After reading rave reviews, I expected to learn things from Observer about quantum mechanics that I
didn't already know from my Google study. I am disappointed. The science of
this sci-fi novel is superficial and sparse. From beginning to end, I could not
suspend disbelief in the major premise, extrapolated from findings that
observers always affect the outcome of scientific experiments, that a chip
implanted in the brain could allow a
person to create a real "branch of the universe" in a universe of
multiple universes in which all possibilities and deepest desires are made "real," The implantee
visits beloved dead, interacts with them, talks, has sex, murders, etc. Just
like in the universe we see.
I also found characters and their relationships superficial,
predictable, and unbelievable. The surgeon who does the implanting, Caroline,
is the only skeptic of the premise. She argues the experience of the branch
universes her patients create is illusion or hallucinations, But she
immediately abandons her skepticism and demands to be implanted when her lover is killed.
Finally for this review, I am disappointed in the role of
consciousness in the novel. I must admit, beyond the sum total of thoughts,
feelings, and awareness of individual experience, I don't know what
consciousness is. In this novel, it is treated as an a priori assumption that
consciousness is some kind of vague universal stuff or energy that makes us all
one with each other, the universe, and eternity. It reminds me of Sam Harris’s
defense of hallucinogenic drugs and sounds more like religion than science.
I know, we shouldn’t expect sci-fi to be restricted to
existing science and many of the classical sci-fi writers have been prophetic
about things that turn out to be true in science as it evolves. I love Ursula Le
Guin and Italo Calvino, but because of the reviews I expected more and better current
science from Observer.
All that said, the novel is page-turner-thriller
entertainment, and I suppose it should deserve at least 4 stars for that if I
weren't so disappointed in my expectations.
