The Soul of a New Machine starts out talking about a man going sailing. Then, it drifts on to some other stuff. Eventually, it starts talking about a team that is going to try to build a new computer. Because of the weird way the author went about telling the story, I was never entirely sure what the real topic of the book was, and that is - apparently - what the author was going for.

While the telling of the story is confusing, the actual descriptions of how the computer is developed are really clear and interesting. The debugging is compelling and exciting. Explaining such a complicated process in such a clear way is challenging, so this is definitely an achievement. However, the book is also about young employees working under incredibly stressful conditions, which it absolutely glorifies. The book very much encourages the belief that it is okay for developers to be assholes, because they are geniuses and able to do things that others can't do. The storyline that the author gives us is that this toxic environment produced a computer that saved the company when other projects failed, and we are left with the impression that only a toxic environment could have done that.

According to an opinion piece in Communications of the ACM, this book is "literary nonfiction" and the confusing way that it is written is a style choice. It does definitely encourage us to see the whole experience of creating a computer as something that is extraordinary and Tom West, the person in charge of the project, as a mysterious figure. Honestly, I think it comes across as both pretentious and harmful. Encouraging people to harm themselves and treat others badly obviously makes things worse for not just the programmers, but everyone around them too.

Would I read this book again? No. Not only that, but I will make an effort to never read anything else by this author.

Should you read it? It has some interesting parts about building a computer. Just be aware of what you are getting into.