Will I love Quantum Night?

It was interesting

What if we could detect psychopaths? Like many of Sawyer’s novels (and there are a bunch I could’ve selected for this list), there is a question and then a lightning strike of answers. Not a single bolt, but many, branching off, colliding, bleaching the night. There is plenty of scientific realism here–a personal must for Sawyer–resulting in a far-reaching yet intimate story.

The title is not ‘Night of the Psychopaths’ because the book’s many forks take us deeper into the nature of the human mind and the quantum arena we all play in, whether we know it or not. Oh,… show more.

This book pulls together three things that I love in fiction: big ideas, compelling characters, and a plot that keeps you guessing.

The big ideas really are “big” ones: What’s the nature of consciousness? How do memories create or distort our sense of identity? And how does our physical biology as “creatures” determine our inner psychology?

As for the city of Winnipeg itself, the novel leverages it in all kinds of ways. One example: A riot after a Winnipeg Jets hockey game leads to such national violence that the US President calls for an invasion of Canada to “help” restore… show more.

I found this book to be one of the most amazing and compelling works of science fiction ever written because it dares to answer the basic question of not only who we are, but why. Have you ever wondered what makes people act the way they do to others? Why are some empathetic while others will step over their best friend’s corpse in order to get ahead? And why do many appear to simply be along for the ride, not caring one way or another, never leaving their mark on anything they touch? Once you read this book, it will… show more.