Douglas Preston - Blasphemy

The world's biggest supercollider, hidden deep in an Arizona mountain, will probe what happened at the very moment of creation: the Big Bang itself.

The brainchild of Nobel laureate Gregory North Hazelius, Isabella is the most expensive machine ever built.
Will it unlock the mysteries of the universe ?
Will it, as some warn, suck the earth into a mini black hole ?
Or is it, as the powerful televangelist Reverend Don T. Spates thunders, a Satanic attempt to disprove genesis and challenge God Almighty on the very throne of heaven ?

The day is looming when Hazelius and his team of twelve scientists will turn on Isabella...and what they will then discover must be hidden from the world at all costs.
The entire world is holding it´s breath.

Wyman Ford, ex-monk and CIA operative, is tapped by the U.S. government to wrest from the team their secret, a secret that will either destroy the world...or save it.

The countdown begins....

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Isabella is the most powerful machine ever built. She's so powerful , that when turned on the lights in Las Vegas sligthly dim, she's a secon-generation superconducting supercollider particle accelerator. She's the one to prove the Big Bang and it's energy levels, she's there to explore exotic ideas for generating power.

When Isabella has her first test-run on 100% of power scientists are puzzled about a greeting-message. Someone must have broken into the system and hid a malware program in to 40 billion project. But who and why ?
The scientists become more quizzed when Isabella answers with intelligence. When she responses to dorect questions with an direct, specific answer. Who are they talking to ? And is it possible that Isabella is who he claims to be ? Namely being God.

Things soon get out of control when Russ Eddy eavesdrop a talk between two of the non scientist members of the small Isabella team. Pastor Eddy fears Isabella is the beginning to the Armageddon and the leading scientist Gregory North Hazelius is the Antichrist. He sends out 2000 emails to 2000 Christians and releases a chain reaction of unexpected extent. The Christians arrive at the underground "hive" to ambush the project and the scientists. Lead by a maniac and heavy armed they don't stop for a single soul. Who doesnt belong to them simply dies.

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I am not too impressed by the book. Mainly there is no main character. Or there is one but a very one-dimensional one. The idea of a machine talking as a higher intelligence isn't exactly new so I always thought I knew what is going to happen and wasn't a bit surprised when exactly happened what happened. It cleary lacks of consistence and is poor in execution.

Rating:
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Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Forge Books; First Edition edition (January 8, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0765311054
ISBN-13: 978-0765311054