Mike Laursen: If you are wondering what it was like to work at Xerox during the invention of the personal computer, this book conveys the experience. I like that Cory shows the doubt and struggle experienced while achieving something great.

I was still in high school during the events that take place in this book, but I was excitedly reading about the inventions being developed at PARC in hobbyist magazine, "Creative Computing". I didn't know then that ten years later I would end up working at the same two locations in the book, the Xerox computer development divisions in southern and northern California. I even played on the softball team in Palo Alto, just as described in the book. The culture, and a few of the people, were the same when I worked there, and are very accurately described.

I hear rumors that Cory may be working on a sequel set more in my period; I hope so. A lot of people don't know that Xerox spend over a decade trying to make a go commercially of the Xerox Star office systems, and I had the sometimes surreal experience of being fresh out of college and having a front row seat for the last days of that effort.