Anyone

A Novel

By: Charles Soule

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

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.

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. What begins as a botched experiment will change her life - and the world - forever...

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. 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. 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... or worse.

Anyone 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. 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.

©2019 Charles Soule (P)2019 HarperAudio

Overall great despite iffy ending

I really enjoyed this overall except the ending in the last five minutes which kind of came out of nowhere and was implausible as it required a massive amount of plot induced stupidity by the bad guys who up til then had been very smart.

One intriguing thing is the main protagonist never truly felt like the good guy while the main bad guy wasn't wholly evil either as a lot of the time I was siding with the bad guys motives, if not their methods, over the protagonists motives.

Awesome

Loved it! Very engaging and entertaining. I didn't know what expect but the way the story was delivered was great

wonderful

what a ride! a great story, awesome character development and that ending! another great one from Charles Soule! Definitely read this

dumb premise

Ms. Zeller whispers the entire book. this isn't NPR, just talk normally. horribly unsatisfying ending too.

Starts off great turns awful for last 3/4

Started off with a great story then turned awfull! Became a preaching muddled mess that ignored story for the authors political views, in my opinion.

Less than the sum of its parts (spoilers)

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. Unfortunately, it does neither very well. Each story on its own is uninspired and the interweaving only serves to conceal that for longer than is deserved.

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. Given the omniscient narration, it’s even cheaper, as the inner life of the future narrator is revealed to have been cheating so the author can pull back the curtain only when it suits him. Even if it’s not immediately evident how it’s going to be implemented, in a book about mind switching that’s not a compelling mystery. How it actually happens is the one good idea in the plot but it feels like Soule had the book three-quarters written before he thought of it, didn’t have room to integrate it, and had to retcon his premises to work it in at the end.

As a result, it crashes to an unsatisfying and ludicrous finish in the last 15 minutes with little connection to the rest of the narrative, as though the author really had no idea how he was going to tie everything off and resorted to blatant deus ex machina, one that is literally going to kill millions if not billions of people worldwide.

The voice acting is very distracting whenever Zeller departs from her natural tone, particularly any male character, managing to sound throaty and nasally at the same time as she tries to deepen her voice, resulting in every man sounding basically the same.

Skip it.