FINAL BOY

This is a sci-fi novel – one which is largely set in a recognisable world in our time. What we have here is a situation where there’s one big idea and we keep everything else the same to explore that idea. That’s quite a Michael Crichton theme – what if our world, but dinosaurs could be brought back? Blake Crouch does often get compared to Crichton, and it feels appropriate to me. The stories he tells are ones where he grabs hold of a bit of cutting edge science and then pulls and stretches it as hard as he can, whilst saying ‘but what would it be like FOR you?’

Let’s look at the blurb

“Are you happy in your life? Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakes to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before the man he’s never met smiles down at him and says, ‘Welcome back’

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor.

Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? The answer lies in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything Jason could’ve imagined…’

That’s a pretty good synposis. It gives you enough of what’s going on to start questions bubbling up and not so much that you feel like you already know how this is all going to play out.

The book is written from Jason’s perspective in the first person, and he’s a likeable enough guy. He’s certainly got his flaws but he’s an active enough lead that the story keeps moving along. Even when he’s confused and unsure about everything, he takes action and gets stuff done, and once he’s got a handle on things he really starts cooking with ideas and schemes.

The writing is unobtrusive, letting the ideas and implications of those ideas speak for themselves – we don’t waste valuable time describing what wallpaper looks like or how police officer number two smells of figs and roast beef, there’s stuff to get done. I think that really works here, in what’s really a thriller with a techno element to it.

The story continually takes directions that you didn’t see coming but which feel plausible and earned rather than contrived. And there’s honestly a rug pull in the final third (the gun shop) which genuinely changes everything and made me gasp out loud when i was reading this on a plane. It is such a smart shift in the story, that I never saw coming but when it happened I was struck by how simultaneously clever and obvious it was and the whole last third was really different to the story I expected.

I think that this is Blake Crouch’s most well-known book, and it’s a really good jumping in point to see if you like it. There’s some science in there, but not a load – if you think about the quick cartoon that Richard Attenborough shows in Jurassic Park to explain how dinosaurs were brought back, that’s about the level you need. If you geek out on physics and Schrodinger’s Cat, even better, but I don’t think you need it.

Great ideas, great pacing, satisfying story and throws up lots of interesting philosophical implications about identity and choices and how small moments of choice can change our lives, and a writer that knows that this is all gold and sensibly stays out of the way of this fast moving truck of a story. No need to show off with how much flourish he can put on the page, when the raw materials are this good. I liked this. A lot.

I liked this. A lot.