Virtual Destruction

by Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason

Overview

At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California—one of the nation’s premier nuclear-weapons design facilities—high-level physicists operate within heavy security to model and test new warhead designs. But politics can be just as dangerous as the weapons they design, and with gigantic budgets on the line, scientific egos, and personality clashes, research can turn deadly. When a prominent and abrasive nuclear-weapons researcher is murdered inside a Top Security zone, FBI investigator Craig Kreident is brought in on the case—but his FBI security clearance isn’t the same as a Department of Energy or Department of Defense clearance, and many of the clues are “sanitized” before he arrives. Kreident finds that dealing with red tape and political in-fighting might be more difficult than solving a murder. Written by two insiders who have worked at Lawrence Livermore, Virtual Destruction is not only a gripping thriller and complex mystery, but a vivid portrayal of an actual US nuclear-design facility.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452429250
Publisher:	WordFire Press
Publication date:	12/15/2010
Series:	The Craig Kreident Thrillers
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	318
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Kevin J. Anderson is the author of more than 130, 47 of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists. He has over 21 million books in print in thirty languages. He has won or been nominated for numerous prestigious awards, including the Nebula Award, Bram Stoker Award, the SFX Reader's Choice Award, the American Physics Society's Forum Award, and New York Times Notable Book. By any measure, he is one of the most popular writers currently working in the science fiction genre. Dr. J. Douglas Beason is the author of fourteen books, eight with collaborator Kevin J. Anderson, including Ignition and Ill Wind, as well as two non-fiction books. A Nebula Award finalist, Doug's short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and he has written for publications as diverse as Analog, Amazing Stories, Physical Review Letters and Physics of Fluids to Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Science, Technology and Society. Doug and Kevin's novel The Trinity Paradox holds the distinction of being the first work of fiction ever nominated for the American Physical Society's Forum award for promoting the understanding of physics in society, and was the first novel ever reviewed in Physics Today

What People are Saying About This

Jack McDevitt

I like hard SF, and I love a good mystery. This one has the best of both worlds...there is a sequence in this book I will never forget.

Allan Steele

A taut SF-mystery set inside one of the country's most sensitive installations. Science fiction so real, you would need top-secret clearance to do better.

Editorial Reviews

Anderson and Beason's fourth collaboration blends hard sf and detective fiction to preview the dazzling next step in virtual reality. Livermore National Laboratory is the site of the sensation--a chamber reproducing, complete with touch, sound, and smell, any recorded experience from F16 dogfights to rock climbing. Seizing a chance for major funding and exposure, project overseer Hal Michaelson offers the new technology to the government as a means of nuclear weapons surveillance. Yet before a key public demonstration, Michaelson is found dead in the chamber from exposure to a deadly acid, leaving FBI agent Craig Kreident to ferret out clues and suspects, including a project coordinator who may be passing design secrets to the computer gaming industry. Although the VR gimmickry is fascinating and plausibly rendered, it is pushed aside for a relatively routine detective story that, though a disappointment compared to Anderson and Beason's Nebula nominee, "Assemblers of Infinity" (1993), will be demanded by fans of that and their other books.

Carl Hays