Simon West-Bulford coincidentally works on the same site
as me though we'd never met before the book was released, 'The Soul Consortium'
is a slick-looking volume with an eye-catching cover, though the generous type
face means it's not as long as it looks. It is however a gripping read.
The setting is in the far future. I mean really far.
Think Greg Egan squared. The last human, Salem Ben, lives alone with an AI,
immersing himself in the recorded lives of the dead to pass the millennia. The
high-tech setting, quantum physics and esoteric philosophy at first glance lead
you to believe you're in for a hard SF extravaganza, but there's far more to
the book than that.
Detecting aberrations in the Soul Sphere where countless
human lives are recorded and stored, Salem Ben decides to investigate by
re-living the affected lives. The technology is totally immersive, so these
lives are lived and told from the viewpoint of those characters. An interesting
selection they are too - a serial killer and a psychic from our own past, a
monk from the far future and the ages-old woman who created the Soul
Consortium. The lives they lead are told in gritty realism, with all the
horrors of their existence played out in sometimes visceral detail. They are
all convincing and the monk in particular becomes a fascinating story in his
own right.
The way these past lives gradually link up, adding hints
and weaving threads, connected by Salem Ben's own slowly revealed history, make
this a stand-out debut. I was thoroughly drawn in and enjoyed it to the end.
