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Synapse
Synapse is a YA sci-fi novel set in the very near future, where an unscrupulous neurologist sees the damaged brain as an oyster to be shucked for its pearls of wisdom.
When Jake’s twin brother, Gabriel, is left severely brain damaged by a near drowning accident, Jake is convinced it’s his fault. Every Sunday for nine years, Jake visits Gabriel at the institution. At the point when Jake has lost hope that his brother even knows he's there, Dr. Ryder arrives on the scene. “Your brother might still be thinking and feeling, trapped inside an unresponsive body,” she says. “I could set him free.”
What Jake doesn't know is that Dr. Ryder is not driven by a desire to help the mentally disabled. She's motivated by the need to extract a lucrative secret from the brain of Terra O'Hare, a formerly brilliant scientist who suffered a near drowning "accident" very similar to Gabriel's. Dr. Ryder hopes to use what she learns from Jake and Gabriel's twin brains to get into Terra's.
Dr. Ryder has experimented before. Amnesia is one of her few surviving patients. With street smarts and a tough exterior Amnesia escapes from Dr. Ryder's death row laboratory and becomes a powerful force in the mission to save Jake, Gabriel, and Terra from certain death.
Synapse takes actual research in neurological science, and plays what-if with the idea that there can be a good and a bad side to pushing science to its limits. The novel is told from three different points of view - Jake's, Terra's, and Amnesia's. Starting separately, the stories become entwined as the tension builds.
When Jake’s twin brother, Gabriel, is left severely brain damaged by a near drowning accident, Jake is convinced it’s his fault. Every Sunday for nine years, Jake visits Gabriel at the institution. At the point when Jake has lost hope that his brother even knows he's there, Dr. Ryder arrives on the scene. “Your brother might still be thinking and feeling, trapped inside an unresponsive body,” she says. “I could set him free.”
What Jake doesn't know is that Dr. Ryder is not driven by a desire to help the mentally disabled. She's motivated by the need to extract a lucrative secret from the brain of Terra O'Hare, a formerly brilliant scientist who suffered a near drowning "accident" very similar to Gabriel's. Dr. Ryder hopes to use what she learns from Jake and Gabriel's twin brains to get into Terra's.
Dr. Ryder has experimented before. Amnesia is one of her few surviving patients. With street smarts and a tough exterior Amnesia escapes from Dr. Ryder's death row laboratory and becomes a powerful force in the mission to save Jake, Gabriel, and Terra from certain death.
Synapse takes actual research in neurological science, and plays what-if with the idea that there can be a good and a bad side to pushing science to its limits. The novel is told from three different points of view - Jake's, Terra's, and Amnesia's. Starting separately, the stories become entwined as the tension builds.
Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 6, 2012
Full Disclosure - Yes, I wrote this book, so it follows that I might love it. But here’s the Publishers Weekly review it received when it made the semifinals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest 2012. (It was in the top 50 out of 5,000 entries!) So, I'm not the only one that likes it.
ABNA Publishers Weekly Reviewer
Strong characters and a tight plot bring this victims-take-down-a-mad-scientist yarn to life. Eighteen-year-old Jake's twin brother, Gabriel, has been housed in a mental hospital since an accident at age nine damaged his brain. Tough, remorseless Amnesia is sentenced to death after killing a cashier in an armed robbery. Terra, a scientist who has discovered a revolutionary garbage-eating fungus, is unable to move or speak after an attack by her jealous and money-hungry employer, Dr. Burlington. That a sinister Dr. Ryder will be the thread connecting the three stories is telegraphed almost immediately, and so when she appears with a notepad (in Amnesia's case) and an “offer [Jake] can't refuse” (in the twins'), an ominous tension has already built. Mind-reading is Ryder's field, and details about electrical signals and virtual reality games make her work seem plausible. What results is a dramatic, high-stakes contest to see who can use the technology most to their own advantage: the “good guys,” communicating telepathically and extracting plans and pass-codes from their captors' minds, or Ryder and Burlington, listening in on the mental chatter and torturing those with whom their victims connect. A final battle rages on Kaho'olawe, a Hawaiian island littered with unexploded bombs, until every loose end is tied up. Excellent entertainment with provocative questions about science and the human brain.
ABNA Publishers Weekly Reviewer
Strong characters and a tight plot bring this victims-take-down-a-mad-scientist yarn to life. Eighteen-year-old Jake's twin brother, Gabriel, has been housed in a mental hospital since an accident at age nine damaged his brain. Tough, remorseless Amnesia is sentenced to death after killing a cashier in an armed robbery. Terra, a scientist who has discovered a revolutionary garbage-eating fungus, is unable to move or speak after an attack by her jealous and money-hungry employer, Dr. Burlington. That a sinister Dr. Ryder will be the thread connecting the three stories is telegraphed almost immediately, and so when she appears with a notepad (in Amnesia's case) and an “offer [Jake] can't refuse” (in the twins'), an ominous tension has already built. Mind-reading is Ryder's field, and details about electrical signals and virtual reality games make her work seem plausible. What results is a dramatic, high-stakes contest to see who can use the technology most to their own advantage: the “good guys,” communicating telepathically and extracting plans and pass-codes from their captors' minds, or Ryder and Burlington, listening in on the mental chatter and torturing those with whom their victims connect. A final battle rages on Kaho'olawe, a Hawaiian island littered with unexploded bombs, until every loose end is tied up. Excellent entertainment with provocative questions about science and the human brain.
July 2, 2020
What would you be willing to do to relieve nine years of guilt, to return your identical twin to some level of normalcy? This is the question Jake must confront when the neurosurgeon Dr. Deborah Jane Ryder offers him the opportunity to compare the workings of his normal brain to that of Gabriel, his severely brain-damaged brother. His decision sends the boys on an adventure with other subjects of Dr. Ryder’s less-than-ethical research.
Can science cross the physical boundaries and enhance or control the human brain? Is it possible to enter such a project without veering away from science? Baertlein presents these questions from the point of view of three characters whose stories are woven together into a satisfying whole.
Based on a foundation of science and possibility, this book challenges our ideas of the limits of the human brain. It also explores the lengths people will go to protect virtual strangers and examines the relationship that can develop between unscrupulous science and amoral business. Written for a young adult audience, Synapse will appeal to readers of all ages.
Can science cross the physical boundaries and enhance or control the human brain? Is it possible to enter such a project without veering away from science? Baertlein presents these questions from the point of view of three characters whose stories are woven together into a satisfying whole.
Based on a foundation of science and possibility, this book challenges our ideas of the limits of the human brain. It also explores the lengths people will go to protect virtual strangers and examines the relationship that can develop between unscrupulous science and amoral business. Written for a young adult audience, Synapse will appeal to readers of all ages.
August 17, 2012
Dr. Jane Ryder wants to perform an experimental operation on Jake's brain. The doctor tries to convince him to insert probes in it that will connect to the brain of his twin brother, Gabriel, to overcome the effects of an accident that has left Gabriel in a vegetative state. Will guilt about his brother's accident drive Jake to take the chance and have this dangerous surgery? With an interesting plot and great cast of characters--I especially liked Amnesia--I really enjoyed Synapse.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews