Pages

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The Second Lives of Honest Men by John Cameron : A Review




BOOK TITLE: The second lives of Honest men
ISBN: 9780993621505
AUTHOR: John R. Cameron
GENRE: Fiction
NUMBER OF PAGES: 340
FORMAT: Digital
SERIES / STANDALONE: Standalone
REVIEW BY: Dhivya Balaji
HOW I GOT THIS BOOK: We got a copy for review purposes.
SUMMARY:
          On the evening of April 14th, 1865, a flawless duplicate replaced the 16th President an instant prior to his assassination. Two centuries later, Honest Abe opened his eyes to a world in desperate need of guidance.
          THE SECOND LIVES OF HONEST MEN is a prescient vision of where society's dependence on technology could be taking us. It's a character driven story about love, redemption, and hope, with deep philosophical underpinnings related to how we think, feel, and reason in a world where it's ironically easy to feel disconnected
REVIEW:
          The Second Lives of Honest Men is a different kind of book. The concept is new, the story line is new and the presentation is also new. The story is unique in a few aspects. First and foremost being the idea of going back in time and bringing a person from the past into the future to solve the current problems. What happens when the most popular honest man in America’s history, a man better known as ‘Honest Abe’ comes into the future and witnesses the country at its worst?
          The United States of America is under the influence of a corporate vested interest, known as ‘The Company’ that controls people using an augmented reality device called as ‘the interface’. People of the nation are forced to wear the lenses that transmit images, videos and music online, keeping them thoroughly, mindlessly entertained. The population gets used to the numbing entertainment and is lost to the age where every communication is online and easily monitored by The Company.
          In this era, lives an old professor, Jacob Wentworth, who detests the whole concept of interface and refuses to live with it. But he deems himself powerless to fight with the Company and rather lives a resigned life until he sees in Bryce Trent, a student of great capabilities. Bryce Trent is slowly drawn into the professor’s philosophies and gets his own moment of reckoning when he decides to fight the mind numbing interface and destroy what he himself was one of the reasons for creating.
          On the other hand, the power mongers try to suppress this group and ensure that their smooth functioning is not hampered. In a race against time, the professor, his student and an young intern doctor join hands and hatch a plan to overthrow the autocratic Company. If and how they do it forms the rest of the story.
          The summary of the book sounded promising, and the book was only half as much. There are a few gaping logic holes that might have been avoided but since both the story and the premise are new to us, the author is allowed certain liberties in logic. Next comes the continuity, and here are a few noticeable jumps, but none too big to hamper the smooth narrative. The plot makes one conscious of the banes of exponentially growing technology and can be considered an eye opener in modern times, where caution must be exercised in handling technology.
          Sometimes, the book does make one wish that the brave leaders of the past were alive today to lead us into a better, clearer, more positive future environment. Read this book if you want your mind befuddled by how the reach of technology might affect the human populace in the coming years!
WHAT I LIKED: the new premise of the story and the nice concept of bringing back from the past!
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER: Certain logic and continuation errors could have been smoothed over!
VERDICT: go for it as a breath of fresh air from the run of the mill books!
RATING: 4/5
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: (In his own words)
          My family often drives me to the brink of madness; not a difficult thing to do, considering how close to the edge I already am. My daughter is a hellion. At the age of five, she’s both bright and bold, obstinate, and pushes every button I have. My wife blames my genetics: “I was never like that,” she claims. I deny it, despite knowing that I was also an uncontrollable child.

          I’m a teacher, but I consider myself a modern philosopher. I’m very worried about the current state of education. I’m concerned about the future, in general. I don’t think we all necessarily need to be alarmists, though I do believe that if you look at the world around you and aren’t a little worried, you and I probably aren’t going to agree on much. (I’ll pretend not to look while you navigate elsewhere. There’s plenty of other entertainment on-line. Crushing Candy, and so forth…)
EDITIONS AVAILABLE: Paperback/Digital/Kindle
PRICE: Rs. 995 for paperback, Rs. 49 for kindle

No comments:

Post a Comment

Not a SPAM comment! :)