THE DELPHINUS CHRONICLES
R.G. Roane
Cherry Hill Publishing 1998
Hardcover Pgs 280
ISBN: 0-9723298-0-3 

When a small little known college in California wins the right to be the final home of a supercomputer being retired from use by its makers, it seems like a dream come true, and it is.  Unfortunately for the researchers it’s a real nightmare of mystery, mayhem and murder that begins with a single drip of water on a basement wall. 

          In most of academia it’s publish or perish, but in computer research the grand prize is the honor of being the institution that gets the retiring SIMON supercomputer.  Out of the running are Yale and Harvard, but still in the running is obscure Cabrillo University in San Diago.  The obscure school has proposed to teach the retiring computer to learn language.  Against all odds, the dark horse of the competition wins and the school is catapulted into the limelight only to be robbed of its due media attention by the increasing tension in the Middle East.

          With little fanfare, SIMON is crated and shipped to its new home in California.  Set up in the damp basement of the college, the researches give the computer its first suggested project.  SIMON takes the suggestion and writes its own program to complete the task.  Left to its own devises the computer engages its new program with the only language available in the dark lab that has been closed down for the night.  Within days it has formed a learning dialogue with the dolphins in the aquarium next door.  Using its new learning capability, the computer elicits information from the dolphins to store in its massive neural system of memory.

          When the research team stumbles onto the exchanges between the dolphins and the computer by accident, they ask the computer to translate the date in a language useful to them.  SIMON obeys and the real fun begins.  Two great discoveries are made when the research team tests the information the dolphins are providing.  The first is a never before found sunken Spanish Galleon off the Coast of the Dominican Republic, the second it the true location of Atlantis.

          When one of the researches lets the cat out of the bag to her boyfriend, he decides to use the dolphins for his own purposes.  One of which is causing a meltdown of a nuclear power plant on the Island of Catalina.  As if that isn’t bad enough, one of the team has asked SIMON the question that has plagued mankind since he could raise questions.  What are the origins of the human race?  The first situation is bad, but the second is deadly.         

          The Delphinus Chronicles is a sterling example of imagination and techno-knowledge wedded to create a great story wonderfully executed.  Roane is certainly a new and promising voice in the genre.  Fast moving and easy to read, Roane entices the reader to turn the next page before the reader has finished the one before it.  His technique is wonderful and his writing crisp and fast paced.  The lack of techno-jargon is refreshing.  His good guys are ordinary people with no training or experience to deal with the events they find themselves caught up in.

Unlike many novels written by former government agents, Roane shuns the politics and propaganda of governments for the more dangerous outside the government bad guys.  The villains are the kind we love to hate, the megalomaniac killer, and the black ops unit personal we all know exist but can’t prove, and wouldn’t if we could.

          I can’t wait for Roane’s next novel, and I hope I don’t have to wait too long.

Bobbi Duffy