cover image The Singularity Project

The Singularity Project

F. M. Busby. Tor Books, $21.95 (349pp) ISBN 978-0-312-85443-0

The author of The Breeds of Men stretches a short story plot to the breaking point in this well-written but transparently thin futuristic novel starring Mitch Banning, a freelance telecommunications expert and part-time science writer. Banning falls in with a con artist who has talked an eccentric millionaire into funding the development of a teleportation device. Then someone calling himself the Green Hornet begins killing people associated with the project and threatening others in an extortion attempt. Although the teleportation process seems to work at first, Banning figures out the con, which, in a double flip, may succeed after all. As always, Busby's uniquely gritty prose style is a pleasure, his characters real and individual and his near-future completely convincing. But the stretching devices are painful: obstacles are thrown in the paths of characters merely to drag out the story, and the last third of the book is an overextended epilogue. (Feb.)