Interesting idea, wandering narrative but I felt the characters were a little lackluster. A good story and unique in some ways though. ( )

Set in 2006, as the 5th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, this is the story of twin brothers who had a dream of creating a on-line gaming world. Their fledgling company got undermined by government contractors who wanted to use their unique technology to train soldiers. As the book begins, one of the brothers is in a coma due to cancer. The other brother is frantically trying to hold his company and his life together. It's kind of hard to describe the plot beyond that but I really enjoyed this book. ( )

Once again I'm suckered by numerous reviews mentioning Delillo.

(Sometime in July) I'm doing everything I can to avoid reading this book. I sort of want to know what happens with George and with the Mira experiment but not enough to keep reading. It's an odd book.

08/11/13 -- I ditched it formally added it to my discard list and carried on, but I kept thinking about it and wondering what he was going to do with it all so I picked it up again and finished it.

Mike, a reviewer I follow sum's up much of my frustration with the book when he points out that the narrative is "sometimes (maybe a few too many times) bogged down by the weight of sweeping thematic concerns which put a drag on forward motion and I'd go with "few too many times." Enough already. But, there is much that is interesting and smart and committed to make it worth the time. And there is a "dinner" scene between Fred and Holly and Vartan near the end of the book that is really quite oddly spectacular. In fact, Holly and Vartan, with the Reiki and the magic tricks, and their crappy apartment were some of the strongest writing in the novel.

If I were going to make up an odd shelf -- self, self-immolation and 9/11 -- I'd put it there with James Hynes book Next, but Luminarium is a kinder book and Fred although as self-involved as Kevin Quinn has better reasons. ( )

I'm not quite sure where to start with this one. It's not an easy read, but not a difficult one either. I recommend picking this up when you're in a pensive place, when you need a little musing about the meaning of life, but in engrossing novel form, not thick pretentious philosopher form. In fact, that's how I would describe this book in a nutshell: profound but not pretentious. And that, my friends, is a delicate balance to strike; with the (incredible) exception of [b:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|11|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide, #1)|Douglas Adams|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327656754s/11.jpg|3078186], I'm not sure I've ever seen it struck so deftly.

Let's get slightly more concrete. Fred has an identical twin brother, George, who is in a coma after a long battle with cancer. Fred, not surprisingly, is having a bit of an existential crisis. [An aside: for me, I think the "not surprisingly" is important, because as incredibly, stupidly famous as Albert Camus and his Stranger are, I never once sympathized with that narrator, and hated every second of being dragged along on his philosophical journey. Fred, on the other hand, is a sad and complex but eminently sympathetic character; throughout the whole book I wanted desperately for him to figure out his life and everything in it. In other words, I rooted for him in a way that cut through, or survived, all the spiritualist questioning.] Rather on a whim, Fred enrolls in a medical study that turns out to be based on the concept that spiritual experiences can be replicated by manipulation/stimulation of certain areas of the brain and the chemicals therein. For example, a sense of connectedness or oneness with others and with nature can be simulated by messing with the part of the brain that defines the edges of the self, the "this is me, that is not me" perception. The goal, in a sense, is to see if the benefits of spirituality (peace, comfort, a sense of purpose) can be attained without the mysticism of religion: a "faith without ignorance," as the tester puts it.

That sounds a little deep and heavy, right? Well, it is, but it's leavened by the backdrop of Frank and George's company, a sort of Second Life-type immersive reality game called Urth. The problem is, Fred sold the company to pay George's medical bills, and now their game is being remade as a virtual training arena for the "military entertainment complex" [which, as another aside, I think is a brilliant phrase, though I don't know if it's original to this book].

Here's the fun part: without any spoilers, some things start happening to Fred that seem (sortof, although it's not really possible -- is it?) like George, still in his coma, might be orchestrating. Which naturally provides a different but still understandable and fascinating path to the pondering of life and the afterlife and the power of... what? The brain? The soul? The ineffable essence of the self?

Things get a lot more ethereal in the last chapter or so; I'm not even going to lie and tell you that I'm exactly sure what the last few sentences mean or where they're supposed to leave me. But by that point I'd gotten enough out of this book that I was content to just let them be; they're words, and they have meaning, even if I don't understand it yet. Is that my very own existential enlightenment? ( )