Disclosure: I’m a sci-fi/fantasy junkie and hard core Trekkie. So, when I picked up The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
The title and the teaser caught my interest. I was hooked after the first page!
Harry August is on his deathbed. Again.
No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes.
Until now.
As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. “I nearly missed you, Doctor August,” she says. “I need to send a message.”
This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.
Unsurprisingly, Harry August is not alone. There are many like him, though they are few and far between compared to the “linear” people who only have one lifetime. And this is where the beauty of the premise of the story comes from.
Like Bill Murray’s Phil Connors character in “Groundhog Day,” or even Sam Beckett at “Quantum Leap” many of Harry and many of his ilk try to do better or correct a wrong in their next lifetime. But what if one of them is a megalomaniac that instead of doing something right, he or she chooses to bend the world to their own will?
It’s a conundrum worthy of philosophical discussions, which author Claire North was very good at presenting. Ms. North did not just write a compelling story. She also made her readers think. There were obvious discussions and questions. There were also subtle treatises and questions about morality.
And what I like most about it, Ms. North never lectured! She presented the situation and the reader decides what to do with it!
A must-read this summer! Bring it to the beach or the pool. Or just read it by your bedside. It’s a beautifully written story that is a thrill to read.
