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Our Verdict

by Robert Lanza ; Nancy Kress ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 2023

A thought-provoking fictional examination of big ideas.

A neurosurgeon gets involved with a scientific research team’s mind-bending project in Lanza and Kress’ SF novel that blends elements of biology, physics, and multiverse theory.

Caroline “Caro” Soames-Watkins is a capable, smart young neurosurgeon whose promising career is threatened after she reports a fellow doctor for sexual harassment and an onslaught of her harasser’s supporters come after her on social media. Drowning in loans, and with a sister and a disabled niece who rely on her for financial support, Caro accepts an invitation from her great-uncle Samuel Louis Watkins, whom she’s never met. He’s a terminally ill Nobel laureate who offers her a lucrative position as surgeon at a remote facility in the Caribbean. Her suspicions that the facility isn’t an ordinary hospital are proven right when, after signing nondisclosure agreements, she’s told about the real research going on behind closed doors. Her great-uncle—together with his lifelong friend and genius physicist George Weigert, and with support from tech developer Julian Dey—is apparently in the process of creating technology that will allow people to observe different branches of the multiverse. The process involves brain-implant surgery that Caro will be doing on volunteers. It’s supposed to be life-changing, potentially Nobel Prize–winning science, but Caro isn’t entirely convinced—until her personal life and the scientific project converge. This compelling novel by Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Kress and medical doctor and scientific researcher Lanza strikes a fine balance between hard-SF ideas around quantum physics, consciousness, and biology and accounts of the lives of people who deeply engage with those ideas. Caro, as one of the viewpoint characters, effectively acts as a surrogate for lay readers: “She said aloud, 'I am made of quantum foam that has been collapsed into Caroline Soames-Watkins.' ” No, she thought, I am made of confusion.” The other viewpoint character, George, provides more in-depth scientific takes, but both speakers are equally well developed and accessible. Overall, it’s a novel full of life-affirming ideas that’s likely to make readers rethink concepts of time and space.

Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023

ISBN: 9781611883435

Page Count: 368

Publisher: The Story Plant

Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

SCIENCE FICTION | THRILLER | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION

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by Robert Lanza

New York Times Bestseller

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

Pub Date: June 16, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SCIENCE FICTION | SUSPENSE | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION | SUSPENSE

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by Max Brooks

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BOOK TO SCREEN

A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection , 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | DETECTIVES & PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS | SUSPENSE | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER

More by Kathy Reichs

by Kathy Reichs

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• Book Reviews

Observer by Robert Lanza & Nancy Kress – Book Review

• Author – Robert Lanza & Nancy Kress
• Publisher – Fiction Studio Books
• Release Date – 10th January 2023
• Pages – 395
• ISBN 13 – 978-1611883435
• Format – ebook, paperback
• Star Rating – 5

I received a free copy of this book. This post contains affiliate links.

Caro Soames-Watkins, a talented neurosurgeon whose career has been upended by controversy, is jobless, broke, and the sole supporter of her sister, a single mother with a severely disabled child.

When she receives a strange job offer from Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sam Watkins, a great uncle she barely knows, desperation forces her to take it in spite of serious suspicions.

Watkins has built a mysterious medical facility in the Caribbean to conduct research into the nature of consciousness, reality, and life after death. Helped in his mission by his old friend, eminent physicist George Weigert, and young tech entrepreneur Julian Dey, Sam has gone far beyond curing the body to develop a technology that could solve the riddle of mortality.

Two obstacles stand in their way: someone on the inside is leaking intel and Watkins’ failing body must last long enough for the technology to be ready.

As danger mounts, Caro finds more than she bargained for, including murder, love, and a deeper understanding into the nature of reality.

A mind-expanding journey to the very edges of science, Observer will thrill you, inspire you, and lead you to think about life and the power of the imagination in startling new ways.

Review by Julie

‘Observer’ is a sci-fi novel by American-based co-authors, Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress. It is written in the third person and the past tense with each chapter ending on an intriguing hook. We meet Dr Caroline Soames-Watkins, an up-and-coming neurosurgeon, on track for a glittering career until she is cancelled by a relentless social media campaign rained down on her after she accuses a seemingly untouchable senior colleague of sexual impropriety. It appears that no hospital is willing to offer her a post and with a huge student debt and a niece with significant health issues, she accepts an offer from her great-uncle Nobel laureate, Dr Sam Watkins. She travels to Cayman Brac to join a project with which she is morally and ethically uncomfortable.

I’m not going to pretend I understand the premise of the science behind the plot. Suffice it to say, Sam Watkins’ friend and colleague, eminent physicist George Weigert, has come up with a revolutionary theory challenging the framework of contemporary science. He calls this the ‘Primacy of the Observer’ and it concentrates on the possibility of a ‘multiverse’ rather than a universe.

The plot develops at pace with an event which could affect the efficacy of the project and there is an unexpected love interest for Caro. I was delighted to find the object of her affection wasn’t the archetypal perfect male specimen. I would question the mention of a death of a character about half way through the book when we weren’t supposed to know about it until much later in the story.

This is a very carefully constructed story with an unexpected ending. I thought Caro was strong and multi-dimensional and she was ably assisted by her foils. I think sci-fi fans will very much enjoy this book. The authors have used literary devices well and in spite of the seriousness of the underlying themes, there is a smattering of humour along the way. It kept me engaged from start to finish and I award five stars.

Purchase Online:

• Amazon.co.uk

Robert Lanza & Nancy Kress

Named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People,” Robert Lanza is a renowned scientist and author whose ground-breaking research spans many fields, from biology to theoretical physics. He has worked with some of the greatest minds of our time, including Jonas Salk and B.F. Skinner. A U.S. News and World Report cover story called him “the living embodiment of the character played by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting” and described him as a “genius,” a “renegade thinker,” and likened him to Einstein. He is the father of Biocentrism, the basis of Observer, his first novel.

He has been pondering the larger existential questions since he was a young boy, when for play he took excursions deep into the forests of eastern Massachusetts observing nature (like Emerson and Thoreau, who grew up just a few miles from him). This fascination with the nature of life infused his entire career, leading him to the very frontiers of biology and science.

Author Links:

• www.robertlanza.com

Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-five books, including twenty-seven novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won six Nebula Awards, two Hugo Awards, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Her most recent works are a stand-alone novella about genetic engineering, Sea Change (Tachyon, 2020) and a science fiction novel of power and money, The Eleventh Gate (Baen, 2020). Her fiction has been translated into nearly two dozen languages including Klingon. She has taught writing in Leipzig, Beijing, and throughout the U.S. Nancy lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead.

The above links are affiliate links. I receive a very small percentage from each item you purchase via these links, which is at no extra cost to you. If you are thinking about purchasing the book, please think about using one of the links. All money received goes back into the blog and helps to keep it running. Thank you.

Tags: Amazon Authors Blackwells Book Book Blog Book Blogger Book Review Book Reviewer ebook Fiction Five Stars Julie Kindle Nancy Kress Paperback Review Robert Lanza Sci-Fi

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BOOK REVIEW: Observer by Robert Lanza and Nancy Press

Posted by Suanne | Jan 12, 2023 | Book Reviews | 0

Observer is a science-fiction novel based on ideas from scientist Robert Lanza (called one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine) and cowritten by Nancy Kress (a Hugo and Nebula Award winning author) and demonstrates an in-depth grasp of science and a penchant for speculative science fiction. The physics is understandable and illuminating. In short, the premise begins with aspects of the observer effect in quantum physics then makes the observer central, theorizing that the observer creates the universe, rather than the universe creating the individual.

The protagonist, Dr. Caroline (Caro) Soames-Watkins, is a neurosurgeon whose career is destroyed when she accuses her superior of sexual misconduct and becomes the target of a massive social media storm promulgated by misogynistic trolls. To salvage her career, she accepts a position with her great-uncle and moves to the Caribbean. Along with physicist George Weigert and tech entrepreneur Julian Dey, Samuel Watkins, himself a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, has developed technology that allows people with implanted brain stimulation devices to create new universes and to revisit them at any time they are hooked up to the machinery.

Because the subject matter is complex, a lot of explication is necessary, and these complex ideas are frequently repeated. Because of all the exposition, the dialog drags through extended lengthy paragraphs, much of which I skimmed. A subplot involves Caro’s sister, who has a disabled and a non-disabled child, all of whom depend on Caro for financial support. In another subplot, Caro overcomes her distrust of men to embark on a romance. When her lover is killed, she insists on immediately being implanted with the device so she can establish a universe in which he still exists. There didn’t seem to be enough depth in the relationship for Caro to make this kind of leap.

Overall, I found Observer fascinating and enjoyed the read and the challenges of the science. I’d call this “hard” sci-fi as opposed to the “kindler, gentler” sci-fi I’ve read recently (for example,  Our Child of the Stars and  Our Child of Two Worlds by Stephen Cox).

******************** 

Observer  (The Story Plant, January 10, 2023) is available through:

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• The Grand Biocentric Design
• Beyond Biocentrism
• Biocentrism
• Essentials of Stem Cell Biology
• Principles of Tissue Engineering
• Principles of Regenerative Medicine
• Handbook of Stem Cells
• Medical Science and the Advancement of World Health
• Principles of Cloning
• Cellular Therapies for Retinal Disease
• Heart Transplantation
• Pancreatic Islet Transplantation
• Yearbook of Cell and Tissue Transplantation 1996–1997
• Cell Encapsulation Technology and Therapeutics
• Methods in Enzymology, Volume 418
• Methods in Enzymology, Volume 419
• Methods in Enzymology, Volume 420
• Essential Stem Cell Methods
• Foundations of Regenerative Medicine
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Observer, A Novel

A mind-expanding journey to the very edges of science,

OBSERVER will thrill you, inspire you, and lead you to think about life and the power of the imagination in startling new ways.

“Robert Lanza has taken the gigantic step of incorporating his ideas into a science fiction novel with Nancy Kress … brilliant … a riveting and moving story.”―Rhonda Byrne, #1 NY Times bestselling author

“The cutting edge of science tipping into something new and marvelous … a startling, fascinating novel”―Kim Stanley Robinson, NY Times bestselling author

“A thrilling story you won’t forget.”―Robin Cook, #1 NY Times bestseller

“OBSERVER is the best of science and fiction—an intellectual adventure with real heart.”―Daryl Gregory, award-winning author.

Lanza’s Forthcoming Book on cover of Publishers Weekly

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Observer: A Novel Kindle Edition

• Print length 393 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publication date January 12, 2024
• File size 920 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
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A mind-bending novel that will change the way we think about reality.

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About the author, product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CSB3LRKW
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Story Plant (January 12, 2024)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 12, 2024
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 920 KB
• Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 393 pages
• #14 in Metaphysical Science Fiction eBooks
• #61 in Hard Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
• #147 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)

About the authors

Nancy kress.

Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-four books, including twenty-six novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won six Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. She writes frequently about genetic engineering; including the acclaimed science-fiction novel Beggars in Spain. Kress’s fiction has been translated into Swedish, Danish, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Croatian, Chinese, Lithuanian, Romanian, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Russian, and Klingon, none of which she can read. In addition to writing, Kress often teaches at various venues around the country and abroad, including a visiting lectureship at the University of Leipzig, a 2017 writing class in Beijing, and the annual intensive workshop TaosToolbox. Kress lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead, and Pippin, the world’s most spoiled Chihuahua.

Robert Lanza

Robert Lanza is an American scientist and author whose research spans the range of natural science, from biology to theoretical physics. TIME magazine recognized him as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World,” and Prospect magazine named him one of the "Top 50 World Thinkers.”

He has hundreds of scientific publications and over 30 books, including definitive references in the fields of stem cells, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. He is a former Fulbright Scholar, and studied with polio-pioneer Jonas Salk and Nobel laureates Gerald Edelman (known for his work on the biological basis of consciousness) and Rodney Porter. He also worked closely (and co-authored papers in Science on self-awareness and symbolic communication) with noted Harvard psychologist BF Skinner. Dr. Lanza received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was both a University Scholar and Benjamin Franklin Scholar.

Lanza was part of the team that cloned the world’s first human embryo, the first endangered species, and published the first-ever reports of pluripotent stem cell use in humans.

Lanza and his colleagues were also the first to demonstrate that nuclear transplantation could be used to reverse the aging process and to generate immune-compatible tissues, including the first organ tissue-engineered from cloned cells. One of his early achievements was his demonstration that techniques used in preimplantation genetic diagnosis could be used to generate human embryonic stem cells without embryonic destruction.

He and colleagues have also succeeded in differentiating human pluripotent stem cells into retinal cells, and has shown that they provide long-term benefit in animal models of vision loss. Using this technology some forms of blindness may be curable, including macular degeneration and Stargardt disease, a currently untreatable form eye disease that causes blindness in teenagers and young adults. Lanza's company received FDA approval to carry out clinical trials in the US using them to treat degenerative eye diseases, as well approval for the first human pluripotent stem cell trial in Europe. The first patients reported improved vision in the eyes treated with the cells, which The Guardian said "represents a huge scientific achievement."

Dr. Lanza and his colleagues published the first-ever report of human pluripotent stem cells transplanted into human patients. The patients who received the stem cell transplants say their lives have been transformed by the experimental procedure--they report that they can use their computers, thread a needle, or even go to the mall or airport on their own.

Lanza has also been a major player in the scientific revolution that has led to the documentation that nuclear transfer/transcription factors can restore developmental potential in a differentiated cell. One of his successes was showing that it is feasible to generate functional oxygen-carrying red blood cells from human pluripotent stem cells. The blood cells were comparable to normal transfusable blood and could serve as a potentially inexhaustible source of "universal" blood. His team also discovered how to generate functional hemangioblasts - a population of "ambulance" cells - from hES cells. In animals, these cells quickly repaired vascular damage, cutting the death rate after a heart attack in half and restoring the blood flow to ischemic limbs that might otherwise have to be amputated.

Lanza and a team lead by Kwang-Soo Kim at Harvard University have also reported a safe method for generating induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Human iPS cells were created from skin cells by direct delivery of proteins, thus eliminating the harmful risks associated with genetic manipulation. The Editors of the prestigious journal Nature selected Lanza and Kim's paper on protein reprogramming as one of five "Research Highlights." Discover magazine stated, "Lanza's single-minded quest to usher in this new age has paid dividends in scientific insights and groundbreaking discoveries." Fortune magazine called him "the standard-bearer for stem cell research.”

Dr. Lanza has received numerous awards, including being named one of TIME Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World"; the 2013 Il Leone di San Marco award in Medicine (The Italian Heritage and Culture Committee, along with Regis Philbin [in Entertainment]); including an NIH Director's Award (2010) for "Translating Basic Science Discoveries into New and Better Treatments"; the 2010 'Movers and Shakers' Who Will Shape Biotech Over the Next 20 Years (BioWorld)(along with Craig Venter and President Barack Obama); the 2007 100 Most Inspiring People in the Life-Sciences Industry (PharmaVOICE, "For his discoveries 'behind the medicines making a significant impact on the pipelines of today and of the future'"; the 2007 Outstanding Contribution in Contemporary Biology Award (Brown University, "For his groundbreaking research and contributions in stem cell science and biology"; the 2006 All-Star Award for Biotechnology (MA High Tech, for "pushing stem cells' future"); the 2005 Rave Award for Medicine (Wired magazine, "For eye-opening work on embryonic stem cells"); and Lanza is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare, Who's Who in Science and Engineering; Who's Who in American Education, and Who's Who in Technology, among others.

Dr. Lanza and his research have been featured in almost every media outlet in the world, including CNN, TIME, Newsweek, People, as well as the front pages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, among others (his work has also been the cover story of US News & World Report, Wired magazine, and Scientific American).

In 2007, Lanza published a feature article, "A New Theory of the Universe" in The American Scholar, a leading intellectual journal which has previously published works by Albert Einstein, Margaret Mead, and Carl Sagan, among others. His theory places biology above the other sciences in an attempt to solve one of nature's biggest puzzles, the theory of everything that other disciplines have been pursuing for the last century. This new view has become known as Biocentrism. In biocentrism, space and time are forms of animal sense perception, rather than external physical objects. Understanding this more fully yields answers to several major puzzles of mainstream science, and offers a new way of understanding everything from the microworld (for instance, the reason for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the double-slit experiment) to the forces, constants, and laws that shape the universe. Nobel laureate E. Donnall Thomas stated "Any short statement does not do justice to such a scholarly work. The work is a scholarly consideration of science and philosophy that brings biology into the central role in unifying the whole."

You can read more about Dr. Robert Lanza's work at:

http://www.robertlanza.com/

http://www.robertlanzabiocentrism.com/

https://beyondbiocentrism.com

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OBSERVER: A NOVEL

If we can alter the structure of reality, should we?

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We will donate the full purchase price to the Salk Institute to help find cures and explore the very foundations of life. Fund a specific science area of your own choice , whether cancer, COVID research, or plant biology to fight climate change, among others. Share Jonas Salk’s mission to make dreams into reality.

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Plus! Full Purchase Price

Donated to Salk Institute

“Robert Lanza has taken the gigantic step of incorporating his ideas into a science fiction novel with Nancy Kress. This brilliant book will take you deep into quantum physics, where these often-complex concepts are illuminated through a riveting and moving story… It was when I was doing research for my latest book, The Greatest Secret , that I came across Lanza’s astounding book, Biocentrism . Here was the science that backed up everything I knew to be true on a spiritual level. Observer breaks down the materialistic model of ourselves and the world that we’ve come to believe as reality. It is the leading-edge scientists such as Dr. Robert Lanza who will help take humanity out of the dark ages and into a new world.”

―Rhonda Byrne, #1 New York Times bestselling author

*     *     *

Caro Soames-Watkins, a talented neurosurgeon whose career has been upended by controversy, is jobless, broke, and the sole supporter of her sister, a single mother with a severely disabled child.

When she receives a strange job offer from Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sam Watkins, a great uncle she barely knows, desperation forces her to take it in spite of serious suspicions.

Watkins has built a mysterious medical facility in the Caribbean to conduct research into the nature of consciousness, reality, and life after death. Helped in his mission by his old friend, eminent physicist George Weigert, and young tech entrepreneur Julian Dey, Sam has gone far beyond curing the body to develop a technology that could solve the riddle of mortality for the soul.

Two obstacles stand in their way: someone on the inside is leaking intel and Watkins’ failing body must last long enough for the technology to be ready.

As danger mounts, Caro finds more than she bargained for, including murder, love, and a deeper understanding into the nature of reality.

A mind-expanding journey to the very edges of science

Joining a fascinating and relatable cast of characters with a mind-expanding journey to the very edges of science, OBSERVER will thrill you, inspire you, and lead you to think about life and the power of the imagination in startling new ways.

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“Nancy Kress is one of the greatest living science fiction writers, and her particular talent for telling stories about people on the cutting edge of science tipping into something new and marvelous is perfectly suited to the ideas that have come to Robert Lanza in the course of his groundbreaking scientific research. Together they’ve written a startling, fascinating novel.”

―Kim Stanley Robinson, New York Times bestselling author

“Real science and limitless imagination combine in a thrilling story you won’t soon forget.”

―Robin Cook, #1 New York Times bestselling author, Coma (and 37 other international bestsellers)

“Nancy Kress is a master storyteller, and her trademark empathy is on every page. Even as we venture into the heady territory of quantum physics and the nature of reality that Robert Lanza is known for, we never lose track of Caro, the brilliant surgeon who’ll do anything to save the people she loves. OBSERVER is the best of science and fiction—an intellectual adventure with real heart.”

―Daryl Gregory, award-winning author, Spoonbenders

“OBSERVER is an impressive story! . . . Lanza and Kress give us characters with science and spirit”

―David Brin, New York Times bestselling author, The Postman

―Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“The viewpoint character is a brilliant neurosurgeon unwillingly drawn into a secret scientific project designed to prove that the generally accepted view of reality is completely wrong… a compelling story filled with believable characters.”

“Fantastical… Do we each create our own reality? Debates about the fundamental nature of reality go back centuries, to Plato and his Allegory of the Cave , and to Immanuel Kant’s 18th-century philosophical musings about transcendental idealism. More recently, special relativity and quantum mechanics have provided solid grounding for the idea that the act of observation has an effect on external phenomena… Observer includes plot twists that are ripped from the headlines, including social-media shaming, drone technology and dark-web villainy. There’s even a romance between the neurosurgeon and a hunky doctor who’s brought in to assist with the brain surgery.”

“ Observer is already one of my Best Books of 2022, and with January release will be one of the Best of 2023. Hopeful, inspirational; heartwrenching and heartwarming; infuriating and invigorating, Observer is the seamless collaboration of two excellent authors with a firm grasp of science and a flair for speculative science fiction. The quantum science is graspable, illuminating, inspiring. I read it in one session and had no situational awareness of my surroundings, as I was so deeply into the novel. I came away hopeful, excited, inspired, determined! This is a novel I expect to return to again and again and again.”

GET DISCOUNT IF YOU ORDER NOW

Click Here  to learn more about Salk’s research areas and to select how you would like to apply your donation. This offer is for a limited time only!

Plus! We will donate the full purchase price to the  Salk Institute  to help find cures and explore the very foundations of life. Fund a specific science area of your own choice, whether cancer, COVID research, or plant biology to fight climate change, among others. Share Jonas Salk’s mission to make dreams into reality.

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Meet the Authors

Robert Lanza is the bestselling author of the nonfiction biocentrism trilogy ( Biocentrism , Beyond Biocentrism , and The Grand Biocentric Design ), the basis of OBSERVER. His blogs on The Huffington Post and Psychology Today have been viewed by 10’s of millions of people. TIME magazine recognized him as one of the “100 Most Influential People,” and Prospect magazine named him one of the “Top 50 World Thinkers.” In addition to his groundbreaking work in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine, Dr. Lanza has worked with some of the greatest minds of our time, including Jonas Salk and Nobel laureates Gerald Edelman and Rodney Porter. He also worked closely (and published a series of papers) with influential Harvard psychologist BF Skinner. A U.S. News and World Report cover story called him “the living embodiment of the character played by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting” and described him as a “genius,” a “renegade thinker,” and likened him to Einstein. He was part of the team that cloned the world’s first human embryo, the first endangered species, and published the first-ever reports of pluripotent stem cell use in humans. He has been featured in almost every media outlet in the world, including all the major TV networks, CNN, TIME , Newsweek , People magazine, as well as the front pages of the New York Times , Wall Street Journal , Washington Post , Los Angeles Times , and USA Today , among others (his work has also been the cover story of US News & World Report , Wired magazine, and Scientific American ).

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IF YOU ORDER NOW

@ 2022 Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress. All rights reserved.

@ 2002 Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress. All rights reserved.

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Talking ‘Dune’: Book and Movies

The times’s critic alissa wilkinson discusses frank herbert’s classic science fiction novel and denis villeneuve’s film adaptations..

Hosted by Gilbert Cruz

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Frank Herbert’s epic novel “Dune” and its successors have been entrenched in the science fiction and fantasy canon for almost six decades, a rite of passage for proudly nerdy readers across the generations. But “Dune” is experiencing a broader cultural resurgence at the moment thanks to Denis Villeneuve’s recent film adaptations starring Timothée Chalamet . ( Part 2 is in theaters now.)

This week on the podcast, Gilbert Cruz talks to The Times’s critic Alissa Wilkinson, who covers movies, culture and religion, about Herbert’s novel, Villeneuve’s films and the enduring hold of Fremen lore on the audience’s imagination.

“There’s a couple things that I think are really unsettling in ‘Dune,’” Wilkinson says. “One is, the vision of Frank Herbert was, I believe, to basically write a book that questioned authoritarians and hero mythology genuinely, across the board. Any kind of a hero figure he is proposing will always have things and people come up alongside that hero figure that distort their influence. Even if they intend well, if they’re benevolent, there’s still all of this really awful stuff that comes along with it. So Paul is a messiah figure — we believe he wants good things for most of the book — and then he turns on a dime or it feels like he might be turning on a dime. You can never quite tell where anyone stands in this book. And I think that is unsettling, especially because so many of the other kinds of things that we watch — the superhero movies, “Star Wars,” whatever — there’s a clear-cut good and evil fight going on. Good and evil don’t really exist in ‘Dune.’”

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected] .

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Science Fiction Book Club is a podcast for bookworms and stargazers. In every episode, hosts Abu and Obssa dive into the pages of their favorite science fiction novels to break down the big ideas and ask the nerdy questions.  This first-of-its-kind podcast invites listeners to join in on the discussion and read along with completely spoiler-free episodes, community live streams, and guided lessons. This isn't just a generic book review podcast – it's a show made for and with a community of passionate readers and sci-fi fans. So join the club, and get reading! New episodes every other Thursday.

Science Fiction Book Club: The Three-Body Problem Lore Party Media

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Netflix's 3 Body Problem First Impressions

In this short bonus episode, Abu and Obssa share their early thoughts on Netflix's 3 Body Problem. In brief, they're really enjoying the show and recommend you check it out! Join our Patreon for bonus content and helpful reading materials Join our Discord to keep the conversation going Check our Season 1 Schedule to keep up with the reading assignments Email us your thoughts and questions: [email protected]

• MAR 21, 2024

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (ch. 4-6)

Abu and Obssa continue their read through of The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. They explore the themes of science versus nature in the novel and unpack the idea of technology as a disease. Join our Patreon for bonus content and helpful reading materials Join our Discord to keep the conversation going Check our Season 1 Schedule to keep up with the reading assignments Email us your thoughts and questions: [email protected]

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (ch. 1-3)

Abu and Obssa begin their read through of the modern sci-fi classic The Three-Body Problem from Chinese author Liu Cixin. They explore the life of the author and dig into the history of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Join our Patreon for bonus content and helpful reading materials Join our Discord to keep the conversation going Check our Season 1 Schedule to keep up with the reading assignments Email us your thoughts and questions: [email protected]

• MAR 17, 2024

Introducing Science Fiction Book Club

Welcome aboard! Science Fiction Book Club is a podcast for bookworms and stargazers. In every episode, hosts Abu and Obssa dive into the pages of their favorite science fiction novels to break down the big ideas and ask the nerdy questions. Join our Patreon for bonus content and helpful reading materials Join our Discord to keep the conversation going Check our Season 1 Schedule to keep up with the reading assignments Email us your thoughts and questions: [email protected]

• © Lore Party Media LLC

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