Book Review: Quantum Night, by Robert J. Sawyer

Mr. Sawyer once again explores the human condition in Quantum Night.  Consciousness has been a central theme in several of his previous novels; e.g. artificial intelligence in The WWW Trilogy (Wake, Watch, Wonder), and uploading the human mind into an android in Mindscan.

Now the focus is on:  psychopaths.  I have tried to write this review to reveal some of the scientific elements of this novel in the hope of generating interest without revealing much of the core story itself, and I hope I have been successful.  Due to the content of this novel, I found writing this review somewhat difficult.  If you want to experience the novel without knowing any details beyond what is on the inside of the dust cover, I would stop reading now.

Building on data that suggests that the number of psychopaths in the world is actually much larger than expected, Mr. Sawyer weaves a disturbing tale where the members of humanity who are actually conscious with a conscience are in the minority.  The majority of people in the world are either psychopaths or philosophical zombies (can be likened to automatons who do as they're told and simulate everything perfectly but are not actually conscious), with the last group being the "normal" people.  The book contains a "Further Reading" section listing many non-fiction works that provide empirical evidence which is the basis for the ideas in this novel - even some evidence that philosophical zombies, previously used as a thought experiment, may actually be in our midst.

First, a few definitions from www.dictionary.com:

• psychopath:  a person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.
• psychopathy:  a mental disorder in which an individual manifests amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.

And, from wikipedia.com, some information about philosophical zombies:  
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

In this story, the world population of 7 billion people is made up of (read the book to get the actual numbers):

• philosophical zombies who are not conscious and have no conscience
• psychopaths who are conscious and have no conscience
• normal people who are conscious and have a conscience

The concept of a philosophical zombie seems to support the concept of mob (or herd) mentality, which seems pretty mindless.  Also, a significantly larger number of psychopaths who lie, feel no guilt, have no empathy or love for others, and are only interested in themselves, seems to match our "real" world which has so many problems with greed and antisocial behavior.  (Keep in mind that not all psychopaths are serial killers - it is a scale ranging from antisocial behavior to violence).  Such a world seems like a scary place for you and I, who are "normal".  You are normal, aren't you?  At least in the three choices that this book sets out, right? <grin>  In such a world, it would seem that we "normal" folks are the newly hatched sea turtles trying to scramble from their eggs to the ocean across a beach strewn with flocks of psychopathic seagulls and zombie followers just waiting to devour the majority of us as we try to sneak by.  Not good!

This novel also deals with the morality and outcome of scientific testing with human subjects.  It plays a large part in the story, which centers on Jim Marchuk, an experimental psychologist who has developed a way to detect psychopaths.  Jim attempts to live a utilitarian life, trying to achieve the most happiness for the most people, which leads to some controversial beliefs that come up from time to time.

Certainly, this book contains a large amount of scientific information, but despite this the story keeps the reader interested from the very beginning, and the science is not complicated or overwhelming - it is described in easy to understand terms.  The story contains many twists and turns, and for me there were several "Holy Crap!" moments that I did not see coming (a trademark for most of Mr. Sawyer's books).

Quantum Night ranks up there with some of Mr. Sawyer's most popular works, and I would not be surprised to see this book nominated for a major award.  His books are always crammed with references to many different scientific efforts (for example, CERN plays a part in many of his novels), world events (both past and present), and to some of his favorite works of science fiction (such as Planet of Apes).

I understand that this may be his last novel, which does sadden me - and I do hope he writes more in the future.  At present, I have not read his two previous novels, Red Planet Blues and Triggers, and I will need to stockpile these for when I need a guaranteed good read (typically after attempting to read a bunch of novels that don't hold my interest).  Although, I may need to move Triggers nearer the top of my list - I know that he's been working on a script for either a movie or TV-show based on this book, and I'll want to read it before that comes out.  I enjoyed both the book and TV-show for Flashforward, but they were both very different.  Despite the difference, I think reading the book after seeing the show would have made it less interesting - at least for me.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone to enjoys a rollicking scientific thriller that is easy to understand.  It is a fast, engaging read, just like many of Mr. Sawyer's other works.

I'm open to and welcome comments and discussion about this book.