The Soul of Anna Klane

by Terrel Miedaner

God bless sweet Anna's soul...

She's the golden darling of a wealthy genius. A child-prodigy. Yogi adept. And dying of brain tumor. She wants to heal herself, but the courts and the doctors cry "no" - and enter her brain with an incredible million-dollar probe that cures her body, while it splits her soul -- and sends it hurtling into a psychic hell...

Only Anatol Klane knows of his daughter's spirit-death. Now he must take her life... and convince an astonished world that he has set her free...

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Fantasy

227 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Paul Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend recommended this book to me, years ago, and it brought me the knowledge that we know very little about the brain, mind, and soul. This novel shakes apart the reader's assumptions of what it means to be yourself. In 2008, as the topic of cloning continued to infiltrate news reports instead of just science fiction novels, the story asked questions that seemed eerily topical. While examining the possibility and implications of the soul, the author allows us to see the viewpoints of the religious believer, the spiritual believer, and the skeptic. A compelling and touching tale that should be saved for when you have time to contemplate.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Undoubtedly one of the best books I have ever read. I borrowed it from my boyfriend and went out and bought my own copy in hardback as soon as I'd finished. Thouroughly thought-provoking, I sat with my mouth open in awe most of my way through this book.

[KR15 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply thought provoking. What is conciousness? What constitutes life? The Soul of Anna Klane ponders the many sides of these questions: the scientific, the atheistic, and the religious with due respect. The supporting characters are little more than mouthpieces for one side of an argument. Nevertheless, the author manages to tackle a difficult philosophical subject aptly, and further elucidates how very little we know about the human brain.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this when I was about thirteen years old. It had a profound effect on me and I've read it several times over the years. The book poses some questions about the idea of a human soul, and that aspect of the story takes a science fiction story to a very moving place.

[Romaney Berson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is perhaps my favorite book of all time. I don't even know how many times I've read it. It is so thought provoking on so many levels. I am so glad I own a copy

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply trippy and thought provoking. Well done.

[Aurora Dimitre · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars

God this was dull.

I want to tell you straight-up that this is seventy-five percent the trial, with all sorts of philosophical discussion about what constitutes life, and how we view human life as different from animal life, and when does a human stop being human—all fine things to discuss. I’m just saying, when the cover looks like that, I want some schlock!

There were two scenes that stuck out to me as dramatic and interesting: the scene where Anna dies itself, and the chimpanzee scene. If you know you know. That’s all I’m saying for that one. They were genuinely heart-wrenching scenes. Miedaner is a genuinely talented author. It’s just not what was promised. So it was disappointing.

[Luciano Franstric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Im blown away

[Greylorn Ell]

This story was originally titled, "Deus Ex Machina," which for those of us who've not studied Latin, means, "The God From the Machine." My editor explained why that title sucked, and suggested "The Soul of Anna Klane" as an alternative. This meant that I had to change the name of the story's victim to Anna, from Aleill.

He also insisted that I remove all Russian spies from the story, and terminate it at the end of Klane's trial. I agreed, but I lied. The spies are gone, but the crux of the story existed in the trial's aftermath, included in the book you'll read.

There are essentially two American English versions, the original hardcover published by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan (with Doubleday Book Club reprints), and the Ballantine paperback. I recommend the paperback, despite the fact that it has the ugliest cover of any book ever printed. That's because I rewrote that version, including more foreshadowing of its ending, and cleaning up some overly romantic components of the final chapter.

I can never write a better book than A.K., because I would not survive the emotional strain of doing so. Since then my writings have been entirely non-fictional and failed attempts to express the ideas buried within A.K. That material has been written under various pseudonyms, for self-protection.

The two most difficult chapters, the demise of a hapless chimpanzee and the destruction of a very small robot, have been competently filmed. Difficult because they were hurtful to write and even now, 40 years later, the more so to remember. Those were the chapters excerpted by Douglas Hofstadter, philosopher/mathematician for his atheistic compendium, "The Mind's I." He turned the intent of my chapters to suit his agenda.

Someone could make an excellent movie from this book.

A side note: Anna Klane's excellent editor was fired because the book was successful.

[Daniel Kaufman · Rating 5 out of 5]

2 chapters of this book were used in the great popular philosophical collection "The Mind's I". This book is full of big ideas. It's fascinating, mind-expanding stuff, and it's conveyed in a gripping thriller/courtroom drama. This is a book everyone in my family has read and we've loaned it to many people.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book the first time when I was about 13-14 & for me it was profound. To investigate the theory of "Soul" at such an age was to change the way I thought of myself, the people around me & the world in general.
It is a book that changed the way I thought & made me a book lover for life! It is one of my favorites & I go back and read over & over...30yrs & counting!

[Yenyalopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this as a teen and while I have forgotten some details, I remember exactly how exciting the story was! How I pained over Anatol’s decision and evaluated what I would do in his situation. The author does such a great job at getting the the reader to be invested in the characters and accept and feel something that is rooted in science fiction and therefore impossible.

[Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never realized I read this one summer as a child at the beach not long after it was released. It changed me and led me to read and research further in a non digital age more and more about the mind body spirit connections. Prepared me more than I could ever realize.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant scientist, Anatol Klane, shows up in a neurosurgeon’s office with his daughter Anna in tow. Anna is a precociously intelligent, fiercely curious little creature who the surgeon finds charming. Unfortunately, she also has a tumor growing in her head. Dr. Klane requests the surgeon remove the tumor, although he is very insistent on the specific tools to be used, and the manner in which the tumor is to be removed.
The surgeon finds this wish as strange as everything else about the brilliant man and his quixotic daughter, but, knowing time is of the essence, he preps the patient.
The operation appears to be a success, only Dr. Klane is convinced that something has gone horribly wrong with his daughter’s psyche, and her soul. In order to prove his supposition, he pulls out a revolver, presents it to his daughter, and orders her to blow her own head off.
What follows is part Socratic dialogue, part treatise on posthumanism (well before that word was commonly used, or perhaps even coined). It’s superlative, off-the-wall mind-blowing science fiction that pushes so far in its attempt to understand the material of the universe that it reaches the level of metaphysics. It’s up there with Olaf Stapledon’s most ambitious works, and yet feels at times as somber and elegiac as Walter Tevis’s sustained SF tone poem, The Man Who Fell to Earth.
This thing is about as good as it gets, and no summary or host of superlatives can quite do it justice. I first read an extract from it in The Mind’s I, a book on human consciousness that featured offerings from everyone from Alan Turing to Jorge Louis Borges. Even in that esteemed company, that meager extract from Terrel Miedaner’s short work stood out. I never forgot it, and kept my eyes peeled for a used copy of this out-of-print, semi-obscure work.
I’m glad I kept at it, as my diligence paid off. Alas, Miedaner— like others among that handful of writers who really touched the stratosphere—never wrote anything else again, at least anything else that’s available in print. I can imagine he’s written some peer-reviewed articles, though, in journals on subjects ranging from neurosurgery to psychokinetics.
If not, however, then this brilliant artifact will have to suffice as one life’s work. It’s a worthy inquiry into the deepest questions that understands both science and religion, and refuses to conflate or denigrate either of the two. Its mission (and the book has a mission), is to postulate the idea of the soul as a localizable thing, whose presence has only escaped us because we lack the tools to sense it. It asks, ultimately, what would happen if someone created those tools, and how people would react to this breach between the mundane and the higher planes. And it answers its question with a compelling story I won’t soon forget.
Highest recommendation.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suggested to me by a guy I don't know well, and I'm not sure if I'm going to take reading recommendations from him again. I have no idea how I feel about this book.

[Isaiah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book