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5.0 • 1 Rating
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Publisher Description
How far would you go to live forever?
Brilliant scientist Joe Messenger believes that people can be made to live for ever. Knowing the human body can be frozen indefinitely, Joe devises a way of downloading the human brain into a supercomputer called ARCHIVE.
But Joe's wife, Karen, is worried by his preoccupation with ARCHIVE, which seems to be developing signs of a distinct and sinister personality of its own.
Then, just as Joe is on the brink of a scientific breakthrough, a series of macabre accidents befall him and his family - and Joe finds himself facing the terrifying consequences of his own obsessions.
'Easily James's best book to date; a thought-provoking menacer that's completely technological and genuinely frightening about the power of future communications.' Time Out
'Compulsive ... I cannot remember when I last read a novel I enjoyed so much.' Sunday Telegraph
Read more from the multi-million copy bestselling author of the Roy Grace novels:
Possession
Dreamer
Sweet Heart
Twilight
Prophecy
Alchemist
Denial
The Truth
* Each Peter James novel can be read as a standalone*
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his first techno-thriller, James tackles the issue of life after death, just as he did in his horror novels Twilight and Possession. This time, though, the author's fervid imagination--which here mixes the cryonic preservation of human life, the downloading of human personalities into a computer and a Fatal Attraction-style love affair--creates only a muddle. Neuroscientist Joe Messenger, of England's Isaac Newton University, has inherited his father's belief in, and passion for, cryonic preservation; he has also constructed a computer dubbed ARCHIVE, designed to eventually store the contents of an adult human brain. This goal seems far beyond reach until Joe meets the seductive Juliet Spring, who shows him how it can be done. But Juliet has an ulterior motive--she has six months to live, and wants her own personality digitized before she dies. When she does die, and ARCHIVE takes on her chillingly psychotic characteristics, the reader will be miles ahead of most of the characters in figuring out what's going on. The only real surprise involves the cryonics subplot, which is a needless complication, giving the impression that this novel consists of two books forced between the same covers. In addition, by pacing revelations slowly to accommodate his well-drawn but amazingly obtuse characters, James risks losing readers' interest. Despite an intriguing premise and some genuine scares, this is yet another novel in which less would have been more.
