The Soul of a New Machine

Reviews

"All of Mr. Kidder's hopes for his book have been fulfilled. It does give us a vivid picture of the computer business. . . . But I have to emphasize that what I admired most about such parts of The Soul of a New Machine was the simply but gratifying fact that I understood them."
—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times (click here for the full review)

"Kidder has endowed the tale with such pace, texture, and poetic implication that he has elevated it to a high level of narrative art... Splendid."
—The New York Times Book Review (click here for the full review)

"A true-life adventure... Compelling entertainment and much more... A well-paced story of corporate invention and intrigue... Riveting."
—The Washington Post

"A surprisingly gripping account... fascinating... provacative."
—William M. Bulkeley, The Wall Street Journal

"Tracy Kidder can turn the most unlikely story into riveting drama."
—Anne Tyler

"Pulitzer Prize winner Kidder's 1981 volume was published when mini-supercomputers were still the stuff of science fiction. How the world has turned. Though technology has grown immeasurably since then, this volume still serves as an interesting history of the machine that conquered the world."
—Library Journal

"A remarkable book...Absorbing reading."
—Louis Heldman, Detroit Free Press

"Brilliant, concise and original."
—Playboy

"Kidder brings a storyteller's eye to a technological subject and makes it dance...a triumph of graceful writing and intelligent reporting."
—Ted Valen, Raleigh News and Observer

"The computer revolution brought with it new methods of getting work done—just look at today's news for reports of hard-driven, highly-motivated young software and online commerce developers who sacrifice evenings and weekends to meet impossible deadlines. Tracy Kidder got a preview of this world in the late 1970s when he observed the engineers of Data General design and build a new 32-bit minicomputer in just one year. His thoughtful, prescient book, The Soul of a New Machine, tells stories of 35-year-old "veteran" engineers hiring recent college graduates and encouraging them to work harder and faster on complex and difficult projects, exploiting the youngsters' ignorance of normal scheduling processes while engendering a new kind of work ethic."
—Amazon.com review

"These days, we are used to the "total commitment" philosophy of managing technical creation, but Kidder was surprised and even a little alarmed at the obsessions and compulsions he found. From in-house political struggles to workers being permitted to tease management to marathon 24-hour work sessions, The Soul of a New Machine explores concepts that already seem familiar, even old-hat, less than 20 years later. Kidder plainly admires his subjects; while he admits to hopeless confusion about their work, he finds their dedication heroic. The reader wonders, though, what will become of it all, now and in the future.
—Rob Lightner

More reviews here: Suite101.com and Wired.