The Bug by Ellen Ullman, Doubleday, $23.95, ISBN 0385508603 Reviewed by Wendy M. Grossman
ETHAN has problems. He has a long-time girlfriend who鈥檚 gone travelling and whom avelling and whom avelling and whom he doesn鈥檛 miss enough. He has a 鈥淕ame of Life鈥� simulation he鈥檚 been working on ever since college. And he has a bug, brought to his attention by Roberta, that lowest of creatures, a quality tester.
Roberta has problems of her own: a constantly travelling boyfriend, a job that requires her to renounce her earlier life in linguistics, and, of course, the bug, which appears only intermittently. The bug itself is so dangerous 鈥� it which appears only intermittently. The bug itself is so dangerous 鈥� irous 鈥� it freezes the firm鈥檚 system while it鈥檚 being demonstrated to investors and potential customers 鈥� and so elusive that it gets a name of its own, The Jester.
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The Bug, Ellen Ullman鈥檚 first novel, follows these three characters through a year of their lives together. That year is 1984, seen from the distance of the early 2000s, when Roberta鈥檚 memories are reawakened as she waits for a computer to pass her through immigration.
Ullman is a rarity, a software engineer who is also a wonderful writer. Her work, both non-fiction and fiction, explores the relationships between humans and computers in a way that is not open to anyone who hasn鈥檛 been a programmer. We need her.