Anyone is a sci-fi thriller written by Charles Soule.
I’ve first read Soule through his works on comic books. His experience as an attorney led him to write, for example, memorable runs on Daredevil and She-Hulk for Marvel. In spite of having heard a lot of good things about The Oracle Year, it seems I never made the time to get to it before his new novel came to my attention.
Anyone has nothing to do with law and attorneys. There are some attorneys in it, and a few harsh negotiations of rather brutal contracts, but it’s foremost a speculative sci-fi thriller, narrated through different timelines, mainly two, and the third person point of view of several characters.
Fifteen minutes into our future, Gabrielle White is a neuroscientist. She obtained funds from a venture capitalist, on not very good terms, to research a cure for Alzheimer through light waves. She wants to change the world. The money is almost gone, and she has nothing to show for it. She spends the last of it in a final Hail Mary experiment, and it fails. The seal of the tube containing Wilbur, the diseased lab rat, isn’t perfect. Light from her high power laser filters out, drawing mesmerizing patterns on the ceiling of her makeshift lab/barn... and she wakes up in the body of her husband, holding their infant girl.
Gabrielle White changed the world.
25 years in the future, the flash has been made commercially available by a company nicknamed Anyone. As their marketing states, anyone can now be anyone for a few minutes or for days. Consciousnesses jumping into vessels on a pay per minute basis. Endless possibilities. Society has been utterly transformed by this innovation. The planet has been saved in the process. However, any technological advancement can be abused. If most people use the legal « lightshare » network system, anonymous renting of bodies also happen through the way less legal « darkshare ». Servers and nodes not owned by the NeOne Net corporation. Crime has changed, as well. Light or Dark, two rules are embedded in the system : if one dies, both die, and you have to return to your prime body before being able to do another share.
Annami is a young girl who starts using the darkshare after having quit her job at NeOne Net. She knows secrets about the flash. She has revenge in her mind. And, even if chased by Neone’s security goons, she has a plan. To enact it, she needs a large sum of money. Renting her body on the darkshare is a good way to get it. However, after her very first share, she wakes up in a room with a dead body, and a killer after her.
Charles Soule does a great job at weaving two thrillers together, set in two different timelines. One directly following Gabrielle White’s invention and her efforts to steer it in the right direction, and the other following Annami on her revenge quest. Of course, as we learn more about the events of the past, the two timelines converge towards an explosive finale. Each alternating chapter is written with fast pacing, and are equally fascinating. You never feel the need to skim over a timeline to get back to the other. The writer creates a compelling gallery of three dimensional characters, with well defined motivations, even if some of the antagonists can be comic-booky at times. But, we all love to hate a good villain.
This is a book that also brings quite a few philosophical and societal questions. What would entail the sudden appearance of such a technology in our lives ? Charles Soule guides us towards a variety of topic to ponder, both good and bad, while never losing the plot and pace of his story. The ending is perfect.
Now, I really have to make time for The Oracle Year.
Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for the ARC provided in exchange for this unbiased review.
