Such a fascinating read. Kierk and Carmen are bright young students accepted into a prestigious programme to work on the scientific understanding of consciousness. Kierk is brilliant but tortured, arrogant and unlikeable to some, a genius whose passion and obsession are to find an overarching theory for consciousness, at times a struggle which brings him towards madness, at other times transcending towards a brilliant enlightenment.

Hoel writes a beautiful dreamscape construct with his prose, and with it is exploring the very concept of reality, the meaning of life, and the fabric of the universe that we each individually perceive. It’s a really ambitious topic and I found it an accomplished piece of writing.

The perspective switches very fluidly at times, which initially was disconcerting but became more integral later on; at times the reader is even unsure what is reality and what is dream; this is clearly deliberate and an important element in the story. I really liked the way the reality of the story constantly unhinged and broke apart, the fear and the madness and the excitement, these feelings of the characters were made manifest in the chaotic telling of the story itself.

Thank you to @Abramsbooks and #Netgalley for the arc to review.

I felt an odd familiarity with the characters, all sort of odd academics dealing with theories of consciousness while in some ways in the throes of academia instead of regular consciousness. It was a bit a Of an academic Paper crossed with a mystery novel. Even with the pacing problems, I liked it.

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

The Revelations by Erik Hoel is, for me, almost like two different books. Unfortunately, they were not both equally compelling.

Strictly as a novel, by which I mean what propels the story and the way in which Hoel writes and develops the plot, I was less impressed. Well short of disliking but still a little disappointed. Part of it is likely that I just didn't care for his writing style, which is much more about the dynamics between author and reader than about the quality. One area that I just couldn't get past was the way I seemed to feel like I was being manipulated into feeling a certain way about characters. I understand that writing a novel is, in part, manipulating the reader into seeing some characters certain ways. But some degree of subtlety would be nice. 

The part of the book I enjoyed had less to do with the story (though also a vital aspect of the story), namely the ideas surrounding consciousness, what it is to be human, to be a subject, indeed to what extent we remain an independent subject as we interact more and more with technology. Part of this chain of thinking is likely because I am also reading Slavoj Zizek's Hegel in a Wired Brain, so I am taking the ideas Hoel presents as part of this novel and running with it.

I hope your main takeaway from my comments about the thought-provoking aspect of the book isn't that Hoel is making all of the connections I am making but that he offers, within the frame of the story, information that will and should make the reader ponder things beyond the story. The direction your thoughts go will likely be different from mine based on your interests and past or present reading.

While I have mixed feelings about the novel as a whole, I would still recommend it to readers who like a story with quite a few think pieces, for lack of a better term, scattered throughout. I also think that plenty of readers will have a more positive reaction to Hoel's style than I do.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

"Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" This is the heart of The Revelations many scientific and philosophical questions regarding the theory of consciousness. Erik Hoel does an impressive job of bringing neuroscience, a fascinating subject, to the forefront and provides a lot of interesting arguments to how we can truly tell what makes us ourselves. Unfortunately it simply didn't answer the question "Where Is This Book Going?" for me. While I understand the use of third person in order to explore other characters it felt like this was supposed to be focused on a single minded protagonist proving himself ala Ayn Rand, and would've benefited from focusing more on the main character Kierk solely from a first person perspective in order to delve into his madness, obsession, and mania. The Revelations feels like it has too much going on at times, losing the revelations being revealed. 

The writing can get a bit carried away with itself often repeating the same idea multiple times in paragraphs and while I appreciated how this evoked some of the mania mentioned above, it can make it rather heavy handed and difficult to get through in spots. 

This was simply a miss for me. If you love the works of David Foster Wallace you'll probably love the prose style. Hoel feels like a modern day Aldous Huxley mixed with Wallace, but I just could not get invested fully. Fair warning as well there are lots of graphic spots of animals in experiments that could be upsetting to some.