Airframe is available on tape from places like
http://www.amazon.com/where I bought my copy. I thought it had great issues for
management courses. It had the integrity/business-ethics issues
with an international power-politics tinge. I thought it handled
the media relations aspects of the "case" well. The novel is
certainly first-rate and certified as such by reviewers. Some
faculty may be loathe to assign reading that has sexual
content--but lot's of luck finding a best-seller nowadays
that doesn't. Still, I would certainly append a warning of this
to those students who might be potentially upset about
that aspect and offer them some alternative assignment.
Going back to the audio tape side of this. I think that
giving students the Amazon.com ordering information
on the audio tape of the novel will make it much more doable
for students generally. That is, they can listen to it on the
way to the university in their car. Or while exercising in
the gym or while eating lunch.
Another great best-selling novel that I listened to on audio-tape
recently is Philip Kerr's Grid (1996; $11.90 on amazon.com).
This is about an expert system-operated high tech building that
turns against the humans who designed, own, and run it. I see this
as being a possibly cool anchor of a discussion on
human/information-techlogy interfaces. Oh, by the bye, Kerr is a Brit.
Yet another recent novel that I listened to on audio
tape is The Tenth Justice by Brad Meltzer (1997; $12.60
at Amazon.com). In this one a clerk for a USA
supreme court justice divulges some information on
a case with implications for business and the problems
that ensue. The business ethics of maintaining
the confidentiality of information is focal.
Cybercollegially,
Charlie Wankel
netmaster--mg-ed-dv
Comments on THE GRID:
Financial Times : Compelling ... Kerr is way ahead of his literary contemporaries ... He may have come closer than anyone to writing the first true multimedia book ... England's answer to Michael Crichton. --This text
Thrillers Editor's Recommended Book, 10/01/96:
If you work in a new office tower run by computers, this terrific and terrifying new thriller might just
convince you to stay home in bed. Built to think its way through earthquakes and terrorist attacks,
the Yu Corporation Building in downtown Los Angeles is so smart that it does secret drug tests in its
toilets, and even spends its downtime stealing business information from competitors. But when the
building's computer goes berserk -- for a reason that will have you howling with laughter when you
discover it -- and starts killing off the people inside, it's up to an ever-shrinking band of experts to
find a way to pull the plug/
.