“Vaz” is the story of Vaz Gettnor, a socially impaired, yet scientifically brilliant man. Despite his inability to relate to others, Lisanne married him in admiration for what she perceived as shy intelligence. However, she’s been disappointed by the way he’s settled for working as no more than a glorified lab tech with a low salary. Adding to their problems, Vaz and Lisanne have two teenagers who are typically surly, embarrassed by their parents, but whom they want to send to college—if only they can find the money. When Vaz is fired from his job as a researcher, but then discovers a means to achieve “cold fusion,” a technology which could solve the energy crisis and their financial difficulties, virtually no one believes him, least of all his family. In fact, the only people who do believe are the ones who are trying to steal the technology from him... Turns out, if you’re a genius, such problems may not be as bad as they seem.
I was born on the island of Cyprus where my dad was employed as a mining engineer. We moved to the Philippines (more mining) when I was three and then to Arizona when I was 9. I went to med school at the University of Arizona and did a residency in Orthopaedics at the University of Kansas. I taught Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill until I retired in 2017.
I've always loved science fiction and it's been great fun getting to write some. I also like music and have a little home recording studio. You can read more, listen to some music and look at some of my art, at http://laury.dahners.com/ if you like.
If you want to contact me, or be put on my email list to be notified when new books come out, just email me at [email protected]
Geek to the rescue! A very enjoyable read. Highly entertaining! I found the characters to be well developed, well at least the "Gettner's". I easily can recommend this book.
Three and a half stars. I was looking for an Ell Donsaii fix and figured I should go to the source. I like Dahners' style and especially his 'what if' approach to the bounds of real science. This hit all those marks. Where it missed for me was in the character development (there just wasn't any). The introduction was great, and it went down hill from there. Where Ell is something special, even maybe super-human; Vaz is just odd. In fact he is probably psychotic and the only depth to his character is that psychosis.
I liked the science and I still greatly enjoy Dahners' writing. I will read the next book and hope the characters gain a little depth.
Oh wow, I did not expect to enjoy this book quite so much :D The humour in it was quite wonderful and I was cheering Vaz throughout. Short and wonderful :)
There are some clunkers and ham-handed bits in here, but who cares? Vaz is really hard to put down, the kind of book you read until your head nods, then turn out the light, and then a little bit later switch it on again, go get a snack and keep reading because you so much want to know what crazy thing is going to happen next? And will the bad guys "get what's coming to them" and "will the kids figure things out?" and best of all "This idea, this experiment, is it going to work"?!
Having a protagonist who is not Neurotypical allows the author quite a bit of room to experiment with narrative voice and point of view which I enjoyed. This didn't grate on me like The Rosie Project which takes up similar topics but in a much more cloying manner. It's somehow more fun to spend time with Vaz and his awkward dialogue and fight scenes in spite of the kapow momentum of it all.
Generally I enjoy Dahners’ books. Completely aside from his atrocious comma usage and a tendency to make his MCs all-powerful, which his characters and storylines normally manage to overcome, this one has some issues.
While Dahners does reasonably well at portraying spectrum behaviors, at no point does anyone in the book actually consider that he has autism or any spectrum diagnosis. With the extreme symptoms the MC exhibits throughout, someone would have noticed, speculated, etc. Yet his wife, children, and long-time boss have no clue and just flounder uselessly trying to figure it out.
Granted that it isn’t as widely understood as many other issues, but it stretches belief that a wife of 17/18 years is just as clueless as when they married, in a scientifically advanced future.
I loved this book! I identify with the quirky, peculiar protagonist Vaz a little too much for comfort. Vaz seems like a harmless inefectual nerd, but he has some surprising talents.
The story is basically good and well written. However, the author claims the main character is "on the spectrum" but it is like they have never actually met someone with Asperger's (sp?) Syndrome...and all their knowledge comes from their pathetic assumptions and Hollywood's weak portrayal of someone "on the spectrum". I also don't believe on this day and age that nobody in his life recognized that he had Asperger's and was unable to educate his closest friends and family in his condition.
Mistakes: I didn’t find any mistakes in this book. However I do think that it could have been longer.
Plot: An eccentric scientists is fired from his job at a company that has been stealing from him for years. When he invents cold fusion they suddenly want him back, and will go to great lengths to make it happen.
Characters: At times I don’t like the Mc, other times I do. He is a very odd duck. 7/10
I enjoy speculative science fiction, I am not a physicist, but this may be hard science fiction. The hero is an awkward, maladept brilliant person whose social skills are almost non existent. He ends up reuniting a semi dysfunctional family. The reason he has not communicated his success, is explained in the final paragraph of the book.
Vaz is a lot slower of a pace than Dahners' Bonesetter and Telekinetic books. While I didn't enjoy Vaz as much as those, it's still worth the read. Even not knowing anything about physics, it was still cool to read about. I can only imagine how much more enjoyable it would be if one did know physics.
The protagonist of the story is a hoot, an autistic savant who not only discovers the key scientific breakthrough of fusion, but to manage his frustration and feed his insights, becomes a lean, mean, fighting machine. Add the family dynamics, and this made for quite the romp! Recommended.
I had no idea what to expect when I started this story. The title, after all, doesn't give a clue. But Dahners created a charming new character, Vas, who you cannot help but love and admire. The only trouble with this book is that once you start you can't put it down. I would love to see a movie made from this. Awesome!
I like this kind of story, the way that some bosses are just stupid. The inventions are good, no, they are wonderful. Remember, Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself and the democrats stole the 2020 election. Why are we the people putting up with this crap? Government should answer to us, we should not answer to them. RESIST!!
This series is one of my favorites. Besides the science fiction slant which is based on real science, Dr Dahners clearly describes the psychological stresses of growing teenagers and living with an adult suffering from Aspergers Syndrome. All of this put together in a great read. This is great fiction and a really good read.
I am a big fan of Mr. Dahners, having read much of his Hyllis family stories and the stasis stories. It was obvious from very early on in this book, however, that this is an older story of Mr. Dahners, from when he was first beginning his craft. The language, stories, emotions, thinking, etc. was extremely juvenile and hard to believe. I am glad that his newer stories is much more evolved.
Excellent book with characters that might be hard to accept if you haven't met them, Look up 'Doc' Travis Taylor to find a PhD martial artist mountain biker. If most of what you do for a living is think, you might have some odd hobbies. I loved the family dynamic, and the villains made sense...
I was starting to read this book for the 3 rd time and realized I hadn’t left a review. At first glance I wanted to read this but this author hasn’t written a dud yet so I read then wanted to kick myself it is really good and interesting and so is the rest of the series. ENJOY!
Congratulations to Lawrence Dahners for this amazing series. It’s hard to find such an interesting and exciting author who not only writes intelligently but also provides top rated plots, characters and excitement in the stories. I’m really looking forward to the next book.
entertaining in parts, but like all his stories a positive mutation only effects one family and everybody else is an idiot who offends the protagonist in the same way, very unrealistic in humans with an iq higher than 86. is he trying to write like Gene Roddenberry, Dahners is way off. and someone really wants to build tunnels under his houses, mentally shrugs.
I love Laurence Dahners writing and this is no exception. I especially like the wife in this book. Her ability to see past the first, obvious emotion is inspiring
I love this story! I have never given a five star rating to any book before. I don’t even bother to review below a three. The twists and turns in this tale are wonderful. I will read the rest of the series.
I'm behind on my reviews so, since I listened to books 1-3 consecutively, I am giving them all this same, short, review: Read the book description and, if it appeals at all, give these books a try. While not perfect books, they are so far above average they deserve 5 stars.
I never left a review??? On my fourth reading of this book. Anything this author writes is worth reading, even more now that his books are Kindle unlimited. He was one of the few I was happy to buy before he went KU . This books always been my favorite.
Another look at desktop fusion Vaz is a complex, even obscure genius, which makes living and working with him very difficult. Cheated at work and beset by intellectual thievery, he develops some unique skills.