In this ”classic haunted house tale meets Black Mirror” (Book Riot), a family moves into a home equipped with the world’s most intelligent, cutting-edge, and intuitive computer ever–but a buried secret leads to terrifying and catastrophic consequences. After two years of living on cheap beer and little else in a bitterly cold tiny cabin outside an abandoned, crumbling mansion, young programmers … abandoned, crumbling mansion, young programmers Shawn Eagle and Billy Stafford have created something that could make them rich: a revolutionary computer they name Eagle Logic.
But the hard work and escalating tension have not been kind to their once solid friendship–Shawn’s girlfriend Emily has left him for Billy, and a third partner has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. While Billy walks away with Emily, Shawn takes Eagle Logic, which he uses to build a multi-billion-dollar company that eventually outshines Apple, Google, and Microsoft combined.
Years later, Billy is a failure, beset by poverty and addiction, and Shawn is the most famous man in the world. Unable to let the past be forgotten, Shawn decides to resurrect his and Billy’s biggest failure: a next-generation computer program named Nellie that can control a house’s every function. He decides to set it up in the abandoned mansion they worked near all those years ago. But something about Nellie isn’t right–and the reconstruction of the mansion is plagued by accidental deaths. Shawn is forced to bring Billy back, despite their longstanding mutual hatred, to discover and destroy the evil that lurks in the source code.
From the internationally bestselling author of the “apocalyptic extravaganza” (Publishers Weekly) The Hatching series, this white-knuckled thriller is perfect for fans of Stephen King and Iain Reid.
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With technology growing by leaps and bounds, the possibilities are endless – phones that are way too smart, creepy toys that “learn,” cars that drive themselves, the list goes on and on. With that in mind, The Mansion certainly piqued my interest. The idea is not entirely new. It’s been done in one form or another in movies and books, but just the thought of a house with Nellie’s capabilities gives me the willies. That said, this one did have that, but it doesn’t entirely deliver on the horror aspect. It’s way too slow to be what I would consider scary. We do get a few chills, but so much of the story is repetitive, plus we get tons of backstory by way of info dumps, and lengthy descriptions of everything – and I do mean everything. Granted, some of the backstory is relevant to the here and now, but a lot felt more like filler, dragging the story along. What it all amounts to is a lot of information with a creepy tidbit here and there. Considering what the blurb suggests, this story doesn’t have nearly enough of Nellie, who is the most interesting character in the story. It does pick up in the last third or so of the book, but by that point, it’s too little, too late to save it for me, and the conclusion is a bit too easy to predict.
I really enjoyed the Hatching series and when I saw the author had a haunted house tale, I couldn’t wait to see how he spun it.
The house is haunted. In more ways than one. It’s a smart house like no other. But what do you do when the AI goes rogue?
I can’t begin to review this in the way I’d like. It would have too many spoilers. There are so many side stories that come together in the end to reveal the truth about the haunting. The characters have their own agendas and some secrets they’d do most anything to keep from coming to light. And the techie house just plain scares me.
I was hoping to love this. But, I just didn’t get into it the way I did with the author’s spider series. Not so much because there were none, more because I didn’t like any of the character’s. They were shallow and secretive, with few redeeming qualities. Maybe the author wanted them to come across that way, and that’s okay. I don’t always have to like character’s to enjoy a good story. But, in this case, I needed to care about at least one, And, I didn’t. Though, a certain someone did intrigue me.
In all, an entertaining read with a haunting of the modern kind. I may not have loved this, but I never didn’t want to finish it. And I’ll be game to read whatever the author brings on next.
The idea behind The Mansion by Ezekiel Boone is an interesting and fascinating one, but this book is not going to be for everyone!
What it’s about: Young programmers Shawn Eagle and Billy Stafford work for 2 years in a small, isolated cabin next to the decrepit Eagle Mansion, on a program that is eventually named Eagle Logic. Billy and Shawn have a falling out when Billy leaves with Shawn’s girlfriend Emily, and after the mysterious disappearance of their third partner, Takata. Years later Shawn is the multi-billion-dollar owner of Eagle Logic, while Billy and Emily are poor with maxed out credit cards and crappy cars. Shawn invites Billy to his company to offer a proposition that Billy go live in the fixed up Eagle Mansion to work out some bugs in a system that Billy and Shawn created back in that little cabin. Nellie is a computer program that is the ultimate personal assistant, she can literally anticipate your needs before you even have them. But where is the glitch in Nellie’s system? And just how far will they go to fix it…?
When I started this book I really didn’t think I was going to like it. After reading the synopsis I was incredibly intrigued, but The Mansion had a very slow start for me. I found the beginning a bit dragged out and repetitive, but once I hit about 25% – boy oh boy! Things really started picking up after that point, and everything got very interesting.
I’m far from being a computer nerd, but I loved the idea of a book with a computer program that has basically taken over a house. The future is now, and I am always interested in technology, even if only from a buyers point of view. Nellie was fascinating to read about and even though there was a lot of talk about programming and things of that nature, I think Boone did a very good job of making it something understandable.
I think that it is very important to point out that The Mansion is very heavily character driven, and it’s not one of those edge of your seat plot-driven thrillers. A lot of the book is spent on Shawn and Billy’s backgrounds, although I would have liked more of Emily’s as well. The only true woman’s perspective in this novel was hers, and I could have used a tiny bit more of it.
The only real qualm I had with the novel, besides the slow start, was that there were a couple of things that I didn’t feel got explained very well. I would have liked to know more about Emily’s sister’s twins and I wish there would have been a better explanation of Nellie (these things will make sense if you read the book). I thought those points got glossed over a bit and I was disappointed I didn’t know more about what was going on.
Final Thought: If the synopsis sounds good to you, I recommend picking it up as long as you know it’s not a terribly fast moving novel the entire way through. There are multiple POVs which I really enjoyed, and the ending was pretty crazy as well. It did get a bit gory at times and there are some tough subjects like abuse, but overall it really just focuses on the characters and ‘fixing’ Nellie. Looking forward to reading more from this author!
The Mansion is a cyber- thriller, that makes you think that you are in Skynet territory. The house has a special computer that surpasses Cortana and Siri, would you want to live in it?
Follow the characters as they enter the special house, and find that nothing is what it seems to be