Weapon

Mason's ingenious first novel is marked by the dramatic drive that distinguished his praised Vietnam memoir, Chickenhawk. The indisputable star of an outsized cast of fully realized characters--and far more human than most of them--is Solo, a highly sophisticated robot. In Costa Rica, Solo's inventor, Bill Stewart, privately rejoices when the ``weapon,'' trained to kill, disappears. Endowed with an intellect and feelings, the robot experiences conflicts about his role as a killer, and, eluding his Pentagon masters, aborts his helicopter mission and crash lands in a Nicaraguan village. Here he befriends the people threatened by the Contras and the CIA. The action increases in ferocity and suspense right up to the wonderful, unpredictable, grand finale. Solo is an inspired creation who animates this thrilling, sharply satiric adventure that invites thoughts about technological progress and warfare. Readers will eagerly await Mason's promised sequel to this rousing anti-technothriller technothriller. (Apr.)