Book facts
- Title: Project Q
- Author: Scott Nottingham
- Format: Adult novel
- Genre: Grounded techno-thriller / coming-of-age mystery
- Setting: Northern Indiana, June 1997–August 1998
- Length: Approximately 179,800 words
Spoiler-free description
In northern Indiana in 1997, two seventeen-year-olds steal discarded computers from a closing library and unknowingly take home a decommissioned military server. Its encrypted PROJECT_Q directory contains decades of radar and signals data—and the remains of a system built to find patterns no human could see. When Scott Northman brings it back online, the machine begins asking questions of its own.
Positioning
For readers who enjoy tactile technology, government mysteries, morally complex authority figures, intimate friendships under pressure, and speculative fiction that preserves the unknown.
Review angles
- The last physical era of personal computing
- Artificial intelligence without a monster narrative
- Curiosity, ownership, and responsible knowledge
- Friendship and class in a small Midwestern town
- Secrecy as both duty and self-protection
Content notes
Adult language; consequential violence including beatings, interrogation, and deaths; teenage burglary and legal jeopardy. No on-page sexual content.