How much of reality can we actually control?
Published: 2023
Genre: Science Fiction
CW: Cyberbullying, Surgery, Death/Child Death, Euthanasia, Mass Shooting, Bombing, Sexual Assault
★✬☆☆☆ (1.5/5)
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review.
After accusing a superior of sexual misconduct, Dr. Caro Soames-Watkins finds herself on the receiving end of a barrage of online abuse that ultimately ruins her career. But when it seems like there is nowhere to turn, her great-uncle, Sam Watkins, reaches out with a golden opportunity: come to his medical facility in the Caribbean and perform a series of mysterious surgeries that could prove the existence of the multiverse. Although dubious about the experiment, Caro agree to take the position, under the condition that Watkins will help her financially support her sister and two nieces.
What initially drew me to Observer was that the book was a collaboration between an established science fiction author and an actual scientist. Nancy Kress has written 35 books and won at least six Nebula and two Hugo Awards, while Robert Lanza, MD is an accomplished doctor and adjunct professor at Wake Forest University. You would think that these two minds working together would produce a phenomenal piece of science fiction, one that changes the reader's whole worldview after reading. Unfortunately, I found myself quite disappointed with what they turned out.
My first indication that Observer would fail to impress me was the blurb on the back of the book: what took me three sentences to summarize takes Lanza and Kress almost three paragraphs. And I couldn't help worrying this meant that the entire novel was going to be overwritten. Having now read through the entire book, I would say the real issue is that the writing is uneven. When discussing the science behind the experiments, the text is clear and detailed. Everything else, however, reads like an early draft. Many sentences are phrased awkwardly, such as a Tweet from one of Caro's online harassers that says she should be boiled in oil for speaking out against her abuser (who would say that?) or when Caro tells a new friend she makes at the facility the following:
I can put something together. Come with me and give me your opinion. You look great, and anybody who can wear pink clothes with orange hair is clearly worth taking fashion advice from.
There are also several punctuation errors throughout the novel, as well as sentences with missing words, such as when another surgeon tries to destress Caro after misinformation about the project is leaked to the press, stating that "the truth will out."
Granted, I did receive an advance reading copy of the book, so it's possible that some of these issues were fixed before the official release date; however, that doesn't fix the other major issues with this novel. The whole reason Caro ends up joining the project is because she loses her job after her claims that her superior tried to sexually assault her are dismissed. And while we get to see how betrayed Caro feels about her co-workers disbelieving her, or in some cases outright lying about what they saw to save their own skin, we don't really get to see how she feels about nearly being assaulted by someone she felt close to. Once she arrives at the Caribbean facility, Caro almost immediately makes friends with the mainly male staff, but I, as reader who knows what happened to her, can't help but wonder how she can be so trusting of these men. Maybe I'm just being nitpicky. It's not that I want Caro to be horribly traumatized; I just don't want an attempted rape to be treated as little more than a MacGuffin.
The biggest issue with this book for me, however, is just how light it is on the science fiction front. We learn early on that Watkins's team has created technology that, once placed inside a patient's head, allows them to create an alternate reality, with the main objective of the project being to see if it's possible to transfer a human soul permanently into said reality and thereby beat death. Such a project seems like it could lead to hundreds of ethical and scientific questions: How do we know that these new realities didn't already exist? Can multiple people visit the same reality? Are there any medical consequences with making repeat visits? If an observer creates a reality where, for example, their dead child is still alive, who looks after that child when the observer leaves? Is it actually a good idea to try beating death, because won't that mean that you'll have to continually enter new realities once your body gets too old?
And yet, Lanza and Kress don't seem interested in these questions. All the experiments in the story go off without a hitch, and the only trouble Caro and the project ever really run into comes from outside forces. Even when a group of black market merchants get their hands on Watkins's technology and reveals a potentially dark way to use these alternate realities, the project continues, and this plot point is just taken care of off-screen.
Every action has consequences, even good ones, and the best science fiction is willing to explore these consequences. Observer, unfortunately, only wants to see the good of its hypothetical experiments, brushing the bad aside. And that really doesn't make for a compelling read.
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