Observer: A Novel Hardcover – January 10, 2023

After reading a review that recommended Observer to fans of Blake Crouch, whose books are among my favorites, I contemplated buying it but first wanted to know more about the authors, Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress, neither of whom I was familiar with.I took a look at the authors’ previous books, which sent me down a very intriguing rabbit hole. It turns out Robert Lanza cloned the first human embryo and first endangered species and is considered one of the most influential scientists of the 21st century. Truly, his background is a story in and of itself. He had a hardscrabble childhood but when he was only a teenager he altered the genes of chickens. One article I read compared him to the character Matt Damon played in the movie Good Will Hunting. He went to medical school, worked with some of the most important doctors of the 20th century, and then, instead of becoming a surgeon, he took time off so he could research the nature of reality in order to understand the universe and our place in it. The guy lives on an island outside Boston and has million year-old dinosaur bones in his house. In short, he’s not only a genius, but an interesting character who I see reflected in few of his book’s central players. Nancy Kress is also brilliant and trailblazing. She’s written close to 30 books - mostly sci-fi novels - that draw from the cutting edge of science and technology and explore how it can and will change our lives in positive and potentially catastrophic ways.Kress is a wonderful storyteller and in Observer she helps adroitly translate Lanza’s scientific work into something understandable while building a rich narrative that compels the plot, engages the imagination, and makes you think!The book opens with a quote from Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time that asks: “Why does the universe go to the bother of existing?” Observer, whose premise is based on Lanza’s theory of biocentrism, answers the question as the main character, Caro Watkins, a cynical young neurosurgeon, interrogates the unusual nature of the experimental surgeries she’s been hired to perform by her great uncle, a Nobel prize-winning scientist who she’s never met.Sam Watkins won the Nobel Prize in medicine for developing a cure for the common cold. He gained fame and fortune then dropped off the face of the earth to build a medical facility in the Caribbean. When he summons Caro he’s a dying man desperate to not only alter his existential condition but to use the research he and his old friend, theoretical physicist George Weigert, have been working on for decades to change the course of reality itself.When Caro arrives at the medical facility, a shadowy fortress set on a sunny tropical island, everything seems incongruous. Nothing about it makes sense to her, and for a serious person, a surgeon who needs to be in control, she feels completely unmoored. But she has no other options. After being blackballed by her mentor, an esteemed surgeon who harassed her and then turned the table on her, she not only lost her job but she had been betrayed by colleagues and crucified by online trolls. She now finds herself in a strange place tasked with performing brain surgeries on healthy volunteers using an untested protocol that relies on clandestine research, a theory derived from quantum physics, and software developed by a young tech billionaire.As Caro tries to come to grips with the awful turn of events that ended her career and led her to this bizarre place, she takes solace from George Weigert, the only person in the compound who seems trustworthy. Weigert, a grandfatherly English gentleman grieving the loss of his wife, is the antithesis of Sam Watkins, his gruff and arrogant Oxford classmate from way back, and much less intimidating than Julian, the handsome young tech genius who always seems preoccupied. Throughout the book it’s Weigert who patiently explains his theory to Caro so that she understands her role and the magnitude of what they’re attempting to do at the compound.While Weigert educates Caro on quantum phenomena I learned more about physics in a few pages than I gleaned in a whole college class on the topic. Weigert relates the fact that mathematics shows us that the universe we perceive is only one of many. Every time an observation is made by humans or animals the universe holds the possibility of other branches of itself, with all other possible outcomes of that observation. In other words, “everything we experience is only a whirl of quantum information in our brains.”When Caro performs the first operation, on Julian, which involves implanting a chip in the brain that’s connected to a conductor and fed into a high-powered computer, she’s leery of what she sees on the screen: Julian transported from the operating table in the compound to the Trevi Fountain in Rome. But as Weigert continues to teach her about his theory and she does implantations on other volunteers, including Weigert and her own sister, she begins to gradually understand the profundity of what it all means.As the story unfolds there are interesting subplots, one involving Caro’s sister, a single mom of 2 daughters, one severely disabled, whose vulnerability and openness provide a good counterpoint to Caro’s guardedness and hard edge. The more she learns from Weigert and the more she witnesses from those she implants, the less wary and closed off she becomes. She falls in love. At the same time, danger mounts at the compound as her great uncle’s life grows ever more precarious. I won’t give away any spoilers, but the denouement is spectacular.Observer is truly one of those books that linger in the mind long after you’ve turned the last page. It has incredible depth while being a gripping story with interesting characters and provocative ideas. I will definitely be reading it again and recommending it to everyone I know.

The story is original and it does raise some interesting questions. Some of the recurring characters seem a bit lacking in depth but for the most part they are believable.The editing is mostly good, though there are a few obvious issues that hopefully will be addressed in future editions.One surprising problem relates to the board certification status of the young neurosurgeon who featured so prominently in the story. As the book begins she has not yet taken her boards and yet she is subsequently referred to as board certified. Maybe I missed something in the timeline but that jump doesn't make sense and is a surprising issue given that one of the authors is an MD.Those are all minor points. The real problem with the plot is related to the notion that the experimental setup is revealing information from an alternate universe. For most of the book there is a presumption that there is no communication between "our" universe and whatever version of the multiverse the experimental subjects are creating and yet the experiment itself claims to be showing the experience of the test subject in an alternate universe based on brain activity in "our" universe. That's not even remotely plausible. The sort of setup described in the book might be able to show images of the subject's brain activity (ie, hallucinations) in "our" universe but the notion that the experimental setup could track images from the alternate universe using brain activity in "our" universe stretches "suspension of disbelief" unreasonably.Still, it's an interesting story.I was amused by one of the very old medical jokes that appeared in the book, but the way I've always heard it told the punch line had "fireballs in my Eucharist", not "fibroids".