Review: Similar to some classic but not quite a classic on it's own
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 21, 2013
Memoria By alex Bobl  (They control your memories - They tell you how to live.)This was one of those few that took my interest by the book cover. It's cover reminded me of Philip K Dick's  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in its incantation as Blade Runner (the movie) and the tag line and it's title reminded me of Philip K Dick's We Can Remember it For You Wholesale aka Total Recall. But in reading it I couldn't help but be reminded of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The story sucked me in and caught my interest and eventually the closest it ever came was mostly to the movie versions of the Philip K Dick Stories which include all the dynamic twist and turns of plot while mayhem and carnage reigned supreme.While little that's published today seems to ever reach that same literary level that the Huxley parody of other utopian works has reached it is of note that there are some interesting similarities in this story that plot-wise bring it close only toward being like examining Brave New World in a distorted fun-house  mirror that populates today's writing styles.I love a good suspense novel. I confess that I could never read them at any sustained level. I like mine in small doses. This is the second one this year and both have contained a theme that borders onto paranoid conspiracy theories and the possibility of mass mind control. They both have high body counts also.As the story goes; Frank Shelby is an attorney coming back to the city from a non-productive meeting and is looking forward to  connecting with his girl friend Kathleen whom he believes he wants to take the  next step with despite the fact that he doesn't know that much about her, including her last name. His troubles start when a pushy cabbie tries to pick him up, he doesn't know it yet but that's his first clue things will go south. When he arrives at his apartment where Kathleen is waiting, because he gave her a key, he finds her dead and ends up embroiled in...well a conspiracy of a sort.Frank becomes a fugitive and as the bodies begin to pile up it's clear that giving himself up is no option. The problem is that he lives in a world where everything and everyone is controlled by Memoria tech that monitor everyone all the time and everyone is expected to periodically show up at Memoria to have their brains cleaned. They have their thoughts scanned and have bad memories removed. This of course leads to something similar to PKD's Minority Report where criminals might be caught by their thoughts. The bracelets they wear and the procedure they undergo are similar to the notion of Soma in BNW. But soon we will see that things might go further with the Memoria tech and skills might be transferable  which is similar to what goes on in PKD's We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (Total Recall).The group Frank is helping to negotiate with are the people who don't have bracelets and are on a sort of reservation away from the rest. These are like the savages in Huxley's BNW. Because the Memoria tech has been weakening the will of the people they have come to rely on much of their food and energy coming from the reservation.  The powers that be are looking toward changing that.If the author Alex Bobl tried to tell me he'd never read Philip K Dick he'd be hard pressed to convince me although it's possible since Aldous Huxley did claim he'd not read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin prior to writing Brave New World.Anyone that loves Suspense Novels and lots of action and body counts should find this enjoyable. And for those who have read the other books mentioned it will be an added treat. For anyone who hasn't read those books I'd suggest reading a few them to make the comparison and because i feel they are superior.As always I warn there were a few grammatical stumbles with word choices that seemed odd and sentence structure that had me reading a few times to figure something out and the use of things like 151th that just seemed like it would sound better as 151st although it looks just as bad that way.  As a total less than a handful of serious road-stops so not so bad.J.L.Dobias