reading for me, but hey...

The story and writing are a bit simple for me. It's written for fast reading and thrills, rather than in-depth thought provocation, and some of the events and outcomes are a little neat because of it – think of James Bond thinking nothing of jumping a motorcycle sixty feet with a passenger, and you'll have the idea. That said, just like James Bond, everything serves the action and storyline, and therefore the simplicity in authorship works.

However, in the draft I had, Montagnet runs an OS called Linux SE/RT, and I suggested a truly secure (and existent) OS to him instead... and now he says that he switched to something popular instead. Bleargl.
Incidentally, "Bleargl" is something that SAM on the C64 would have said.

What's more, the story avoids a common problem in such books, that of the deus ex machina, in that at no point is the hero trapped under a six-ton rock, only to miraculously escape unharmed. While he's certainly resilient – and lucky – you could certainly make a case for it being believable. (As an aside: I've always wanted to write a long story in which the protagonist gets killed early, and the rest of the book is pretty much filler elaborating on the antagonists' complete victory. I bet it wouldn't sell well. C'est la vie.)

One thing that struck out at me as I read the book that bears considering: the story is incredibly thematic, and would be awesome as a film...

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comments (3)


1. Hani Suleiman left...
Monday, 6 March 2006 11:05 am

This might be the best and most politically correct 'this book sucks' review I've ever read.


2. Essington left...
Monday, 6 March 2006 7:19 pm

I've also read an advance copy (probably a bit more advance) than the text Joseph read, and I've got to say that Joseph is pretty accurate with his assessment of the book.

Personally I read this type of fiction to be entertained, and I don't want to have to work too hard for my entertainment (after all, I'm already reading). So, the lack of some sort of intellectual puzzle is not really any reason to dock the story.

At the same time, I never had to stop reading and just say "Oh, come on!". The hero behaved in a way that you would pretty much expect from the humans that you meet in day to day life. In fact, I didn't feel the need to call "Bullshit" even once through the entire story.

The plot is moves along, and I never had to put the book down due to boredom. I did have trouble, however, putting it down when called to attend to the house or kids. The book is definitely a page turner.

As far as Hani goes, I guess it all depends upon your definition of "Sucks". If a James Bond-esque action adventure with a bit of historical semi-fact thrown in fits into your definition of "Sucks", then yeah it probably does.

I for one was entertained, and thoroughly enjoyed the story. When a print version becomes available, I will be sure to have a copy on my book shelf next to a bunch of other books that some would say "Suck".


3. Lem Namkceb left...
Friday, 7 December 2007 3:00 am

The reviews (few but positive) gave me hope that this was the kind of novel I would like. So I downloaded the preview and read it. I have a loose rule with fiction: if the narrator uses exclamation points (as opposed to dialog using them) more than once per chapter, the writing is not for me. This author grinds out narrator exclams at ten times that rate. So. Not for me!