Anyone: A Novel

Anyone by Charles Soule is a highly recommended, fast-paced, technological/speculative fiction thriller.

In Michigan research scientist Gabrielle (Gabby) White inadvertently discovers a way for people to transfer their consciousness into another person's body. She wants to control how the technology is used, but that very likely will be taken out of her control. Twenty-five-years into the future this technology called "flash" has transformed society. The company advertises the flash as a way to "Be Anyone with Anyone" in the ultimate out-of-body experience. However, there is also an underground black market to the technology called "darkshare," where people rent out their bodies for paying customers to use for a variety of deviant show more purposes. In the future, Annami is renting out her body through a darkshare establishment in order to save enough money for a plan of her own.

Chapters in the action-packed, fast-paced plot alternate between Gabby's discovery and Annami's driven quest to earn money for her own purpose. Both story lines are compelling and both of the characters are well developed. You know something is going to go terribly wrong for Gabby, and Annami is keeping her ultimate scheme to herself. Naturally, you have to set disbelief aside as far as transferring one person's consciousness into another person's body, but once you do that both time periods keep ratcheting up the tension. Ultimately both narratives will connect in an unexpected but satisfying conclusion.

Soule does an excellent job presenting this frightening and fascinating cautionary vision of the future. It could be his work in comic books has translated well into keeping the action of the dual narratives intense and quickly moving, while wrapping both narratives in an irresistible plot. Ultimately, he takes the idea of new technology and forces us to look at the unintended consequences: the abuse of that technology, the morality of using it, and the question of identity and culpability when another body is used.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2019/12/anyone.html show less

Charles Soule outdid himself with his speculative fiction/thriller that is socially impactful and yet a total trill ride, with excellent execution, phenomenal pacing, and I was completely hooked from the very first chapter. Literally, I would try and read while walking through the house, because I could barely manage to drag my eyes away from what was happening in this novel. I also had no idea what was going to happen next, and you know how much I LOVE that...!

That ending though....? Jesus, what a mind- blower. I’m really going to have to think about this ending for a while.
This truly outstanding novel has well thought out characters (one of which is hardcore...!), great villains, some fighting, a little blood, some death, and some show more truly heinous acts that *still* leave me with my mouth hanging open. Man, can Charles Soule write!

Luckily, as soon as I got to about chapter three, I could see I would love this intense novel, and ran for my local library’s online catalog, to see if Soule had written anything else. He has, and I got the audiobook, which I am also listening to, and really like. But this novel is different, and maybe a bit better, imo.

Great quotes:

“If you can't tell who's inside the skin of the person you're talking to, maybe you can't judge them so quickly based on the color of that skin. You have to judge them based on who they are. How they act."

"I am a mother first, then a scientist, a wife, and a black woman. People in my field, people in the grocery store, people in general -- they see that list backward. Maybe they don't see anything at all past the first thing -- a black woman."

5 stars for this thrilling novel, and recommended to anyone and everyone. Please go out and read it now! show less

The sci fi thriller [b:Anyone|44013666|Anyone|Charles Soule|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1563762422l/44013666._SY75_.jpg|68430338] was getting a bit of early buzz on Instagram, and it sounded interesting, so I was glad to be approved by Harper Perennial for a digital review copy via Netgalley.

The premise of a technology enabling a person to flash their consciousness into another body, a "vessel," was intriguing and frightening for the implications.

Each chapter alternated timelines. We had a present time when the technology was being invented, and a timeline around 25 years in the future where the flash tech is in widespread use.

I think it started off strong, but the middle dragged, and the show more ending was really disappointing. The hardcover is listed as having 432 pages, and it felt too long. The story would have benefited by another edit to really tighten it up (and since I read a review copy, it's possible?). Some plot points and details were never resolved, and that's frustrating.

I cared about Gabby and Paul, but I felt like I knew them only on the surface. The science was superficial as well -- some lingo was tossed about, but I never felt confident I understood how the tech actually worked. It was interesting how people perceived the world a bit differently in someone else's body, for instance smells and other sensory stimuli. I like how the book explored that a little.

With a thriller, I think you've got to really stick the landing as the story builds and concludes. The final chapter and epilogue were not what I thought the book was building toward, and I felt really let down. Taking off a star for that, so I'm left with 2 stars on Goodreads, which means "it was OK." In the Netgalley rating system, it gets 3 for a "maybe" recommendation.

I think the readers who will most enjoy Anyone will be those who like a sci-fi thriller that's weighted more toward thrilling than science-y; and someone who would enjoy thinking about all of the ethical questions involved with moving someone's consciousness to another body. The reader will also need a strong dose of suspending disbelief. show less

This is an intriguing novel whose subject is the scientific discovery of a process whereby a person can shift his “being” into the body of another (referred to as a vessel). The process is called “flashing”, and as you can imagine, the ramifications are enormous.

The story proceeds in two threads. The first details the discovery and early stages of development of the flashing process. The other picks up roughly twenty years in the future, and details the many societal changes occasioned by application (and misuse) of the process.

The earlier thread follows the inventor of the process as she struggles to maintain control of its uses, while the venture capitalist (a very evil man) who funded her research seeks to take it from her.

In show more the future thread, the multi-trillion dollar entity that controls the process is very cleverly named NeOne Global (Anyone… get it?). It’s CEO, as you might imagine, wields enormous power, and through manipulation of the flash process, controls what amounts to a world shadow government.

The scientific process that serves as the basis of the novel is certainly intriguing, and allows for many different possibilities, which the author does a good job of exploring. And while the characters can come across as somewhat “cartoonish”, the underlying story is good enough to overcome this fault, in my opinion. show less

Every scientific researcher dreams of inventing a world changing drug or process or finding a totally new item but very few actually do. Scientific research generally builds tiny step by tiny step until the accumulation of data and information adds to the general knowledge in a meaningful way. However, every once in a while there is a genuine Eureka moment and then the scientist has to figure out how to devlop the discovery. Sometimes that is the most difficult part especially keeping control over what could be undesirable applications. This book takes a good look at that.

Gabrielle White is conducting neurological research aimed at finding a cure for Alzheimer's Disease using high intensity light. Since she had a baby a year ago she show more has been working out of a lab built in an old barn on the property she and her husband own outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan. A Detroit millionaire has given her a substantial amount of money to conduct her research in return for ownership of any usable technology but the funding has almost gone and he's not likely to renew it. Gabrielle (Gabby) decides to blow all the remaining funds on powering the laser up to full capacity and then suddenly she is in the house looking down at her daughter. Except she feels wrong, clumsy and too big, and that's when she realizes that she is in her husband's body. Learning how to control the "flash" as she calls it so that she can get back into her own body is her first order of business. Once she has finally done that she has to figure out how to prevent this discovery from falling into the wrong hands which includes the man who bankrolled her research. Twenty years in the future a young woman called Annami is working for the Anyone company that controls the flash technology which is used by people all over the world to get places and do things that would have taken time and travel before or not even be possible. The story of what occurred in the intervening 20 years comes out slowly but we know that Annami wants to change the system so it's pretty obvious that Gabby somehow lost control of it.

This was fascinating and a really good look at the pros and cons of world changing discoveries. I couldn't help but think of the two women, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, who were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their development of the CRISPR technology. I saw one interview with Doudna who said that she has lost a lot of sleep worrying about how the technology could be misused. If you want a fictional look at a real scientific quandary I recommend this book. show less

An interesting exploration of the social impact of technology. The parallel story lines of the discovery of the ability to project the mind into another body, and the cultural and social impact of that twenty years later is a fascinating approach. There’s a lot of really clever ideas here, some great observational insights, and thought provoking concepts all exceptionally well written; but it failed to engage me on an emotional level, as I gradually noticed I was picking up other things to read and leaving this on the coffee table on a more frequent basis.

Really enjoyed this. Soule is a master of joining interesting tech with characters who are very real. The ending got a little too twisty for me. Unnecessary, since I suspected the "reveal" about a third of the way through and was more interested in how Soule's characters coped with the ramifications of flash technology.