My experience of The Deus Machine falls into the area of 'damning with faint praise' - I would by no means compare it favorably with Greg Bear, as one poster to rec.arts.sf.written did, but neither did I think it was simply 'bloody awful.' The book impressed me as a pedestrian attempt at a technophobic thriller a la Michael Crichton, and as such it succeeded moderately well - I kept reading till the end (at which point, of course, I stopped).
I'm not qualified to judge the [pseudo]science in the book, but it struck me as less plausible the farther in I got - and that's a bad trait. As a resident of the city it's set in (Portland, OR), I enjoyed noting some of the landmarks Ouellette lists, which may have increased my appreciation of the book to a greater extent than someone somewhere else might experience.
I stuck it out to the end but would not recommend purchasing it. Your local library probably has a copy if you're still interested.
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