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Oblivion's Wake
WITHOUT A HISTORY
David lost his past at fifteen when an illness wiped his memory away. All he knows of his youth comes from eight journals written soon after he was diagnosed, before the illness stole his boyhood. The disease left a bizarre the ability to see with a clarity beyond that of normals. While David is not psychic, he perceives at a level that can seem like mind-reading.
Twenty years later, David has a family and has built a career in the new field of perceptual engineering. He still yearns to remember the idyllic childhood described in his journals. When a treatment to resurrect his lost memories becomes available, he leaps at the opportunity.
He doesn't know his journals are fiction, or that the boy who wrote them was a psychopathic killer.
It is David's wife Ariel who learns that a monster lurks within her husband. She must help him hold on to the man he grew into, salvaging his sanity and keeping the monster caged.
Ariel believes her only ally is Jackie, a doctor who knew David in the months before the illness stole his identity. But Jackie carries her own the young David violently assaulted her and left her permanently injured. Battling addiction and watching her own life implode, she yearns for revenge -- and Ariel has given her the perfect opportunity.
David lost his past at fifteen when an illness wiped his memory away. All he knows of his youth comes from eight journals written soon after he was diagnosed, before the illness stole his boyhood. The disease left a bizarre the ability to see with a clarity beyond that of normals. While David is not psychic, he perceives at a level that can seem like mind-reading.
Twenty years later, David has a family and has built a career in the new field of perceptual engineering. He still yearns to remember the idyllic childhood described in his journals. When a treatment to resurrect his lost memories becomes available, he leaps at the opportunity.
He doesn't know his journals are fiction, or that the boy who wrote them was a psychopathic killer.
It is David's wife Ariel who learns that a monster lurks within her husband. She must help him hold on to the man he grew into, salvaging his sanity and keeping the monster caged.
Ariel believes her only ally is Jackie, a doctor who knew David in the months before the illness stole his identity. But Jackie carries her own the young David violently assaulted her and left her permanently injured. Battling addiction and watching her own life implode, she yearns for revenge -- and Ariel has given her the perfect opportunity.
497 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 18, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 27, 2015
Intense near-future SF psychological thriller--the kind of story with loads of tension and nary a car chase. As a teen David had Shimmerman's disease which wiped out his memories. All he has are a few notebooks written while the disease was in progress. Since then he's gone on to marry, have kids and live a relatively normal life until a cure for Shimmerman's is discovered. But when David takes the cure his wife is warned that David's notebooks are lies, a past he invented for himself, and he soon develops fractures in his psyche as he integrates the disturbing new memories.
Nigh-unbearable tension in spots. I had to set the book aside and pick up a lighter one at times. I really enjoyed the backstory of how David and Ariel met and was heavily invested in both characters.
Nigh-unbearable tension in spots. I had to set the book aside and pick up a lighter one at times. I really enjoyed the backstory of how David and Ariel met and was heavily invested in both characters.
October 22, 2014
"Oblivion's Wake" - Jonathan Sean Lyster
This book is funny, frightening, horrifying, disturbing, intriguing, thought-provoking... Well-written and difficult to put down. The story premise is extraordinary, with characterization that is richly detailed. David and Ariel are complex and fascinating, with a realistic relationship that is not overblown. The moment of revelation is jaw-dropping. There is some overuse by the author of certain words and turns of phrase, but it didn't get in the way of this compelling story. (Warning: Not for the faint of heart!)
This book is funny, frightening, horrifying, disturbing, intriguing, thought-provoking... Well-written and difficult to put down. The story premise is extraordinary, with characterization that is richly detailed. David and Ariel are complex and fascinating, with a realistic relationship that is not overblown. The moment of revelation is jaw-dropping. There is some overuse by the author of certain words and turns of phrase, but it didn't get in the way of this compelling story. (Warning: Not for the faint of heart!)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews