I finished the #audiobook of @pluralistic's Picks and Shovels.
This is the first and third book featuring Martin Hench. It's first chronologically, and third by publication.
I ❤️ @wilw. However, nothing drops me out of the story like a mispronunciation. There were two that really bugged me.
#schlumberger ... I've always heard it said as either SLUM-ber-Zhay or SHLUM-ber-Jay (or something between).
#Commodore PET. As the #Wikipedia page will tell you, it's like "pet rock" and later backronymed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET
Picks and Shovels is Marty's coming-of-age. Adulting is not always easy, and some problems get worse when they are ignored. I appreciate that Marty is trying to do the right thing, to the best of his understanding.
If you have seen anything about this book, you know that Marty finds work at Fidelity Computing, and that they are a scummy outfit run by Fine Upstanding Religious Men. This was also the time of the PTL Club, so religionists scamming was a happening thing.
The reason Fidelity needed an accountant was that their best and brightest left Fidelity to form their own computer company. Fidelity was suing this new startup, but they needed help with the multiple boxes of floppy disks that Computing Freedom had turned over as part of discovery.
It isn't too long before Marty sees he's on the wrong side. Figuring out how to fix this while also figuring how to adult is sometimes more than he can manage. We know he doesn't die, because it's the first book. But, we don't know about the specific scrapes he has get out of, and what lessons he takes from them.
This book is excellent reading, especially if you didn't live through or don't remember this time in computer history. Computers used to be fun and exciting.