Review: Not for everybody
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 10, 2013
Do you like a book in which "what is" is constant and self-consistent, or would you like a book where "what is" takes dramatic shifts as the book progresses? If you answer yes to the first and no to the second, I suggest you avoid this book. However, if you can say yes to the second, then this may well be for you. It is well produced, and the ending is quite imaginative and proceeds at a good pace, although there is a glaring lack of self-consistency.I shall not divulge the plot, other than this at the start. Suppose you were a successful author, and just as you had received some adulation from fans, someone comes up to you and says you stole his identity? Since he admits his name is different, no problem? Well, no, you stole his pen name. This is the start to this book, and it certainly sets an interesting scene, which soon lurches into the possibility of doppelgangers.The book starts off being written in the first person present.  First person has an interesting aspect to it in that information is limited to what that person knows, but it permits a full understanding of what that person's point of view is. This brings me to the point that I found disconcerting: the "I" person lies to the reader. Worse than that, the story is not self-consistent, and the reader does not know whether that is because "I" is lying, or the author has forgotten certain details. Thus "I" is on a mission, but "I" does nothing to achieve it, and I found no clue as to what it is. As a second example, in the middle we learn that the "I" is the second alien teleported onto Earth as an experiment to see if this can be done (or at least that is how I read it).  He was incarcerated in a mental institution immediately after arrival and "treated" for no good reason, and very much later we find those treating him are his species. Um, he was supposed to be the second one to arrive. How did the others get there, and why do they incarcerate one of their own kind sent on a mission?To summarize, if you like fluctuating existentialism, this may be the book for you. If you want a story that is self-consistent with consistent internal logic, it is best avoided.