Kim Miller
This was my third Silverberg novel about exploring the mind and the dissolution of the self.
In a future world perpetrators of serious crimes are sentenced to have the inner self removed from their brain. Once that person is removed a new self, a new person, is inserted. With a new name, a lifetime of manufactured memories, and no real provenance, the new person is allowed back into the flow of city life.
Paul Macy walks out of the rehab centre, inhabiting the body of Nat Hamlin, a once famous artist convicted of multiple rapes. But something triggers a hidden danger deep in his brain, and he finds himself in conversation with Hamlin. And Hamlin wants his body back.
The bulk of the book is the back and forth struggle for control. One man is a work of fiction, a construct, but the legal person. The other man has walked the Earth in this body for decades, become internationally famous, but who allowed his inner danger to surface in multiple crimes.
There was a point through the story that I thought I could guess the outcome, but Silverberg brings a fresh imagination to the final confrontation.
This was my third Silverberg novel about exploring the mind and the dissolution of the self.
In a future world perpetrators of serious crimes are sentenced to have the inner self removed from their brain. Once that person is removed a new self, a new person, is inserted. With a new name, a lifetime of manufactured memories, and no real provenance, the new person is allowed back into the flow of city life.
Paul Macy walks out of the rehab centre, inhabiting the body of Nat Hamlin, a once famous artist convicted of multiple rapes. But something triggers a hidden danger deep in his brain, and he finds himself in conversation with Hamlin. And Hamlin wants his body back.
The bulk of the book is the back and forth struggle for control. One man is a work of fiction, a construct, but the legal person. The other man has walked the Earth in this body for decades, become internationally famous, but who allowed his inner danger to surface in multiple crimes.
There was a point through the story that I thought I could guess the outcome, but Silverberg brings a fresh imagination to the final confrontation.