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Game Plan
National bestselling author Charles Wilson delivers a cutting-edge thriller based on real-life experiments at improving human intelligence currently underway in both government and private circles. Imagine a computer chip no bigger than the tip of a pencil. This chip, if implanted in a human brain, could give someone encyclopedic knowledge, lightning-fast reflexes and superior learning skills. In a remote military hospital in Montana, an experiment is being performed: implant the chip into the brains of five volunteers. These volunteers, four men and one woman, are all serving life sentences in prison. The experiment works...but the five criminals escape. One young doctor is pulled into the intrigue by the baffling murder of his medical school mentor. Can this one doctor stop the conspiracy of five powerful opponents...whose driving desire is absolute and total control?
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 14, 2024
I’m not gonna lie. This is another book (like ‘The Grounding of Group 6’) where the sheer cheese of the description hooked me in. Movie Phone voice:
“It was the perfect plan: to give average people super-human intelligence. Until they chose the wrong subjects…”
I am a cheese whore.
At page 36 I think I’m going to restart this book. Things happen quickly and with no explanation whatsoever so it’s a little hard to keep track of who’s who.
That could be a negative for the book, I’m just curious enough to try it again and 36 pages isn’t so far in I’ll feel gipped. Especially since the book starts on page 11.
So in the prologue a woman and several others flee from what appears to be an compound where they are experimented on.
Ten years later a guy — Alfred Wynn — has a car crash in his Mercedes while driving fast in the rain. Which apparently didn’t scare him at all.
Close by Spence Stevens goes into a medical center and meets Dr. David Lampbert.
Plot wise its a little loose. There doesn’t seem to be any main/point of view character.
This Alfred in the car accident has a microchip pulled out of his head by the doctor that examines him.
Other people can see this is happening but don’t see where he puts the microchip but they want it.
Why? I don’t know.
”I mean who can add and subtract any more, let alone multiply or divide?” He set his items on a table and pulled the chair back. “It’s calculators, computers…,” he said, “they’re taking the place of brains.” This book was published in 2000.
It’s chapter 6 (54 pages) and I still haven’t the slightest clue what’s going on.
Some people snuck into the hospital to murder the guy from the car accident, looking for the microchip that was in his head. Why? What’s it do? Who are they? Who was he? Don’t know.
Unfortunately the author keeps introducing people willy-nilly without bothering to even NAME them much less tell the reader how they have anything to do with this loosely woven story of a murder and a microchip. This book is ridiculously hard to follow!
I’ve finally figured out (on page 119) that Spence is the main character. I know this because he is about to get laid. He’s been ‘investigating’ for a while but I have no idea what he knows or how much he knows or even WHY he is investigating!
At one point, the lock backwoods hick asks one of the investigators to tell him why they are investigating the secret government underground base. As a reader I have the same question. Of course he doesn’t tell him or me.
OMFG! WHY DOESN’T THE AUTHOR WANT ME TO KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON??!?!
If Kennedy hadn’t indeed told him everything he know, then Spence was glad he hadn’t heard the rest—he had heard more than he had ever expected to hear.
Finally our hero Spence talks to a secret agent who tells Spence everything he knows about what is going on in the Montana secret underground base! WHICH THE AUTHOR COMPLETELY SKIPS WRITING! He tells the main character, BUT NOT THE READER!! WTF!?! I am on page 172 of 319 page novel!
Around page 186 we finally get the story of the chips implanted into heads. Which of course confer (SPOILER ALERT - BUT IT SHOULDN’T BE) mind control on the implanted, along with increased physical strength and access to lots of data.
And after finally learning who some of the characters were, I can’t help but wish I’d read a story about them! It’s one thing that the main character didn’t notice anything significant about another character - but neither did the reader!
The wounded undercover officer was lying propped up on his elbow on the gurney inside the rear of the ambulance.
This. Who is this guy? Is it an undercover good guy or an undercover bad guy? Why do I care.
These events and people all tie together, but they are so undefined it’s hard to keep track.
Well, it’s starting to get more linear as it becomes The Fugitive. That’s nice, it’s easier to track now. But it took until Chapter 29!!
But even still characters appear out of nowhere, some named, some not. Since the conspiracy appears to be so widespread that anyone could be a traitor, it makes sense to the plot, but it’s still off-putting because there is no indication of who is important or incidental, what they want and who is pulling the strings.
Of course, exactly who was expected to changed sides. But when it happened is a complete mystery to me until long after it did.
Oh, yeah and people’s heads explode for no reason whatsoever as far as I can tell.
Though actually, the person we expected to change sides, may not have changed sides, but may have had a body double impersonate her and no one noticed. I’m not at all sure.
Shudder. I got through this book by sheer force of will.
And I still have only a vague idea of what went on.
There’s a great story in here. The idea is good and what happened was cool.
But it was like reading through a fog. People came in and out at random. Names were thrown about, like Quinlan who was vitally important — but never defined well enough for me to remember who the hell he is or why he …. whatever.
What should have been an exciting spy-fi novel was really a muddled mess and I can’t quite clearly articulate why.
I want to say that some basic setup and character development and plotting was mishandled. But maybe it was crystal clear to another reader.
Who knows?
For my money though I can’t give this more than 1 star. I didn’t hate the book. I just hated the experience of reading it.
“It was the perfect plan: to give average people super-human intelligence. Until they chose the wrong subjects…”
I am a cheese whore.
At page 36 I think I’m going to restart this book. Things happen quickly and with no explanation whatsoever so it’s a little hard to keep track of who’s who.
That could be a negative for the book, I’m just curious enough to try it again and 36 pages isn’t so far in I’ll feel gipped. Especially since the book starts on page 11.
So in the prologue a woman and several others flee from what appears to be an compound where they are experimented on.
Ten years later a guy — Alfred Wynn — has a car crash in his Mercedes while driving fast in the rain. Which apparently didn’t scare him at all.
Close by Spence Stevens goes into a medical center and meets Dr. David Lampbert.
Plot wise its a little loose. There doesn’t seem to be any main/point of view character.
This Alfred in the car accident has a microchip pulled out of his head by the doctor that examines him.
Other people can see this is happening but don’t see where he puts the microchip but they want it.
Why? I don’t know.
”I mean who can add and subtract any more, let alone multiply or divide?” He set his items on a table and pulled the chair back. “It’s calculators, computers…,” he said, “they’re taking the place of brains.” This book was published in 2000.
It’s chapter 6 (54 pages) and I still haven’t the slightest clue what’s going on.
Some people snuck into the hospital to murder the guy from the car accident, looking for the microchip that was in his head. Why? What’s it do? Who are they? Who was he? Don’t know.
Unfortunately the author keeps introducing people willy-nilly without bothering to even NAME them much less tell the reader how they have anything to do with this loosely woven story of a murder and a microchip. This book is ridiculously hard to follow!
I’ve finally figured out (on page 119) that Spence is the main character. I know this because he is about to get laid. He’s been ‘investigating’ for a while but I have no idea what he knows or how much he knows or even WHY he is investigating!
At one point, the lock backwoods hick asks one of the investigators to tell him why they are investigating the secret government underground base. As a reader I have the same question. Of course he doesn’t tell him or me.
OMFG! WHY DOESN’T THE AUTHOR WANT ME TO KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON??!?!
If Kennedy hadn’t indeed told him everything he know, then Spence was glad he hadn’t heard the rest—he had heard more than he had ever expected to hear.
Finally our hero Spence talks to a secret agent who tells Spence everything he knows about what is going on in the Montana secret underground base! WHICH THE AUTHOR COMPLETELY SKIPS WRITING! He tells the main character, BUT NOT THE READER!! WTF!?! I am on page 172 of 319 page novel!
Around page 186 we finally get the story of the chips implanted into heads. Which of course confer (SPOILER ALERT - BUT IT SHOULDN’T BE) mind control on the implanted, along with increased physical strength and access to lots of data.
And after finally learning who some of the characters were, I can’t help but wish I’d read a story about them! It’s one thing that the main character didn’t notice anything significant about another character - but neither did the reader!
The wounded undercover officer was lying propped up on his elbow on the gurney inside the rear of the ambulance.
This. Who is this guy? Is it an undercover good guy or an undercover bad guy? Why do I care.
These events and people all tie together, but they are so undefined it’s hard to keep track.
Well, it’s starting to get more linear as it becomes The Fugitive. That’s nice, it’s easier to track now. But it took until Chapter 29!!
But even still characters appear out of nowhere, some named, some not. Since the conspiracy appears to be so widespread that anyone could be a traitor, it makes sense to the plot, but it’s still off-putting because there is no indication of who is important or incidental, what they want and who is pulling the strings.
Of course, exactly who was expected to changed sides. But when it happened is a complete mystery to me until long after it did.
Oh, yeah and people’s heads explode for no reason whatsoever as far as I can tell.
Though actually, the person we expected to change sides, may not have changed sides, but may have had a body double impersonate her and no one noticed. I’m not at all sure.
Shudder. I got through this book by sheer force of will.
And I still have only a vague idea of what went on.
There’s a great story in here. The idea is good and what happened was cool.
But it was like reading through a fog. People came in and out at random. Names were thrown about, like Quinlan who was vitally important — but never defined well enough for me to remember who the hell he is or why he …. whatever.
What should have been an exciting spy-fi novel was really a muddled mess and I can’t quite clearly articulate why.
I want to say that some basic setup and character development and plotting was mishandled. But maybe it was crystal clear to another reader.
Who knows?
For my money though I can’t give this more than 1 star. I didn’t hate the book. I just hated the experience of reading it.
February 2, 2022
I'm usually a big fan of Charles Wilson's books and have read almost all of his books. His plotting, character development, and pacing are all usually top-notch. Unfortunately, that's not the case with "Game Plan".
First of all, the book is starting to get a little dated, even though the premise (implanted computer chips into people cause them to be manipulated by the ultimate bad guy - kind of an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" meets the "Manchurian Candidate"), is still "out there" for science to deal with.
The plot is difficult to follow at times and does jump around a lot. The main character, Spence, is a likable enough guy but is woefully undeveloped. Some of the other main characters are even less developed. The expected ending with the big plot reveal was certainly not a total surprise, although satisfactory.
There were a couple of plot twists, but not enough to keep me totally engaged in the book, and certainly not up to the standards of the "Master Plotter".
Stick to one of Wilson's better books, including "Direct Descendant", "Nightwatcher", "When First We Deceive", or "Donor".
First of all, the book is starting to get a little dated, even though the premise (implanted computer chips into people cause them to be manipulated by the ultimate bad guy - kind of an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" meets the "Manchurian Candidate"), is still "out there" for science to deal with.
The plot is difficult to follow at times and does jump around a lot. The main character, Spence, is a likable enough guy but is woefully undeveloped. Some of the other main characters are even less developed. The expected ending with the big plot reveal was certainly not a total surprise, although satisfactory.
There were a couple of plot twists, but not enough to keep me totally engaged in the book, and certainly not up to the standards of the "Master Plotter".
Stick to one of Wilson's better books, including "Direct Descendant", "Nightwatcher", "When First We Deceive", or "Donor".
November 22, 2018
The description was misleading. I expected it to be a more sort-of science fiction thriller involving nanochips, but it was basically just a montage of people dying. Could have been much better.
June 29, 2012
Excellent plot, adequate character development. The writing style was hard to get passed. I had to re-read some sentences several times to understand what they meant. Definitely worth the time for those who like techno-thrillers.
August 24, 2016
Pretty slow moving in the beginning. To many characters to keep straight. It did get better in the end but not a book I would read again.
October 17, 2016
its okay
December 19, 2016
Rogue military plan to implant microchips in the brain to take over the world, yarn.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews