Jason Furman's Reviews > The Imitation Game: Alan Turing Decoded

I have been captivated by Alan Turing’s story ever since I saw Derek Jacobi perform it in Breaking the Code. The Imitation Game movie almost ruined it. But this book does not share much more than a subject and a title, it is much better.

I really like the Jim Ottaviani scientific biographies in graphic novel format ostensibly aimed at YA readers (Feynman, Hawking, and Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas) and this one was no exception. This was probably a higher ratio of life to works than the others with Jim Ottaviani making less effort to explain Alan Turing’s major contributions and doing more to showcase his life. But it is quite a life.

I say ostensibly YA because all of the biographies are relatively sophisticated in a variety of ways: flashbacks, imaginary scenes, someone narrating interspersed with the stories, somewhat complicated themes that do not whitewash some of the more sordid personal details, and most importantly a lot of attempt to explain the science.