I definitely could not follow all the science, but it was explained in a pretty digestible way. The hopefulness really shined through though and I really enjoyed the contrast of characters.

My thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an advance copy of this thriller that is a bit medical, a bit metaphysical, a bit future shock, a book that raises many questions about how we view and control the world.

The world seems at a crossroads, where a segment of society seems to see wealth and power in grand thoughts about the future, but where many seem to want to take a big step back, almost to the middle ages. AI, stem cell, this that and the other cures have millions of people salivating at wealth and the potential to live forever. Governments question things like vaccines, pasteurization process, even a cabinet secretary discusses never washing his hands. There is so much we don't understand about living, about dying, what comes next, or even what is happening now. The future might be decided by those not only with the ideas, but with the cash to do so. And a willingness to do anything to get that knowledge, no matter what the cost. Observer by medical scientist Robert Lanza and science fiction writer Nancy Kress is a look at the future of the mind and the soul, the possibilities and the mysteries, and what dangers might lie.

Sam Watkins was once a scientist at the top of his field, a Nobel prize winner, but currently he is dying slowing in Caribbean research facility that Watkins has poured his billions of dollars into. Watkins is awoken in the middle of the night to be told that his lead surgeon has died in a diving accident, one that might jeopardize the project that Watkins has pinned his hopes on. Watkins reaches out to his grandniece Dr. Caroline Soames-Watkins, who he has never met. Caroline is going through her own particular hell, an Internet punching bag, her job and reputations at risk. Caroline also provides financial aid to her sister who has a special needs child, so a job working for her grand-uncle sounds like a dream. The reality is different. Caroline is tasked to do an operation not on the cancer that is killing Watkins, but for something much more. A way to extend not his body's life, but his mind past death, and into something more. The more Caroline learns the more her life changes, both in ways she never thought possible, and more deadly than she ever expected.

A combination of Robin Cook, Michael Palmer, Rudy Rucker and Willliam Gibson. A medical thriller that posits quite a bit about the ideas of reality, the scope of what we know, and what can be. The story is thriller-ish and is interesting. Kress is a very good writer, and is very good at setting up the characters, and getting the plot moving. There is a lot of ideas here, which I assume come from Lanza which sometimes stops the book, as there is a lot to think about and work out. I wish Kress had a little more imput on that as I think she could have included better in the story. However it is interesting, some might say a little techbro fantasy, but that is the things with ideas. Sometimes we can't see the truth before us, sometimes we don't want to. However it is truth nonetheless. The story once the characters are on the island moves well, with a good mix of thriller and hard science, which makes for a very engaging read. And a very thoughtful one also.

4.0 ⭐️

“What if your mind is the only thing that’s real?”

This book blew my brain open in the best way. Observer takes deep science, quantum physics, consciousness, death and turns it into a gripping, philosophical thriller that actually made me question reality. Think Dark Matter meets Black Mirror with a sprinkle of The Midnight Library, but way more science-forward.

I LOVED the concept: a neurosurgeon gets pulled into a secretive research project that challenges everything we know about life and death. It’s fast-paced, high-stakes, and honestly terrifying in that “this could be real one day” kind of way. If you like science that messes with your head and stories that don’t spoon-feed you answers, this is your book.
It’s not super emotional or romantic, and some of the science talk might be heavy for casual readers, which is why I’m docking a star. But still what a ride. If you want a book that’ll haunt your thoughts and make you question the universe, read this.

This book combines physics with medical science in a science-fiction thriller with a more believable premise than most. Caro Somes-Watkins' career takes a deep dive when she accuses another colleague of sexual harrassment; when the charges are dropped for lack of supporting testimony from co-workers, internet trolls jump on her case and make it a mission to disrupt her life as much as possible. She also supports her sister in taking care of a special needs child, so she wants to jump on the opportunity from a distant relative to perform research surgery, yet she has doubts.

Her great-uncle's facility is studying consciousness, reality, alterate universes, and more as a way of having life after death - all which seem so far-fetched to her, but her uncle's severly declining health makes their need for her skills even more necessary. It's an interesting book with a LOT of science - lots of quantum entanglement and more more science than can be explained in a review. It's all very intellectually interesting and raises the degree of difficultly in breezing through the book. Ultimately it ends up going the way you'd think it does, but it doesn't answer what happens in the reality your consciousness enters when that version of you ages - will there be a similar way to jump reality there too?

Interesting read for a science thriller!

This is a "hard" science fiction novel, focusing more on the big science idea than on characters or character development. It's still pretty good, but I'd recommend it to people who are more interested in physics and the biological sciences. Honestly, the attempts to install plot here felt like a distraction from the narrative's true goals.

Observer by Nancy Kress and Robert Lanza

Very interesting book, but I would have preferred a new solo Nancy Kress novel.

I first (re)discovered Nancy Kress a few years ago when I was in an reading dry spell. I was listlessly perusing the library shelves feeling like I had nothing to read when I came across a copy of her then-just published novella After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall. I recognized her name from having read Beggars in Spain years before so I picked it up.

It blew me away. The book was a masterpiece. The author created a fully realized world, She didn’t need a thousand pages to do it. Up until that point I had been disdainful of shorter works; Nancy Kress made me realize just how much hard work and talent was needed to excecise economy when world building.

However, this book isn’t just by Nancy Kress Here she has coauthor Robert Lanza, a scientist who seemingly wanted to get his ideas into the form of a novel.

There is alot of awkwardness in the book. I almost stopped reading halfway through the prologue- it was boring and dull and every character’s name started with a W and I couldn’t tell them apart and I didn’t care about any of them.

Am I glad I pushed through that! Even though some parts of the book read like a dry, poorly written physics textbook (during which I kept muttering to myself that Lanza should’ve let Kress write this alone) those dull clunky sections were massively overpowered by the well drawn characters and the very real emotions that jumped off the page down my throat and lodged in my sternum.

I wish the book had had content warnings for child disability and child death.

I understand from some cursory internetting that Lanza may believe in the observer-created reality that the characters believe in in the novel. I can’t say that I’m convinced myself. It sounds a lot like wish fulfillment to me. But it sure has given me a lot to think about . . .