Brain Thief (Sci Fi Essential Books) (original 2010; edition 2010)

A nice story which was more a thriller with a bit of SF thrown in. ( )

I found this 2009 hardcover at the Mennonite charity shop in New Hamburg.

From Amazon:
Bernal Haydon-Rumi, executive assistant to a funder of eccentric projects, drops by his boss’s house on the way home from a business trip. By the next morning, he’s been knocked out, his wealthy socialite boss Muriel has stolen a car and vanished, and the AI designed for planetary exploration that she’s been funding turns out to be odder than it should be. In figuring out what’s going on, Bernal has to deal with an anti-AI activist toting a handmade electronic arsenal, a local serial killer, a drug dealer with a business problem, a cryonic therapist stalked by past mistakes—and someone who specifically wants Bernal dead.
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A very strange book. There were some good lines in it, but otherwise a bit flat.

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

At first glance, the "trippy" "cyberpunk" novel Brain Thief by Alexander Jablokov looks like something that'd be right up my alley, to the point that it's one of the few titles I've ever bothered to put on reserve at my local library, instead of my usual habit of choosing books based on whatever random titles happen to be there on the day of my visit. But alas, this novel is neither trippy nor cyberpunk, but rather a sorta ham-fisted gonzo comedy that shares exactly enough surface-level elements with trippy cyberpunk to justify some lazy marketer slapping the words onto the dust jacket, a book that supposedly concerns the day-after-tomorrow high-tech industry centered around Boston and an artificially intelligent entity that has gone rogue, but whose entire first half (which is as far as I read) mostly consists of zany chase scenes that for some unknown reason are set in locations that feel more like rural California in 1956. Of course, details like these have been forgiven in other bizarro novels I've reviewed here, but Brain Thief also happens to be egregiously guilty of the most common crime among all genre fiction in general, of ignoring character development in their service of an overly convoluted plot; and so not only does this book mostly consist of zany chase scenes when it's been advertised as a brainy thriller, but they are chase scenes set among disposable cartoon characters, completely failing to generate any interest among the reader as to what their fates might be, and instead forcing the reader to judge the book solely by how clever it is (which unfortunately is "not very"). I mean, not every book out there has to be Proust, but for God's sake, I want an artist to at least make an effort at getting us to feel like we're following the fate of a real human being, and not just some cardboard chess piece that emerged whole-cloth from their mind's eye; and this of course is the big problem among CGI-obsessed Hollywood these days too, and why such big-budget spectacles like Avatar still end up feeling flat and listless no matter how inventive the special effects. This book is the textual version of that, and it comes recommended to only the most hardcore fans of bizarro and gonzo fiction out there.

Out of 10: 5.7 ( )

The mystery starts right away when Bernal is just coming home from a business trip stopping by to see his boss. He gets the feeling something's not right. You start to see, as well, something is askew. Chasing his boss as she runs away and steals a car to get away. What is going on? Muriel, Bernals boss, leaves hints and messages to help steer him on the right path to help him with the mystery of Hesketh. Hesketh is an artificial intelligence that is on a sample run through the hillsides before it is actually sent into space.

I have to say I understood what was going on at the beginning of the book. Then there were a lot of strange things mentioned in which I got confused on. There was talk of Hesketh, Hess Corp - who worked on Hesketh before Madeline and Muriel took on the project with Muriels money, and Long Voyage - a cryobank for people wanting to wake up in the future. The confusion was not that I didn't completely understand what I was reading but mostly that I didn't believe what I was reading. I couldn't figure out if I was reading and comprehending it properly. (This being part of the mystery stuff.) I started to tally all the information I was getting separately in my head then piecing it together to see where the book was going. I was just a little ahead of the author, as just as I was doing this he then started to do it in the book. At around 150 pages into the book Bernal started to piece the puzzle together as well. Which when I hit this point I was so proud of myself as I was coming right up at the same lines as the main character. Hurray for me to understand and put it together! Then there was new information added nicely from this point to include in solving the mystery.

The best part of the book that kept me going was wondering who was leaving the messages and who was dead or alive, who was the serial killer, and what was going on with Hesketh (if it really worked). In the end I got the answers I was looking for. The mystery element was what kept me going in the book.

The characters unfold nicely as the book goes. There are a few characters you really don't truly meet and follow through but they feel as they are main characters by the way they are talked about, described, and messages passed on. I liked this angle as I really felt I got to know these characters and they really came through. In the end I really enjoyed most of the characters.

There were just a few minor unfavored points: There were a few spots that when things were brought up or thought, it almost felt like it didn't really flow or blend with what was going on. Almost like the information was needed and had to be told somewhere, but there were only a small few of these. Then there was the main character Bernal. I felt like I really didn't get to know him as well as the other characters. I mean I did get to know him but for some reason I didn't feel the connection as much with him as all the other characters. I liked him but that was all. He did do a great job of solving the mystery at hand and sticking to his guns on his ideas.

This has been a wonderful mystery with the science fiction element added in. Many of the characters have parallel characteristics which could point to them as the possible killer behind all of this. But there is one that fits all the pieces very well. Can you figure it out? ( )

Alexander Jablokov returns to science fiction with Brain Thief, his first novel in the genre after several years. This imaginative mystery comes complete with a cast of eccentrics who in some form or fashion antagonize Bernal Haydon-Rumi, the man at the center of this strange journey and struggle for answers. When Bernal returns to his wealthy employer's home after a business excursion, simplicity unravels, and he is left with a puzzle to solve that involves his boss, a woman who spends idle time funding strange projects, and an AI device designed to explore other planets, as well as an activist, a local murderer, and a problem-riddled cryogenic specialist, among other memorable and equally complicated characters. In order to figure out what is amiss, he must stay on the trail of his employer and utilize the personal resources at his disposal: cleverness, persistence, and a strong desire to understand. What will he uncover in his search for answers, and is an executive assistant's life really supposed to be this strange? Jablokov's newest novel is compelling, bizarre and difficult to put down. It will be an ideal reading for science fiction enthusiasts and readers who enjoy creative stories that never seem to stop twisting and evolving. Brain Thief is highly recommended to readers of Jablokov's previous works as well. ( )