Near future possibilities from Robert J. Sawyer

I have just finished another book by Robert J Sawyer, a Canadian science fiction author, who wrote FlashForward, which was turned into a TV series of the same name. He has also won numerous Hugo and Nebula Awards. 

Two of the reasons I enjoy Robert J Sawyer's work is that it is often set in the near future, meaning that it references current events from our time (like Barack Obama being the President of the United States) but from the point of view that they are in the recent past, and it always features technology that *could* happen. The technology always feels plausible, and he genuinely explores the "what if this was actually possible" question.

His WWW trilogy (Wake, Watch, Wonder) explored the possibility of Webmind, a consciousness that emerges from the World Wide Web. It was a fascinating, intriguing and thought-provoking read, and it is one of my highly recommended reads.

Anyhow, having finished the WW trilogy a while ago, I was really looking forward to his latest book, Triggers. I'm going to just tease you with the opening premise of the book (so that you'll have to get hold of a copy and see how it all ends).

The book opens with the attempted assassination of Seth Jerrison, the current President of the United States of America who, is rushed to hospital. While he is in the operating theatre, there is a bomb attack on the White House. It is the latest in a series of terror attacks that have ravaged several large US cities. In the same hospital, Dr Singh is experimenting with ways to erase trauma from people's memories.

The President suffers a cardiac arrest during the detonation of the bomb. He has a "near death" experience, but the memories he sees flash before his eyes aren't his own.The electromagnetic pulse of the bomb has triggered a strange phenomenon of a random group of individuals able to access other people's memories, including the mind of the President of the United States.

While it might sound so far like a bit of a political thriller, with a bit of sci-fi thrown in, the book in fact explores the technological possibility of memory sharing and the social implications might be if this did indeed happen.

What would it mean if someone could access your memories - *all* of them, the good, the bad, the ugly, not just the ones you wanted to share - and you could also read someone else's mind. How would it make you feel to know that you couldn't stop reading their mind, no matter how much you wanted to. And what would it mean if someone else was delving into your mind in the meantime.

If we had the opportunity to truly walk a mile in someone else's shoes, to experience what they have experienced, for a white person to see the world through a black person's eyes, for a young person to see the world through an old person's eyes, for a woman to see the world through a man's eyes. What would that mean for our understanding of other human beings?

Robert J Swayer has again captured the near future possibility of technology changing the way we live our lives. My only disappointment is that now I have finished the book, I will have to wait for the next one.