The Grid Mass Market Paperback – February 1, 1997

A new, high tech building is ready for occupancy, but as its self replicating computer system, Abraham, is exposed to a child's hunt-and-kill computer game, it recreates itself in a deadly manner. Self awareness follows self replication, and the people trapped inside The Grid become enemies in Abraham's game to hunt and destroy them, following the programming code from the computer game that was incorporated into its system functions. The now self aware building begins killing the humans trapped inside one by one, using whatever it has available; elevators, bathroom cleaning systems, pool cleaning systems, etc. A gory and inventive tale of horror and survival, against an enemy that cannot be rationalized with. This is a great read for a night spent in any modern high rise, hotel or apartment or office. Enjoy.

boring, difficult to get into

Kerr gets better with time. G Kossow

It's workmanlike and formulaic. I saw the author on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson and was really intrigued. I'm about forty pages into the book and am really disappointed.

This story begins with the public execution of four men in the center field of a football stadium in a city in China. It ends with a massive new building self-destructing in downtown Los Angeles. If there was any connection between the execution of the four unfortunates and the rest of the story, it must have escaped me, and to tell you the truth, I can't be bothered to go back and try to figure it out. The self-destruction which occurred at the end was, I guess warranted and expected, because for 440 pages that building had been, pardon my expression, an SOB. It is the building, and the computer which controlled everything in it, which is the main character in this story. It was designed by world famous architect, Ray Robinson. The client was Yue-Kong Yu, head of the eponymous Yu Corporation, a favored enterprise in the Peoples Republic of China. From the hologram of the attractive Kelly Pendry which welcomed one into the front lobby, to the lighting, air conditioning, elevators and floor cleaners, everything was controlled by the central computer system known as Abraham, it even controlled the automatic bidets in the men's wash room and played the concert grand in the main Atrium. Somehow, somebody, early in this story, really pissed Abraham off because it promptly cloned itself and without any help from Hagar, brought forth Ishmael. Ishmael did not have Abraham's sunny disposition and taking the digital reins, proceeded forthwith to wreak havoc and mayhem on the unfortunate few who were in the building. I think that the person who pissed Abraham off may also have inadvertently killed off Ishmael's virtual half brother. If that were so, I could at least feel a little empathy, but with all of the digital double-talk I can't be sure of that and instead I had to resist the urge to reformat my own hard drive. I could not begin to tell you all the tricks which Ishmael was able to play on the "Humanplayers" in this saga. Tricks he could play because the world famous Architect had designed a building with only one front door and Ishmael had the only key. The only way you can tell that it was Philip Kerr who wrote this story, is because every now and again, for no logical reason, one of the gorgeous long-legged women felt compelled to get it on with one of the guys. But it was always over in a flash, so it didn't really interrupt the mayhem which was under way. I have amply praised Mr. Kerr for his Bernie Gunther stories, among the very best of the historical fiction written about WWII. However with this novel, I think he was really pulling our legs

This book took a while to "get started" and included way too much architectural lingo at the beginning but the premise is interesting. Once the first person got killed it started moving faster. I have to say the characters, other than Curtis, Richardson and Jenny are not well-rounded and I took off a star for the author's blatant sexism toward women. There was quite a bit of degrading situations involving women and rude conversation among the male characters about women that I almost stopped reading it. Thankfully, once the storyline regarding the computer got going, the sexism largely came to an end.I am almost at the end of this book, having checked it out of the library a few weeks ago. I think people involved in architecture and technology would enjoy this much more than the average Joe.

We've had all kinds of serial thrillers in the past two decades, but none is quite as formidable as this one! It's a building! Kerr's "The Grid," originally published in 1995 as "Gridiron" is a very good way to spend a few hours. Full of stock characters and some rather cliche situations, it nonetheless is a fun trip. Seems as though this building's computer has decided to "generate or procreate" and the smart computer whizzes make sure they kill the offspring...or do they. On a Friday evening, like an Agatha Christie novel, all the principals are brought together into this fantastic building, and then one by one, they are all picked off in uniquely grotesque fashion, as the building locks them in for the weekend. Some of the deaths are quite gory, and some come unexpected. Kerr paints a rather nasty portrait of our villain, Ray Richardson, but attempts by the end of the novel, to make this villain see the error of his ways and become a hero. Not the smartest thing to do, but it works anyway. Earlier in the book, when one of the first murders occurs, Richardson warns his employees they are not to attend the funeral unless they take personal leave. Wow, sounds like someplace I used to work.There is an important clue early in the novel, one that you may miss, so keep those attentive reader's ears open.This is a fun book, and even though it gets pretty far-out at the end, I still had fun.RECOMMENDED.