The Many Selves of Katherine North

February 15, 2016
In a near-future setting with dark undertones, teen Katherine “Kit” North works as a phenomenaut, projecting her consciousness into the bodies of various lab-grown animals to study how they experience their natural environments. Together with her trusted partner, Buckley, who monitors her original body and vital signs in the lab, she has projected steadily for seven years, becoming the world’s most experienced phenomenaut. But when she is shifted from research to the tourism department, which lets novice phenomenauts inhabit the minds of wild animals, Kit begins to have serious doubts about the ethics and intentions of her company. The descriptions of animal projection are detailed and intriguing, but the story devolves into a dizzying morass of paranoia and animal instinct as the plot loses coherence. Readers of literary novels may enjoy the psychological aspects, but SF fans will be disappointed that the speculative elements are little more than background.