Review „Free Will Odyssey“ (Larry Kilham)

Peter Tesla, a prodigious young inventor, develops an electronic device to enhance the user’s free will. A major application is drug detoxification. Peter’s star client is the U.S. president. Along the way, Peter is tried for the mysterious death of a girlfriend and struggles with the schemes of a secretive industrialist. (Source)

Studies showed that energizing free will could unlock the mind from the pleasure traps of excess eating, drug addiction and other health problems. With this promising insight, I would not stop until I found a way to restore people’s faith in free will.

I received a free copy of this book from the author (thanks again!) and was looking forward to reading it, after I read the very promising blurb.*

I had no trouble diving into the story and understanding the basics at the beginning, although it’s about a lot of science and business making. The author explains the project ‚Electra‘, which should provide the possibility for people to act on free will, mostly understandable for those who have no or not much knowledge in science. The idea of inventing such a machine made me wonder more than once, whether such a possibility would work in reality. I find this idea very interesting!

The protagonists, especially Peter and Tanya are pretty authentic: on the one hand Peter the scientist who is very smart, very gifted in creative thinking and who needs investors for his project and on the other, the woman who works in hospital and would like to experiment with Electra who is very likable, too. However, I couldn’t always follow the development of feelings between them, they appeared to me mostly in surprise and I wondered „oh, when did that happen, did I miss it?“.

The fact of my being interested in the whole project and it’s development made me read on and towards the end I had to continue reading because it really became very captivating. The writing skills of the author are mostly well done, I just had a couple of times the impression that the connection to the previous sentence was was a bit clumsy so the flow wasn’t always fluent, but that just happened a couple of times. In general it was really easy going und nice reading the book.

To sum it up, I generally liked the idea of Electra, who helps people acting on their own free will which made me wonder more than once, whether such a thing would really be happening one day which again I found very interesting! The protagonists were mostly authentic and credible, except for one or two developments just like the writing skills of the author which were mostly well. All this could impress me and make me enjoy reading this book!

Kurzrezension (Deutsch)

Free will Odyssey von Larry Kilham konnte mich im Großen und Ganzen überzeugen, nicht nur durch die interessante Idee, ein Mittel zur Wiederherstellung des freien Willens zu erfinden, in einer Welt wo Medikamente/Drogen die Gefühle der Menschen beherrschen, sondern auch die Frage, die ich mir mehrmals stellte, ob es in Wirklichkeit auch funktionieren würde. Sehr viele technische Erklärungen erfolgten im Buch zwar, wurden aber verständlich erklärt, so dass nicht-Physiker, nicht-Mechaniker usw. die Grundlagen meiner Meinung nach trotzdem verstehen können. Die Protagonisten empfand ich als überwiegend glaubwürdig, wenn auch einige Entwicklungen etwas plötzlich für mich kamen und ich mich fragte „hoopla, wann ist denn das passiert“. Der Schreibstil des Autors war überwiegend angenehm, obwohl ich einige wenige Male stutzen musste, da der Übergang etwas ungünstig formuliert wurde, es der gesamten Geschichte jedoch nichts abtut. Insgesamt würde ich es Dystopie-Fans die Physik und Technik nicht scheuen weiterempfehlen. Es ist eine wirklich spannende Geschichte, die ich mit Tauchgenuss bewerte!

 

• title Free Will Odyssey
• author Larry Kilham
• pages 194 pages (Print)
• price 2,99 (Kindle Edition), 14,34 (Print)
• publisher CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (2. Oktober 2017)