Interesting universe, good characters, fun and relevant plot. ( )

What initially begins as a pretty interesting thought experiment about small groups of joined minds and experiences under a quantum entanglement surgery quickly becomes a lot more.

Doesn't it sound interesting when it quietly becomes a murder mystery, a philosophical discussion about immortality, including mental illness, meme propagation, obsession, and later, a myopic cautionary tale pitting the Joined against the Solos and eventually even a fascinating evolution of humanity as it reaches for the stars? Yes? :)

And that's just the surface, because we get to know some rather good characters, and plot actions, too. :)

It's an immensely readable near-future hop that gets progressively dystopian while retaining the very interesting core concept as both the center piece and the conflict, both within the other joined and with the rest of the solos in the world.

Honestly, this could have been fine as a novel that had just focused on just the smaller plot actions of the first half, but I feel quite lucky that the author decided to put a lot of extra thought and effort into the whole concept, discovering and exploiting a lot of the more interesting aspects of becoming an effective immortal by constantly changing out the "drives", or the individual people, as they wear out, and taking it much further with nearly crazy meme-sets caused by expanded join-sets.

I love SF and Fantasy that show us the rules, and then show us how to break them. This novel certainly gives us a fascinating ride. :)

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The concept of this work is fascinating, and there's no doubt that this is what sucks readers in and pushes them forward beyond some of the beginning's confusion--because, really, there is a fair bit of a learning curve involved in jumping into this world and getting comfortable with it, to the extent that one can. But that said, the ideas and the interplay between characters is more than enough of a pay-off for that confusion, and in the end, I have to say I'm really glad to have stumbled onto this book. I think the only disappointment I have here is that the book really started to gain inertia once I got past the confusion and became more comfortable with the things worked and who the characters were, but not long after that, such levels of intrigue got introduced that, once again, it wasn't easy to try to keep track of what was going on--and really, I'm not sure I did at all times. Without doubt, this is one of those books that nearly demands a re-read.

The other caveat here is that a reader has to work a bit to follow everything--ideally, this is probably one of those books that's best read in 2-4 long sittings, rather than a few chapters per day. Though the chapters are often very short, and may give the impression at a glance that this could be read in bits and pieces, I'm not sure a reader has any chance of keeping track of the characters without reading it quickly and in large chunks.

All in all, the concept and promise of this book were well-delivered on, and I'll absolutely be looking to see what else Toutonghi puts out. I have a suspicion that this book could easily have been two books, and been a bit stronger and less confusing, so I'm hoping that his next book will be a bit less rushed. Regardless, I feel sure it will be worth the time. As to whether or not I'll re-read this one, I'm not sure. I'd like to have a firmer feel of the world and the way things played out, but without more connection to the characters, I'm not sure I'll be drawn to. Perhaps if there's a sequel?

For now, I can certainly recommend this to readers who want high-concept sci-fi. It's worth the effort. ( )

A fascinating read, but I must say that the full premise of joining multiple people into one remained the core attraction. The plot never really got a hold on me. Also, keeping track of who is who (if you can even say so) never got natural, I kept having to consciously think back who Chance Five was again.

But the core idea is a huge one and this alone made it definitely worthwhile to read. All of the philosophical implications about life and death, personhood, society, nationhood were thought through very well and I really enjoyed following the author in his explorations. ( )

I won a signed copy in a GOODREADS giveaway -- Ok... this story was very jumbled as it kept jumping back & forth between the different lives/drives. I freely admit I got lost several times. I will have to re-read this again later and see how I feel about it a second time around. The story premise was intriguing, it had interesting characters, and lots of mini-plots: some without resolution, like real life, I suppose. ( )