Observer

by Robert Lanza, Nancy Kress

Observer , by Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress is a slick modern, hard sf, standalone, medical thriller combining classic Robin Cook with the hard edge of Black Mirror and Altered Carbon .

After neurosurgeon Caro Soames-Watkins’ career has gone down in flames, she receives a strange job offer from Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sam Watkins, a great uncle she barely knows, and desperation overcomes any suspicions.

Watkins’ mysterious medical facility conducts research into the nature of consciousness, reality, and life after death. Two obstacles stand in his an intel leak and his failing body may not last long enough for the tech to be ready.

As danger mounts, Caro finds more than she bargained murder, love, and a deep disturbing look into the nature of reality.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

384 pages, Paperback

Published September 23, 2025

About the author

ROBERT LANZA, MD, is one of the most respected scientists in the world. He is head of Astellas Global Regenerative Medicine, Chief Scientific Officer of the Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and adjunct professor at Wake Forest School of Medicine. 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” in 2015. He is credited with several hundred publications and inventions, and more than 30 scientific books, including the definitive references in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine. A former Fulbright Scholar, he studied with polio pioneer Jonas Salk and Nobel Laureates Gerald Edelman and Rodney Porter. Lanza was part of the team that cloned the world’s first human embryo, as well as the first to successfully generate stem cells from adults using somatic-cell nuclear transfer (therapeutic cloning).

Reviews

[Shannon Miz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Observer is an incredibly thought provoking and intelligent book. Way smarter than me, honestly. No shame, friends. It's co-authored by an actual world-renowned doctor and scientist, so I feel less bad, because let's be real, he knows more about the human brain than I do! Here's a fun thing I loved though: our main character, Caro, is also a great neurosurgeon, incredibly intelligent in her own right, and even she has trouble wrapping her (elite) brain around the whole concept. So in a sense, the book makes you feel less bad about your brain's limits, and I not only appreciated it, but found it to be a fantastic narrative choice.

There is a ton of thought provoking commentary on death, life, consciousness, universes, and so much more. You absolutely will find yourself contemplating the Big Questions™ of life while reading this story- and the characters will be contemplating right along with you! Without giving too much away, our MC Caro has been tapped to do a surgical procedure that is attempting to prove a concept I still don't fully get that involves infinite universes and the human consciousness. It takes some pretty wild turns, and I was definitely invested and so very curious! Like I said, some of the science definitely went over my head, but not in a way that left me too confused, as I could understand the basic concepts. The book does feel a bit longer at points, probably because the science is a little dense, but it is still very readable, and I found myself immersed fully as I followed right alongside Caro in trying to figure out whether I could buy into this theory! There are still a lot of heartfelt moments, and great character development which really helped it to feel like a well-rounded story.

Bottom Line: This is a fascinating look into the workings of the human brain while trying to answer some of life's (seemingly) unanswerable questions.

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an advance copy of this thriller that is a bit medical, a bit metaphysical, a bit future shock, a book that raises many questions about how we view and control the world.

The world seems at a crossroads, where a segment of society seems to see wealth and power in grand thoughts about the future, but where many seem to want to take a big step back, almost to the middle ages. AI, stem cell, this that and the other cures have millions of people salivating at wealth and the potential to live forever. Governments question things like vaccines, pasteurization process, even a cabinet secretary discusses never washing his hands. There is so much we don't understand about living, about dying, what comes next, or even what is happening now. The future might be decided by those not only with the ideas, but with the cash to do so. And a willingness to do anything to get that knowledge, no matter what the cost. Observer by medical scientist Robert Lanza and science fiction writer Nancy Kress is a look at the future of the mind and the soul, the possibilities and the mysteries, and what dangers might lie.

Sam Watkins was once a scientist at the top of his field, a Nobel prize winner, but currently he is dying slowing in Caribbean research facility that Watkins has poured his billions of dollars into. Watkins is awoken in the middle of the night to be told that his lead surgeon has died in a diving accident, one that might jeopardize the project that Watkins has pinned his hopes on. Watkins reaches out to his grandniece Dr. Caroline Soames-Watkins, who he has never met. Caroline is going through her own particular hell, an Internet punching bag, her job and reputations at risk. Caroline also provides financial aid to her sister who has a special needs child, so a job working for her grand-uncle sounds like a dream. The reality is different. Caroline is tasked to do an operation not on the cancer that is killing Watkins, but for something much more. A way to extend not his body's life, but his mind past death, and into something more. The more Caroline learns the more her life changes, both in ways she never thought possible, and more deadly than she ever expected.

A combination of Robin Cook, Michael Palmer, Rudy Rucker and Willliam Gibson. A medical thriller that posits quite a bit about the ideas of reality, the scope of what we know, and what can be. The story is thriller-ish and is interesting. Kress is a very good writer, and is very good at setting up the characters, and getting the plot moving. There is a lot of ideas here, which I assume come from Lanza which sometimes stops the book, as there is a lot to think about and work out. I wish Kress had a little more imput on that as I think she could have included better in the story. However it is interesting, some might say a little techbro fantasy, but that is the things with ideas. Sometimes we can't see the truth before us, sometimes we don't want to. However it is truth nonetheless. The story once the characters are on the island moves well, with a good mix of thriller and hard science, which makes for a very engaging read. And a very thoughtful one also.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Observer really wants to be a gripping sf thriller. It didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Observer is creative and full of real science, and it takes chances. I just didn’t find that those chances paid off for me as a reader.

*some spoilers below*

Dr. Caroline Soames-Watkins is a neurosurgeon who reported a superior for sexual misconduct. She isn’t believed, and the incel trolls on social media are harsh. Her reputation is ruined, and she needs to find a job. Her sister is a single mom with two children, including one who is profoundly disabled, and she needs Caro’s financial support.

Then, a savior. Caro’s great uncle offers her a job at a private hospital in the Caribbean. Secret, radical research is going on at the hospital, and Caro’s great uncle is dying. When the research is explained to Caro, she can hardly believe they are serious. Multiverses? Immortality? Bringing everything into being with our brains? Caro thinks they are all insane. She can’t make the science work. But she needs the job, and the salary.

Caro is not very deeply drawn. Neither is the handsome software developer Julian, Caro’s boyfriend Trevor, or her great uncle Sam. My favorite character by far was the elderly scientist who came up with the theories behind the work they are doing. My least favorite character was Caro’s sister, who has a complete mental breakdown when her severely disabled child dies of natural causes. (I thought maybe the breakdown was from guilt, because she was glad her child had died, but nope, it was just grief.)

I didn’t buy in to the whole premise, that with the right technology one can create a separate universe and live there forever, with whoever you’ve lost. (I also had a really really hard time imagining how the technology could make it possible for others to watch what someone was doing in the alternate universe.)

There is a kind of happily-ever-after ending that I did not find at all satisfying. Maybe this could be made into a decent movie? Maybe.

Thank you to Tor and Netgalley for the advance reader copy.