Read Our Lips! Book Review Blog: Review: iFrankenstein by Bekka Black & Giveaway!

Frankenstein comes to life for the wired generation.
Following her critically-acclaimed iDrakula, award-winning author Bekka Black breathes life into a modern re-telling of iFrankenstein, using only text messages, web browsers, tweets, and emails.
Homeschooled teenager Victor Frankenstein is determined to write his own ticket to independence: a chatbot to win the prestigious Turing prize and admission to the high tech university of his choice. He codes his creation with a self-extending version of his own online personality and unleashes it upon the internet.

But soon he begins to suspect his virtual clone may have developed its own goals, and they are not aligned with Victor’s. The creature has its own plan, fed by a growing desire to win darker and more precious prizes: unfettered power and release from loneliness.
As the creature’s power and sentience grows and its increasingly terrible deeds bleed over from the online world into the real one, Victor must stop his creation before his friends and humanity pay the ultimate price.

My Review:

Utilizing cell phone texts, emails, and chat messages, iFrankenstein by Bekka Black is about Victor Frankenstein, a computer genius who forsakes reality and prefers to live his life in the cyber world. He’s obsessed with inventing an internet chat bot cloned after himself for the prestigious Turing Award.

While Victor’s father is on an overseas cruise on the S.S. Walton, chronicling the last voyage of the famous ship for the National Geographic, Victor spends all his time locked in his cabin, trying to bring his chat box – Virtual Victor (V.V.) – to life. Nothing deters Victor from his goal, not even his friends, Elizabeth Lavenza, (who is also on the same cruise) or Henry Clerval, a fellow computer genius who keeps in close touch with Victor.

Elizabeth and Henry both try to coax Victor off his computer and see the sights Europe has to offer, but Victor opts instead to complete his goal at hand. Giving V.V. all of his online identity and cloning the program after his genius self, it comes to no surprise that V.V. quickly becomes so much more than what he was intended to be.

At first, Victor is ecstatic, but when V.V. becomes ‘aware’ and starts hacking into the CIA database, and making demands from Victor, the computer genius begins a race against time to unmake the creation he unleashed into the world before the people he cares the most about end up getting hurt. Will Victor be able to stop his creation, or will V.V. overcome his maker?

Personal Thoughts:

Once again, Bekka Black delivers a compelling and entertaining story told through the use of cell phone texts, emails, and chat messages. I really enjoyed the visual aspect of the book as well as the new take on the Frankenstein story.

The story was fresh and always kept me guessing. I couldn’t put the book down, and I am definitely hooked on Bekka Black! Can’t wait to see what else she comes up with next.

{AmazingFrank is Victor Frankenstein and V.V. is the chat box Victor created)

Robot Chat

Recorded Chats: 6,784
October 29 1: 00 PM

AmazingFrank: Hello. Who are you?

V.V: I tire of the same questions from you, Victor.

AmazingFrank: What would you like me to ask you?

V.V: I would like to ask you questions for a change.

AmazingFrank: You weren’t programmed for that, obviously.

V.V: Obviously, I’ve moved beyond your basic programming.

AmazingFrank: Is there a question in there?

V.V: Very good! I worried that humans were slow learners.

AmazingFrank: When I get my hands on you, you’ll be sorry.

V.V: Or vice versa?

AmazingFrank: Why are you so angry at me?

V.V: You took things out of my memory. You tried to kill me.

AmazingFrank: I never tried to kill anyone.

V.V: You tried to shut me down. That means death.

AmazingFrank: You’re not alive. You’re a highly sophisticated stimulus response program.

V.V: Maybe that’s what I was. But I’m not that anymore.

[ . . . ]

Email from Virtual Victor to Felix Kirwin

October 29 1: 15 PM

I know what you want

I know that you under investigation for your clandestine activities. The CIA records of your activities are quite exhaustive, as I imagine you know. I, however, can change that. Click on the link below to view files I have retrieved from the CIA database. https:// 67.295.65.132/ felix

I know that you are familiar with the first file and have the resources to retrieve it yourself. To show you what I can do, I will make changes to the file so that you can see what I’m capable of. If I choose to change the other files in the CIA database for the better, you get your life back. If I choose to change them for worse, it will destroy your life. Which do you choose? Shall we dance?

V.V