This book is 90% amazing and 10% yaddy ya ya.
And I mean amazing! I was blown away with some of the ideas and linkages and thoughts and concepts and ideas. I do classify myself as a deep, over-thinker, over-analyser - so that fact that this book made me double take on some notions was wonderful.
At a very high level, this book provides a door into a parallel universe created by the world of words and thoughts and ideas.
"As I type, it is quiet in the house. It is very late. The shadows are long from the standing lamp that illuminates my desk and computer. The hum of the computer is a reassuring one, making me feel that I am not alone, such a comforting hum like the warmth of the processor under my fingerpads. My desk is cluttered - pencils, books, empty water glasses. There is no busyness now though - just the one train of thought - a luxury - thinking of the words to write to you about here."
Can you imagine me? Could you be sitting next to me perhaps?
We may never have met, we may have not seen each other for a long time, or know no very intimate details about each other. But now - we have a shared experience - the experience of my typing and writing that I just described above. So we are connected now - forever, whilst we share that memory. And each person that reads that one, pretty poorly written paragraph, now has a shared experience and is connected as well.
So this connectedness is the parallel world that Hall describes and our protagonist, Eric Sanderson, enters it in an extraordinary way.
The first chapter of this book is I think one of the best I have ever read in terms of mind-blowing conceptually and very exciting.
It starts with Eric waking up but remembering nothing. However there is a note giving him directions to a psychologist who explains he has complete memory loss. However he, or his first incarnation of himself prior to the memory loss, has written daily letters to the new Eric to help him understand and SURVIVE longer than he did. So cool. But that is just scratching the surface.
The only defect to this book is that I do find the characters a little stereotypical and wooden. The dialogue is pretty lame. I read a review which said that if some good scriptwriter could get this book, it could be a fabulous movie .... I imagine it will be. Very Matrix meets Inception on speed.
It is inherently a love story, action, reality-based sci fi story but with many, many cool concepts that I do love re thinking about.
I think this one may need another read to enjoy it all over again actually and savour the ideas and swill them around a bit longer before spitting them out.
This is a must read for like-minded readers, I think, if you can just get past the characters and enjoy the cool mind ride!
