Triggers by Robert J. Sawyer
During a speech, President Seth Jerrison is shot by an assassin and rushed to the hospital. Meanwhile, at the same hospital, Dr. Ranjip Singh is conducting an experimental procedure to alter memories on a veteran with PTSD. But when a bomb explodes nearby, it sets off an electromagnetic pulse, causing a power surge and brief outage – and affecting Dr. Singh’s equipment. Following the power outage, several people suddenly have access to strange memories that aren’t their own. The President’s security detail soon realizes a group of people within a certain distance to Dr. Singh’s experiment were all affected by having access to someone else’s memories. This means someone now knows everything the President does – on the brink of a top secret mission.
With a large cast of characters, Sawyer does a great job of giving each their own story and enough depth for the reader to easily keep them all straight. Surprisingly, the drama and how relationships are formed/affected by the memory-swapping was actually my favorite part of the story. The only other book I’ve read by Sawyer is FlashForward (developed into the short-lived TV show). I have found I really enjoy his writing style, and will definitely be reading his other books that I have on my shelves. Intriguing, with plenty of suspense – Triggers was fast-paced and exciting. This science fiction thriller was completely riveting from beginning to its climactic end.
I’m thinking Triggers may be my intro to Sawyer, whenever I’m able to pick it up.
Spaz, this would be a great intro into reading Sawyer. It’s an easy, quick read.
Thanks for the great review. This book seems to get good reviews wherever I look. I will certainly add it to my reading list. I see that the audio version is being reviewed on The Book Report Radio show soon. They play extracts from the audio book, so you can hear if you want to listen to it. I have only ever listened to a few books. so I am interested to see if I can get into this form of reading for listening while I am driving. The radio show is on http://www.bookreportradio.com
This sounds like a terrific book. I’m planning on making it one of my next reads. Like you the only thing I have previously read by Sawyer is Flashfoward. I have been meaning to read more by him since. There is a lot in his bibliography that seems really intriguing; Frameshift, Factoring Humanity, several others including the WWW trilogy. Triggers sounds so good though that I think I will start here and then check out more of Sawyer’s backlist.