The big reveal is obvious-that the two viewpoint characters are actually the same person is nowhere near as clever as the author thinks it seems to be. Each story on its own is uninspired and the interweaving only serves to conceal that for longer than is deserved. Unfortunately, it does neither very well. The book is built around twin interwoven past and future narratives and can’t seem to decide whether it’s a book about the invention of a new technology or the use to which the technology is eventually, and obviously, put toward. Less than the sum of its parts (spoilers) Like Blade Runner crossed with Get Out, Charles Soule’s thought-provoking work of speculative fiction takes us to a world where identity, morality, and technology collide. or worse.Īnyone masterfully interweaves the present-day story of the discovery and development of the flash with the gritty tale of one woman’s crusade to put an end to the darkness it has brought to the world 25 years after its creation. But beyond the reach of the law and government regulators is a sordid black market called the darkshare, where desperate “vessels” anonymously rent out their bodies, no questions asked for any purpose - sex, drugs, crime. Society has been utterly transformed by the process, from travel to warfare to entertainment “Be anyone with Anyone” the tagline of the company offering this ultimate out-of-body experience. Over two decades later, all across the planet, “flash” technology allows individuals the ability to transfer their consciousness into other bodies for specified periods, paid, registered and legal. What begins as a botched experiment will change her life - and the world - forever. Inside a barn in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a scientist searching for an Alzheimer’s cure throws a switch - and finds herself mysteriously transported into her husband’s body.

Charles Soule brings his signature knowledge - and wariness - of technology to his sophomore novel set in a realistic future about a brilliant female scientist who creates a technology that allows for the transfer of human consciousness between bodies, and the transformations this process wreaks upon the world.

Anyone charles soule