Triggers

February 6, 2012
Canadian futurist Sawyer (Flashforward) builds a turbo-charged techno-thriller around an experimental memory-altering machine. After an assassination attempt, U.S. President Jerrison is rushed into surgery. Minutes later, a bomb explodes at the White House. Dr. Ranjip Singh is working with a veteran recovering from flashbacks when an energy surge from the explosion overloads his equipment and puts his patient’s into Jerrison’s mind. The event also swaps around the memories of the surgeon, Dr. Singh, Secret Service agent Susan Dawson, and several others—including someone who now has access to Jerrison’s memories on the eve of a major secret military operation. Interleaving the stories of 21 people suddenly involved more intimately than spouses, Sawyer offers an escape from the recent run of near-future dystopias in a combination of classic and contemporary science fiction. Agent: Chris Lotts, the Lotts Agency.

February 15, 2012
Sci-fi veteran Sawyer (WWW: Wonder, 2011, etc.) turns in a solid if bland techno-thriller, which hums along nicely until an absurd mystical finale. A few years in the future, America is under siege from terrorist attacks, which have struck major cities including Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia. As the president prepares to address the nation from the Lincoln Memorial, a would-be assassin strikes, and the president is rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. While surgeons work to save the president's life, a research scientist in the same building conducts memory experiments on a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder using a radical new technique. These two events become intertwined when a bomb goes off at the White House, sending out an electromagnetic pulse that amplifies the scientist's equipment and creates mental linkages among 20 people in the hospital. Each person can now access the memories of one other person, and the Secret Service must protect national security by discovering who is linked to the president. That quest takes up most of the first half of the book, with breaks to examine how the memory linkages have affected various other characters. The eventual answer is a little predictable and anticlimactic, however, and the book's political-thriller aspects are unexceptional. Sawyer's writing is functional and colorless, but his characters are engaging enough that seeing how they deal with their newfound memories is engrossing. The story barrels forward quickly with a number of mini-cliffhangers, but by the end Sawyer drops almost all of the lingering plot questions in favor of a rushed, preachy resolution. It negates pretty much all of the interesting scientific concepts he's raised, substituting in a pseudo-religious awakening that magically solves all of the characters' problems (as well as humanity's). Readers hooked by the futuristic excitement may be disappointed in the lack of follow-through.

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March 15, 2012

An assassin's bullet lands U.S. President Seth Jerrison in the hospital, where doctors battle to save his life. In the same building, an experiment in curing brain trauma is in progress. The nearby detonation of a bomb triggers an electromagnetic pulse that almost kills the president and also redistributes the memories of everyone in the affected area. As he recuperates, Jerrison tries to make sense of memories that belong to someone else. Meanwhile, Secret Service Agent Susan Dawson realizes that someone now possesses the president's memory, including the knowledge of a top-secret military operation that could change the global political balance. VERDICT The Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Calculating God and "The WWW Trilogy" (Wake; Watch; Wonder) delivers a tense, race-against-the-clock adventure with a surprise ending. It should appeal to mainstream thriller readers as well as its target market.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2012
Seth Jerrison, U.S. president, is making a speech at the Lincoln Memorialremembering victims of a recent terrorist attack. He's shot by an assassin and only saved by the quick response of hypercompetent Secret Service agent Susan Dawson. Of course, it's not that simple: just a floor away from the president, Professor Ranjip Singh is working with an ex-soldier and an experimental device intended to erase traumatic memories. During all this, a terrorist bomb goes off, which causes an electromagnetic pulse that causes Singh's device to surge and leave everyone within range with access to each other's memories. Someone has the president's memoriesincluding information about a pending military operation of utmost secrecy. This is a security leak that can't be toleratedbut who has the president's memories? With a thriller's pacing and a chilling near-future world, Triggers does an interesting job of weaving together a disparate group of people and the threads of their stories, and takes a surprising turn in its vision of the way the situation resolves. Sawyer's strength is in the overarching ideas of his stories, and he certainly delivers here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)