This book caught my attention as an interesting collaborative effort between a scientist (Robert Lanza) and a science fiction writer (Nancy Kress). The content is extremely thought provoking, packaged in a easy-to-read story. 

 

Caroline (Caro) Soames-Watkins is constrained to leave the hospital she works in as a neurosurgeon. She had accused Dr Paul Becker, Chief of Neurosurgery of sexual harassment but her claim is dismissed for want of corroboration and evidence. Caro is close to her sister Ellen and her daughters Kayla and Angelica. While her sister has problems of her own, she offers Caro her moral support. Her great uncle Sam Watkins makes Caro a job offer for a research project a group is running in Cayman Islands. Sam Watkins is very ill and is keen for Caro to join at the earliest. Caro reluctantly agrees though she is very sceptical about the project initially as it comes across as far-fetched to her. The research combines physics concepts (including the multiverse, quantum entanglement, time theories and others) with neuroscience. The underlying premise for the research is that matter is created when observed by consciousness, else it exists as quantum foam. The research team claims remarkable advances using this to change human understanding and lives. There are others on the project including Weigert, Julian and another neurosurgeon Trevor who joins after her. 

 

This book introduces some brave ideas, all rooted in good science. By virtue of having a scientist as one of the authors, the science gets far more prominence than usual in science fiction books. But it is done carefully – in an easy-to-understand conversational format. The book does draw to some extent on experiences mystics report and is also prominent in Vedanta, referred to in passing in the book (in Vedanta ‘Brahman’ is the permanent originator & unifier which also manifests as us & what we see). The quotes below are illustrative. 

 

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She lay—at six years old? Seven?—on a blanket in the back garden, watching clouds drift across the sky. Then, all at once, the clouds were no longer there, and neither was Caro. She was nowhere and everywhere, woven into what she later thought of as “the fabric of the universe.” She was the clouds, the grass, the breeze, the ant crawling across her arm. Everything was her, and she was everything. 

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He’d imagined a world where, as people began to see the truth of a consciousness-centered universe, they would come to understand that other people, too, were intimately connected to them. They would then become kinder to each other. All men would truly become brothers because they were all sharers in the consciousness that shaped the world. 

Sadly, the writing is not great, reducing what could have been a blockbuster science fiction book to something much lesser. Yet, this book has concepts and perspectives which are intellectually very stimulating, and for that – I definitely recommend it.