Book Review: The Blind Scorpian, book one by Farsheed Ferdowsi and Mike Wells

The BLIND SCORPION is a Top Secret computer program for simulating nuclear weapons explosions and the catastrophic havoc they wreak. The most advanced technology of its kind, the BLIND SCORPION requires such intense number crunching capability that it runs on a dedicated mind-numbing 1,400 teraflop IBM Blue Gene supercomputer burrowed underground at the National Energy Research Computing Center in Oakland, California. 

Dr. Ross Shaheen, the developer of the software, is living the American dream. Between his internationally-recognized nuclear weapons research career at the prestigious Berkeley Lab and his picture-perfect family in the San Francisco suburbs, it's a good life that can only get better...until he is lured into lecturing before an elite group of scientists in the country of his birth: Iran. 
The seven thousand mile trip takes Shaheen back to the land of the lion and the sun, yet it also delivers to Iran's very doorstep an important American citizen with Top Secret security clearance. It soon becomes clear what the Iranians are really after: the BLIND SCORPION. The coveted software is the key to advancing their clandestine nuclear weapons program without the rest of the world being able to prove its existence. Shaheen becomes entangled in a twisted web of espionage, corruption and survival, putting to the test not only his secret knowledge but also the very core of his allegiance to the land he now calls home. 

My Review: 
Sometimes you'll read a book and realize that the author was intentionally making this the first book in a series. Little things clue you in--big blocks of information that may sometimes seem boring but turn out to be necessary later, a character introduced but not really worked with by the end of the book and most of all--the lack of a climax. There's no action in this one. It's all setting up for the next book. That's not to say it was unenjoyable; on the contrary, I really enjoyed the writing itself and Ferdowsi's prowess at the written word gave me large expectations for book 2.

My Rating: 3 of 5, but keep an eye out for the series review once I see how everything in this book ties into the other ones.