Hauser's Memory
by Curt Siodmak
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Twenty-five years after Donovan's Brain -- now a classic of science fiction -- came a superb new novel from the pen of Curt Siodmak. Once again the author probed the horizons of scientific endeavour in an extraordinary story which blended science fiction with international intrigue. An once again he featured D. Patrick Cory, the biochemist who figures in Donovan's Brain.Cory, the world's leading authority on RNA (ribonucleic aid) the brain substance in which memory is stored -- is approached show more by the CIA and asked to conduct a weird and dangerous experiment: to remove the RNA from Hauser, a dying German scientist who has defected from the Russians, and inject it into another man in the hope of releasing the German's secrets. At first, Cory is appalled. But Slaughter, the CIA man, has thought of everything -- even to providing a suitable 'subject' for the bizarre experiment.The experiment succeeds -- but to an extent which neither Cory nor Slaughter could anticipate. For it is not only Hauser's memory that is transferred. With it go his obsessions, his dreams, his emotions, his character...gradually, insidiously. And there begins the bitter struggle as Hauser's memory tries to posses its new mind -- the mind of a man who is acutely aware of what is happening to him. The dead German's monomaniacal quest for vengeance -- that soon involves security elements from both East and West in a thrilling international chase -- and the final chilling confrontation between the man possessed by Hauser and the object of Hauser's search combine to make an enthralling, suspenseful and utterly credible science fiction novel which is a fitting successor to Donovan's Brain. show lessTags
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RNA from a dead German scientist who defected from the Russians is injected into another person--who begins to take on traits of the dead scientist, and who has a mission of some sort to complete. The idea is fascinating and the scientific part is interesting, but as a narrative this falls far short of Siodmak's classic Donovan's Brain. The character who has been injected with the RNA has a reason for acting unpredictably and doing strange things. But the lackadaisical way that another Doctor (Patrick Cory, making a return appearance from Donovan's Brain), the CIA, and various foreign spy types act (which is necessary so that the injected man can keep pursuing is quest) is not believable. In the end, this odd combination of sci-fi and show more cold war paranoia provides some good scenes and brings up some frightening possibilities if such a memory transfer could actually happen, but it fails to gel as a believable or highly compelling story. show less
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42+ Works 881 Members
Curt Siodmak, born in 1902, was a major contributor to Germany's influential interwar film industry as well as Hollywood's golden era. One of the founding members of the Writers Guild of America, this outstanding and prolific writer was recently awarded the Commander's Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. His death in the summer of show more 2000 marks the end of a remarkable career that spanned nearly a century show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Hausers Gedächtnis
- Original title
- Hauser's Memory
- Original publication date
- 1968
- Original language*
- Englisch
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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Statistics
- Members
- 80
- Popularity
- 395,733
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.70)
- Languages
- English, German, Swedish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 10
