Worm

I mentioned to John the other day that I was planning on blogging about Mark Bowden’s new book, Worm, and he told me that there was a review of it in the Wall Street Journal. John brought me the review and I read it. I was immediately conflicted. The review was…well, it wasn’t good. I began questioning my own judgment. The reviewer raised some valid concerns, not just minor annoyances, but problems at the very heart of the book. Could I still in good conscience write a positive recommendation for the book? Worse yet, would I be identifying myself as a numb and uncritical reader if I did?

It bothered me for a while, right up until I sat down to read and realized that, bad review or no, I found myself wanting to pick the book back up and finish it. Not out of duty, or as a challenge, or even out of spite — just because I had been enjoying it, and I wanted to continue the story. And really, that was enough.

So let’s just address some of the concerns. Yes, the book is about the spread of the Conficker computer virus (or, more appropriately, worm), and the efforts of a small team of computer security experts to defeat it. Yes, that is, to put it mildly, a rather nerdy topic for a serious book. And while Bowden does an admirable job of explaining the long-reaching consequences of such a potentially-damaging worm, he can’t quite escape the fact that he’s writing about security loopholes in Microsoft Windows and lines of code, instead of Army Rangers and Blackhawk helicopters.

The bigger issue to me, however, is that the Conficker worm just isn’t the best story available in computer warfare. Two years after the Conficker worm was discovered, a worm that became known as Stuxnet infected computers in the Iranian nuclear program, eventually sabotaging and damaging some 1000 enrichment centrifuges. I can’t help but wonder if Mark Bowden, already committed to his book and deep into his research, swore under his breath when the Stuxnet story broke.

The decision he faced in his research and writing is really the same decision we face in reading, I think. Somebody may write a book about the Stuxnet worm in the next few years. And it may be a perfectly readable book or even a great book. But we don’t have that book yet. What we do have is a very good book by Mark Bowden, one that covers a legitimately interesting story, and that features some excellent writing. I figure that if someone can point out all the flaws in a book, can list them out and discuss them in great detail, and at the end of it, I still pick the book up and enjoy what I’m reading, then there’s no reason to get worked up over a bad review. Just read and enjoy.