The Mansion

In this decent if flawed horror thriller from Boone (the Hatching trilogy), Billy Stafford and Shawn Eagle spend months together in a cabin near a derelict mansion Shawn owns in Upstate New York, developing the revolutionary software that will later become the cornerstone of Shawn’s multibillion-dollar tech company. Joining the two is Emily Wiggins, who’s at first Shawn’s girlfriend but eventually ends up marrying Billy. After parting from Shawn, Billy and Emily fall heavily into debt, and Billy hits the bottle. Two decades after those initial months in the cabin, Shawn offers the now sober Billy, who’s living in Seattle, a job, even knowing that Billy blames Shawn for his situation. Shawn has fixed up the mansion, but he needs Billy to complete the next generation of smart home software that they abandoned years ago. Billy can’t turn down the money, so he and Emily return to New York to begin work. Each gradually notices disconcerting inconsistencies in the software they are working on. Boone is slow, though, to move from creepy to terrifying, so that the final confrontation seems rushed. Despite the surfeit of backstory and uneven pacing, technophobes will enjoy this “bad computer” tale. [em]Agent: Bill Clegg, Clegg Agency. (Dec.) [/em]