{"id":4269,"date":"2015-07-25T20:23:23","date_gmt":"2015-07-26T00:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e357.net\/beingernest\/?p=4269"},"modified":"2015-07-27T18:47:40","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T22:47:40","slug":"4269","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/4269\/","title":{"rendered":"The Flicker Men by Ted Kosmatka"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>The Flicker Men<\/strong> by Ted Kosmatka is what the best sf should be; a story that compels the reader to grapple with the questions that drive the conflict, writing so good that you\u2019re fixed in place like a pithed frog, and characters that you care about from the opening sentence.<\/p>\n

There are no spaceships and square-jawed heroes here, nor is there a single LGBTn<\/em> (where n<\/em> is whatever comes next) character– or maybe there are, but they just aren\u2019t wearing a sign. That\u2019s fine in both cases; this book is nonstop terrific. It’s a story about people simultaneously chasing and being chased by their own demons while trying to pull back the veil of mystery underlying the nature of reality and should appeal to all you zombies. It also has real science–or as close to real science as I\u2019ve seen in one of the best novels I\u2019ve read in a long time.<\/p>\n

If economics is the dismal science, quantum physics is the absurd one. Spooky action at a distance, cats that are and aren\u2019t alive, and, presented here, something both simpler and more profound; light that is either a wave or a bunch of particles, depending on whether or not anyone\u2019s watching.<\/p>\n

I stay away from alternate history partly because I don\u2019t want to be confused about who won what and what happened next. Hard sf rarely does that to me, but The Flicker Men<\/strong> left me more than a bit off balance, wondering just how much of the science is real, how much is made up, and how much it depends on the observer\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

Eric Argus is a physicist, the thinking kind, not the tinkering kind, though he happens to be the drinking kind too. Someone asks him at one point in the story, \u201cWhy are the brilliant ones so fucked up?\u201d In Eric\u2019s case, it was inevitable. Both his parents came from families of alcoholics, like drawn to like, and were both brilliant scientists in their own rights, even if his mother was never quite sane after his father\u2019s suicide. So when the novel opens with Eric standing on a beach with a gun in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other, wondering which one he\u2019s going to empty first, we know he\u2019s inherited the full package.<\/p>\n

Eric has come to the East Coast for a second chance. Back in Indianapolis he was doing groundbreaking work in quantum mechanics, right until he reached the point in an equation that pulled the nature of reality out from under him, sending him reeling drunkenly through the streets and into disgrace.<\/p>\n

“The more research I did, the less I believed.”
\n“In quantum physics?”
\n“No,” I said. “In the world.”<\/p>\n

His old friend Jeremy is an executive at a prestigious scientific think tank, and he finds a way to make room for Eric to come to Boston and pick up where he left off. Only Eric isn\u2019t kidding when he says that he won\u2019t touch his old work. Now he\u2019s got three months to find something new, or to reconsider. They both know this isn\u2019t just a second chance; it\u2019s the second to last chance for Eric.<\/p>\n

So Eric wanders around the labs meeting people, slowly making connections, becoming part of their shared world. What he doesn\u2019t realize is that he\u2019s building the team he\u2019s going to need for the project that hasn\u2019t occurred to him yet–an exploration of the limits of the effect of observation on quantum phenomena. In Eric\u2019s damaged mind, and the writer\u2019s capable hands, it\u2019s a spell-binding pursuit of reality, the nature of consciousness, and ultimately, what it means to be human.<\/p>\n

If whether or not a phenomenon is observed affects its outcome, what defines an observer? Eric sets out to determine what the universe considers to be a valid observer, creating, along the way, his own version of the Turing test. He\u2019s going to find out more than he bargained for, and face truths more unsettling than you\u2019re imagining right now, and I\u2019m betting you can imagine a lot.<\/p>\n

The first half of the book is all science and mystery, which builds up a lot of potential energy for the second half to release in a kinetic stream of consequences that move along at breakneck speed. Eric has unleashed hidden knowledge on the world, but that doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s been hidden from everyone. Some look to his discovery to see what it can do for them, but others are willing to go to any lengths to keep the knowledge hidden, because they already know the answers.<\/p>\n

The Flicker Men is as finely crafted as it is provocative. I\u2019d recommend it for summer reading by the beach, or winter reading by the fire. Where you are won\u2019t matter once you get lost in its pages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Flicker Men by Ted Kosmatka is what the best sf should be; a story that compels the reader to grapple with the questions that drive the conflict, writing so good that you\u2019re fixed in place like a pithed frog, and characters that you care about from the opening sentence. There are no spaceships and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4269"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4320,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269\/revisions\/4320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}