Monday’s Headlines: The Book Review Edition
No spoilers: Gridlock Sam’s book is pretty damn good!
We don’t usually do book reviews, but it must be said that Sam Schwartz’s first novel — a thriller about a possible terror attack by autonomous vehicles — is a very enjoyable read. And that’s no small feat, given all the bureaucratic prose filling Schwartz’s resume (he’s the former city Department of Traffic commissioner, the former Department of Transportation chief engineer and a longtime urban planner).
Just because the guy coined the term “gridlock” doesn’t mean he can write a novel, right? Well, wrong. “Autokill,” written with playwright Cary Pepper, is hard to put down.
Schwartz and Pepper didn’t just write a dystopian novel set in the near future about an AV that goes haywire and kills thousands of people — that, the pair said at a recent Hunter College book talk, would have been too simplistic.
Instead, the duo concocted a layered plot with multiple twists, including good guys who aren’t so good, bad guys that aren’t so bad, scenarios that are mere weeks ahead of today’s headlines and, of course, a professor character who definitely resembles one of the authors. Even the guy you think is the villain is a fully fleshed-out character who has legitimate concerns about AVs (hey, don’t we all?).
There’s plenty of transportation wonkery — hey, it’s Sam Schwartz! — but it pays off in making the intricacies of a possible terror attack by autonomous vehicles feel very plausible. Will the rogue NTSB agent solve the case? Will the right wing talk show host turn out to have been right? And will the professor (who curiously resembles Schwartz) find love again?
Find out by buying it today and reading it … before the inevitable movie comes out.
In other news:
- Ritchie O’Brien, who was walking in Central Park when he was struck and injured by a cyclist on Wednesday, has died. A GoFundMe page has been set up for his family. (Streetsblog, Chelsea News, Reddit)
- Staten Island’s “Downtown” will boom under a Council plan that, nonetheless, could have been far more bold for the area steps from the ferry terminal and Staten Island railroad. (Gothamist)
- We’ll be offering more coverage of this Wednesday’s all-day-and-night e-bike Council hearing, but Gothamist offered a primer.
- followed up Gothamist’s post about the hidden Citi Bike price hike.
- New York needs more housing, not parking. (The Civic Pulse)
- Janno Lieber talks about fixing the Metro-North’s Hudson Line. (amNY)
- And speaking of parking, the New Yorker followed our own Kevin Duggan’s coverage of public efforts to convert unused lots into … literally anything better.
- Coming soon: Dirtier air and most costly gasoline, thanks to the Trump administration. (NY Times)
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