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Amnesia Dreams
This novel is based on an actual dream I had, and its fate is perhaps a warning: if you have a dream you think would make a great novel, forget it! In any case, the dream concerned a man in a tuxedo who wakes up with nothing in his head, a case of what the docs call Global Retrograde Amnesia. He can talk, and even read and calculate, but he doesn’t know the identity of anything he hasn’t seen, has no memory of his past life, lacks all information about the world, and as is innocent as a new babe. In fact, he has the personality of a sweet-tempered very young child.
The story opens in Bellevue Hospital, in New York, where he is sent as a neurology patient, identified as John Doe. Attending in the neuro ward is Dr Susannah Pearl, a hyper-ambitious young woman whose career has stalled. She sees in the John Doe the experimental subject of a lifetime, perhaps the key to the mystery of human memory formation. The amnesiac, however, is not what he seems. He has been the victim of a brutal program of experimentation already by a rogue scientist working in a prison for the criminally insane. The blank mind of the amnesiac contains someone else, a person not sweet or childlike at all.
After Dr Pearl has her subject released from the hospital, people start turning up dead. Apparently, one of the reasons this book was rejected was that Dr Pearl is not likable. This is true, for the driven are rarely likable. But she changes in the book. I thought the development of the John Doe’s mind from a blank is well-handled, so maybe that will make up for the abrasiveness of the other main character. The plot is a little clunky too, but not nearly so much as in novels that have sold millions, although with more likable characters.
The story opens in Bellevue Hospital, in New York, where he is sent as a neurology patient, identified as John Doe. Attending in the neuro ward is Dr Susannah Pearl, a hyper-ambitious young woman whose career has stalled. She sees in the John Doe the experimental subject of a lifetime, perhaps the key to the mystery of human memory formation. The amnesiac, however, is not what he seems. He has been the victim of a brutal program of experimentation already by a rogue scientist working in a prison for the criminally insane. The blank mind of the amnesiac contains someone else, a person not sweet or childlike at all.
After Dr Pearl has her subject released from the hospital, people start turning up dead. Apparently, one of the reasons this book was rejected was that Dr Pearl is not likable. This is true, for the driven are rarely likable. But she changes in the book. I thought the development of the John Doe’s mind from a blank is well-handled, so maybe that will make up for the abrasiveness of the other main character. The plot is a little clunky too, but not nearly so much as in novels that have sold millions, although with more likable characters.
442 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 16, 2019
8 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
About the author
Michael Gruber
43 books310 followersMichael Gruber is an author living in Seattle, Washington. He attended Columbia University and received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Miami. He worked as a cook, a marine biologist, a speech writer, a policy advisor for the Jimmy Carter White House, and a bureaucrat for the EPA before becoming a novelist.
He is generally acknowledged to be the ghostwriter of the popular Robert K. Tanenbaum series of Butch Karp novels starting with No Lesser Plea and ending with Resolved. After the partnership with Tanenbaum ended, Gruber began publishing his own novels under William Morrow and HarperCollins.
Gruber's "Jimmy Paz" trilogy, while critically acclaimed, did not sell at the same levels as the Butch Karp series in the United States. The Book of Air and Shadows became a national bestseller shortly after its release in March of 2007, however.
Series:
* Jimmy Paz
He is generally acknowledged to be the ghostwriter of the popular Robert K. Tanenbaum series of Butch Karp novels starting with No Lesser Plea and ending with Resolved. After the partnership with Tanenbaum ended, Gruber began publishing his own novels under William Morrow and HarperCollins.
Gruber's "Jimmy Paz" trilogy, while critically acclaimed, did not sell at the same levels as the Butch Karp series in the United States. The Book of Air and Shadows became a national bestseller shortly after its release in March of 2007, however.
Series:
* Jimmy Paz
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 26, 2020
This is a solid 4+ book, almost rising to the level of what I consider to be Gruber’s masterpiece, the Jimmy Paz trilogy - especially when the Hoyle character enters the picture. Contemplative and also thrilling; cleverly written and thoroughly enjoyable, if often dark, as all of Gruber’s books are.
I categorize it as science fiction, but it’s nothing like a typical example of the genre, although there is certainly a speculative aspect to it. I suppose I would call it a medical / crime / thriller, and while that terminology might call up images of slick TV drama series, reading this book is a much richer experience. The thoughts of the amnesiac main character struck me as similar to past and current depictions of AI characters in science fiction as they struggle to understand who and what they are - The Questor Tapes and in particular the recent Murderbot series come to mind. The exploration of the mechanics of human consciousness and identity could have been taken further, and some subtle restructuring might have improved the flow, but overall this is a remarkably polished story. Absolutely no reason why this shouldn’t have been picked up by a traditional publisher, regardless of what anyone thinks about Pearl’s likability, and it effectively refutes the author’s warning about dreams that you might think would be a great novel.
I read the Kindle version of this and there were a number of typos and a couple of formatting issues that could have been corrected by more professional editing and publishing work. This didn’t, however, detract at all from the plot, and I can highly recommend it for fans of Michael Gruber or anyone interested in thoughtful and compelling fiction.
I categorize it as science fiction, but it’s nothing like a typical example of the genre, although there is certainly a speculative aspect to it. I suppose I would call it a medical / crime / thriller, and while that terminology might call up images of slick TV drama series, reading this book is a much richer experience. The thoughts of the amnesiac main character struck me as similar to past and current depictions of AI characters in science fiction as they struggle to understand who and what they are - The Questor Tapes and in particular the recent Murderbot series come to mind. The exploration of the mechanics of human consciousness and identity could have been taken further, and some subtle restructuring might have improved the flow, but overall this is a remarkably polished story. Absolutely no reason why this shouldn’t have been picked up by a traditional publisher, regardless of what anyone thinks about Pearl’s likability, and it effectively refutes the author’s warning about dreams that you might think would be a great novel.
I read the Kindle version of this and there were a number of typos and a couple of formatting issues that could have been corrected by more professional editing and publishing work. This didn’t, however, detract at all from the plot, and I can highly recommend it for fans of Michael Gruber or anyone interested in thoughtful and compelling fiction.
December 19, 2019
Could not out it down
I kept on reading when I should have been sleeping or getting work done, it was very hard to put this book down. I'm sad I finished it, I became very involved with the main character and want to read more about her. A lot of research must have gone into this book for the interesting medical science. The characters are very well done. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.
I kept on reading when I should have been sleeping or getting work done, it was very hard to put this book down. I'm sad I finished it, I became very involved with the main character and want to read more about her. A lot of research must have gone into this book for the interesting medical science. The characters are very well done. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.
January 21, 2026
What a book
It took a bit to get into it. Then I could not stop. Fascinating science faith. Brain washing. Good and evil. Gruber impresses me every time. Just wish there were more.
It took a bit to get into it. Then I could not stop. Fascinating science faith. Brain washing. Good and evil. Gruber impresses me every time. Just wish there were more.
January 13, 2020
For reasons that escape him, well-known novelist Michael Gruber has yet to find a publisher for this novel, so it is only available on Amazon. Always fascinated by the nature of the mind and how it interacts with memory, experience, and personality, and with religious experience, Amnesia Dreams is both psychological mystery and philosophical novel.
A man wakes up in a hospital with "global retrograde amnesia": a total wipeout of all memories, both of a personal nature and of abstract and experiential data. A neurologist becomes fascinated by his case, seeing perhaps a patient who could provide important windows into the formation of memories and personality. As his brand newly formed existence expands (beginning with counting the black dots in acoustic ceiling tiles above his bed), he begins to discover some "procedural" or muscle memory abilities that are intriguing, like being able to make a complex origami. The beginnings of a dark undercurrent begin to manifest, though, in hallucinations of dream-like figures. The neurologist is baffled because the patient's actual EEG and MRI results show the brain of a brand new baby. The philosophical dimension to the growing mystery is provided in the person of a fellow patient, a Catholic priest recovering from a stroke.
I really enjoyed this read. Gruber has a way of framing fascinating perspectives on conscious experience through ordinary conversations and interactions of characters.
A man wakes up in a hospital with "global retrograde amnesia": a total wipeout of all memories, both of a personal nature and of abstract and experiential data. A neurologist becomes fascinated by his case, seeing perhaps a patient who could provide important windows into the formation of memories and personality. As his brand newly formed existence expands (beginning with counting the black dots in acoustic ceiling tiles above his bed), he begins to discover some "procedural" or muscle memory abilities that are intriguing, like being able to make a complex origami. The beginnings of a dark undercurrent begin to manifest, though, in hallucinations of dream-like figures. The neurologist is baffled because the patient's actual EEG and MRI results show the brain of a brand new baby. The philosophical dimension to the growing mystery is provided in the person of a fellow patient, a Catholic priest recovering from a stroke.
I really enjoyed this read. Gruber has a way of framing fascinating perspectives on conscious experience through ordinary conversations and interactions of characters.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews