I really liked the book. It was very appealing to me and I think it would be a great read for anyone who is young and in the industry of computers.
The Developers
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This book is a wonderful read to help you have some insight into a developer's mind...The real-world scenarios are wonderful! I love how smart this book is without making the reader need a side dictionary to keep up! Ben is a wonderful author! I can't wait to read his next installment!!
What can I say...Ben Woods is a funny guy. Following the adventures, misadventures and love lives of a bunch of young 20-somethings, Ben is able to effortlessly give us something techie that we can all, surprisingly understand. What's even more surprising is that we can all relate to his characters as well, despite their "heightened" intelligence above us all. They're all still human at their core--and everyone from your high school jock, to even your 50-year-old grandmother looking back in nostalgia--will be able to say they "felt" this book.
"The Developers" is a frank and honest, and truly humorous window into the creative economy. The characters we meet in Woods' novel are the prototypes for the engines of our future. Whether it is the author's imagination or reality, I'm sold. These are people I'd like to know. Or at least people I'd like to have working for me.
"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.
I found the book laugh-out-loud hilarious at some (many) points. Being a developer myself, some of the characters (or should I say caricatures?) were spot-on. When I tried to explain some of it to my girlfriend (non-technical), she said, "I don't get it...what's so funny?" The overall plot was an interesting one, although the timelines were (perhaps necessarily) compressed - a company of 5 people might not actually be able to put together a full-featured government portal like this one, and successfully pitch it as fast as they did.
Basically I really liked this book. Like, I missed my stop on the subway when reading it. I thought there was some trail off at the end, and it could use another edit, but especially for something self-published it was great. It was incredibly funny and reminded me of "microserfs" by doug coupland and "Company" by Max Barry. I highly recommend it to anyone who has worked in a techie office.
I would clarify, I think, because I liked the characters so much, any ending would have sucked, you know? Because it's an ending!
... 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. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. 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.
By bwoods, Sep 23, 2011
It's getting easier to check out e-books from U.S. libraries, now that Amazon recently announced that Kindle users could download e-books from 11,000 libraries. It's important to note that you don't have to have an actual Kindle to be a Kindle user; you can also use the free Kindle app available on many mobile devices, or the Kindle Cloud Reader from your browser.
By bwoods, Sep 10, 2010
As I attempt to find an agency to pitch my new book, I thought it might be a good idea to list some of the agents I have contacted. At this stage, I've run into issues where companies have listed communication methods, but they don't seem to follow through. I hope that my list will save the time of others who are attempting to find representation.