Rating: 
Summary: Great for book clubs
Review: This book is agood choice for book clubs, as it stirs up real questions. The book is highly readable, with a few stylistic warts that critically-minded book club participants will enjoy identifying. But the real reason it makes a good book club choice is the power of its premise. We are losing privacy at an accelerating rate -- is this a good thing or a bad thing? This well-done speculative fiction takes the question to its extreme in order to explore the theme -- but the trend is sufficiently important in daily life that this book isn't as far-out as some science fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Futuristic novel of epic scale
Review: James Halperin's debut science fiction novel, "The Truth Machine", is an amazing achievement. It is a story so grand and sweeping in its scale that it gives Clarke's "Childhood's End" and Haldeman's "Forever War" strong competition for the greatest novel written about Earth's future. What sets it apart from those two books, though, is how it only requires a leap of faith regarding scientific advances to imagining the future "The Truth Machine" realizes, as opposed to alien intervention affecting the futures in the "Childhood's End" and "Forever War". The author, Halperin, is Harvard educated posits fascinating theories about perilous future of Earth and how the events in this book helped avoid it.
"The Truth Machine" has been termed "'1984' for our generation". While there are similarities, each book takes a decidedly different view of people having absolute knowledge and no privacy. "1984" is about how the government controls the populace through the use of `big brother', a system with which none of the country's citizens are safe from government surveillance and manipulation. This dark view is contrasted dramatically by Halperin's much more positive view of full disclosure and the methods of achieving it.
"The Truth Machine" primarily focuses on the life story of Randall Peterson "Pete" Armstrong, a child prodigy with total recall memory, whose entire life's outlook has been defined the tragic murder of his younger brother, Leonard, by an ex-convict who was believed to be capable of committing violent crimes again, but could not be imprisoned any longer under the current law structure. Pete is committed to making a difference for humanity that will atone for his brother's death and help millions of others, too. In his first year at Harvard (at just age 13!), Pete is recruited to enroll in a small, but exclusive, class of the brightest and most agile students on campus. In that class, he meets people and establishes friendships that will further his identity. It is there that the idea of a `truth machine' is conceived and Pete realizes that its existence is possible and that he could do it. The `truth machine' would be a mechanism that would be 100% accurate in determining if a person was lying or telling the truth. It could help eliminate crime and dishonesty in general. As long as it is employed universally (and not just by government officials), the `truth machine' could revolutionize humanity and take it to that next evolutionary step which would help it avert its coming self-destruction.
The premise is fascinating and, had it just focused on the development and application of the `truth machine', this would have been a very solid book. However, "The Truth Machine" achieves transcendence by becoming a social history of our future. Over 60 years of time and events are covered in this novel. Halperin realizes that the company Pete established to design the `truth machine', Armstrong Technologies Inc. (ATI), will have to produce other products in order to keep functioning during the two decade quest to develop its premier product. Halperin skillfully depicts the formative years of ATI, its development, and the development and growth of the principle people involved. Halperin also frames each of the story's events masterfully by beginning each chapter with a brief synopsis of world events at that particular point in time. It enables the reader to put this future into a proper context and understand the urgency and importance that creating the `truth machine' possesses.
What would the impact of such a machine be? Halperin makes that case that it will help usher the world into period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. The future is too variable to predict, but dangers and benefits of the future put forth in "The Truth Machine" are dealt with equally and fairly. This vision for the future is a remarkable and inspiring one and the journey to get there is rich and full. Few books are as satisfying.
Rating: 
Summary: Tell the truth, I'll know.
Review: What would the world be like if nobody could lie? What would the world be like if they knew that in 10 years they would no longer be able to lie? That's the basis of this book, focused around the smartest individual ever to be born on this planet. Not only do you hate him becuase he's brilliant, you hate him because he's altruistic. Then you hat him because he's rediculously wealthy. Then you hate him because he's flawed, but torn to pieces because of it. Other than my dislike for the main character because he was just too good, I had a few other issues with this book.The book focuses on the impact of a truth machine on the human population and the social changes that occur because of it. Firstly, I think that lying in some cases is a good thing, and in some cases, the right thing. Secondly, I thought that the machine itself is just too implausible for me. And even if someone could come up with it, evolution would prevent that from happening. Lying is built into human nature. If there is a device that can universally monitor something, I truly beleive that evolution will jump in to diversify the species so that there will be a subspecies that can circumvent that monitoring. Secondly, this book briefly mentions that the main character was 5 standard deviations from the norm in terms of intelligence. I took the view that if someone of that intelligence can be born, other, equally likely occurrences should be equally likely. Like aliens landing on earth. Or other species on earth developing intelligence. Or the sun exploding. Nope, too far fetched for this sci-fi reader.
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