The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August in Fantasy-Faction.com

Jan 24, 2018 Lianne Pheno rated it really liked it · review of another edition

http://delivreenlivres.blogspot.fr/20...

C'est vrai que ce livre est assez spécial, la narration est très éparpillée et on n'a pas l'habitude, mais j'ai quand même pris un grand plaisir à ma lecture même si il ne rentrera pas dans mes coup de cœur.

Un lecture un peu spéciale cette fois ci vu que j'ai écouté la moitié de ce livre en livre audio, même si je l'ai terminé en livre papier ensuite.

Harry August est un Kalashaka, un homme qui revit ses vies les unes après les autres. Lors de sa onzième vi ...more

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Aug 29, 2014 Lisa marked it as did-not-finish

Shelves: 2014-ffchallenge

Review from Tenacious Reader: http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2014/1...

There are not many books that I invest enough time to reach the halfway point, but then ultimately decide to set aside as DNF. Usually I hit that point early, early enough I would never consider writing a review, or even bothering to mark it as anything in Goodreads. I debated about what to do with this one. Do I review it? Is that fair if I did not actually finish the book? I decided that if I was upfront and honest about onl Review from Tenacious Reader: http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2014/1...

There are not many books that I invest enough time to reach the halfway point, but then ultimately decide to set aside as DNF. Usually I hit that point early, early enough I would never consider writing a review, or even bothering to mark it as anything in Goodreads. I debated about what to do with this one. Do I review it? Is that fair if I did not actually finish the book? I decided that if I was upfront and honest about only reading half, that anyone reading my review can decide to take or leave it.

So, since I led with the fact that I DNF’d this one, I’ll start with the positive aspects of the book, the elements that allowed me to make it to the halfway point despite not finishing. The book is very well written. Now, before anyone jumps in and says “But, wait! If it was well written, why couldn’t you finish it??” North definitely has the ability to weave a story and construct extremely quotable prose. I love when I find a book that is chock full of great one liners and statements that are just begging to be highlighted! This book definitely is that. If I leave you with nothing else, I hope to leave you knowing that the author did a great job telling the story she wanted to tell.

The problem? It turns out it just wasn’t a story I felt like reading. That should not invalidate the book, or turn others off. There are plenty of people that had the opposite reaction as me and loved the story and concept. Harry August is a kalacharka, which means after death, he is born again. Not in a future life like I expected, but the same birth in the same place. Kalacharkas live a rather long Groundhog day of a life where they are repeatedly born to live their life again. They remember parts of their previous lives, and so can try to make changes in the world through each subsequent life. But supposedly they should only be minor changes. I just found something about the concept made me ask way too many questions. Some of my questions were addressed on some level, but the answers just gave me more questions, and ultimately I began to feel a bit snarky and that the concept just pushed my willing suspension of disbelief a bit too hard. Now, why I would have an easier time accepting being born again in a future life rather than the same life, I can’t really answer you. Both are obviously fictional scenarios, I guess I am just a bit biased in my time-traveling/re-incarnation/born-again scenarios.

I can’t help but wonder if this is a book that if I read at a different time, I might enjoy it more. Some stories I will always love, some stories I will never love. Then there are some stories that I think my general mood/attitude can greatly impact my reaction. Unfortunately I will never know for sure, at least not anytime soon. Perhaps if I pick it up in a couple of years, I will forget all of my questions/concerns/nit-picking with this one and can start fresh. ...more

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Nov 02, 2014 T.O. Munro rated it it was amazing

Shelves: misc-fiction

I loved this book, I love this book. It is the kind of book I wish I had written and that is more than mere hyperbolic praise. I once had a half-formed idea for a novel, a tale of a man who endlessly repeats the same decade of his life, beginning with his facing up to a terminal diagnosis with an intention to walk off a cliff in fog and finding instead he stumbles ten years into his own past and repeats his life again seeking by some means to relive those vital years, it was in concept a kind of I loved this book, I love this book. It is the kind of book I wish I had written and that is more than mere hyperbolic praise. I once had a half-formed idea for a novel, a tale of a man who endlessly repeats the same decade of his life, beginning with his facing up to a terminal diagnosis with an intention to walk off a cliff in fog and finding instead he stumbles ten years into his own past and repeats his life again seeking by some means to relive those vital years, it was in concept a kind of Groundhog Decade if you like.

Claire North has gone that one step further to write a book about a Groundhog Life, the eponymous hero cycling through an endless loop of existence and, like Tom Hanks's character in the film, struggling to make some sense of the opportunity of this unique curse.

However, this book is so much more than a clever core idea. Its narrator leads us through the story of his lives with assurance and aplomb as you would expect from a man who draws on hundreds of years of experiences and retains the knowledge of all of his past lives. The fantastical premise is delivered with such credible precision and consistency that I was not just drawn in but engulfed by the story. I mean this is a book I read in two sittings over the course of one weekend, and have risen from my reading desk only to launch straight into my writing desk.

Harry is not the only one of his kind. Though exceptionally rare there are others like him a community of the endlessly looping who live alongside the terminally mortal "linears" and the book asks reasonable questions about what it must be like to be one of these cursed or blessed people, not so much "tomorrow" people as "today" people.

The book toys entertainingly with ideas of what it is "to be" that we are all of us little more than the sum of our memories, the experiences that shaped us and to be immortal but within the same span of seventy years or so.

It shakes the tree of conventional chronology, with Harry's lives often described in the same parallel lines that they are lived. Harry zig-zags along and between potentially endless layers of parallel universes, like different versions of the same world's history lined up side by side on a book shelf.

To live so long one needs must become some kind of polymath and the author conveys well the sense of a man who has become knowledgeable in many fields of science, medicine and history and the book, like its hero strides sure-footedly across the panorama of discovery and conflict that was the twentieth century, But, as all time travellers know, knowledge of the future is a dangerous power and Harry August is sensible, but others of his kind are not.

And therein lies the crux of this story a threat to the future, a crime that stretches sideways across parallel timelines, albeit ones that are experienced sequentially by Harry. It turns out that even the deathless can be destroyed and that gives the book a visceral tension that kept me flicking through the screens on my kindle, relying on the screen's built in brightness rather than taking a few seconds to break off to turn on the light as a Sunday afternoon turned dark.

This book appealed to me on many levels. Beautifully written, tightly plotted, toying with history, physics and dabbling with conceptual conundrums of spiraling timelines. How would any of us mere humans live such an alien lifestyle, how would we cope? what meaning would death have beyond the trauma of a repeated opportunity to stuff up adolescence?

Claire North introduces us to many of Harry's kind grappling with those questions, and they are all believable responses to their not quite so unique situation, as is Harry's response to each of those individuals.

I first picked this book of a shelf in Waterstones in Cambridge in the summer, appropriate since some of Harry's lives is set in Cambridge, another mark in its favour for me. I bought it on kindle this weekend (forgive me bricks and mortar bookshop, but I have this weekend bought four other conventional books to set against the sin of physical window shopping for electronic purchases).

It may not fit others tastes so closely as it fitted mine, but for me this was a very easy five star winner. ...more

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Dec 31, 2014 Lisa added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014-ffchallenge, fantasy

There are not many books that I invest enough time to reach the halfway point, but then ultimately decide to set aside as DNF. Usually I hit that point early, early enough I would never consider writing a review, or even bothering to mark it as anything in Goodreads. I debated about what to do with this one. Do I review it? Is that fair if I did not actually finish the book? I decided that if I was upfront and honest about only reading half, that anyone reading my review can decide to take or le There are not many books that I invest enough time to reach the halfway point, but then ultimately decide to set aside as DNF. Usually I hit that point early, early enough I would never consider writing a review, or even bothering to mark it as anything in Goodreads. I debated about what to do with this one. Do I review it? Is that fair if I did not actually finish the book? I decided that if I was upfront and honest about only reading half, that anyone reading my review can decide to take or leave it.

So, since I led with the fact that I DNF’d this one, I’ll start with the positive aspects of the book, the elements that allowed me to make it to the halfway point despite not finishing. The book is very well written. Now, before anyone jumps in and says “But, wait! If it was well written, why couldn’t you finish it??” North definitely has the ability to weave a story and construct extremely quotable prose. I love when I find a book that is chock full of great one liners and statements that are just begging to be highlighted! This book definitely is that. If I leave you with nothing else, I hope to leave you knowing that the author did a great job telling the story she wanted to tell.

The problem? It turns out it just wasn’t a story I felt like reading. That should not invalidate the book, or turn others off. There are plenty of people that had the opposite reaction as me and loved the story and concept. Harry August is a kalacharka, which means after death, he is born again. Not in a future life like I expected, but the same birth in the same place. Kalacharkas live a rather long Groundhog day of a life where they are repeatedly born to live their life again. They remember parts of their previous lives, and so can try to make changes in the world through each subsequent life. But supposedly they should only be minor changes. I just found something about the concept made me ask way too many questions. Some of my questions were addressed on some level, but the answers just gave me more questions, and ultimately I began to feel a bit snarky and that the concept just pushed my willing suspension of disbelief a bit too hard. Now, why I would have an easier time accepting being born again in a future life rather than the same life, I can’t really answer you. Both are obviously fictional scenarios, I guess I am just a bit biased in my time-traveling/re-incarnation/born-again scenarios.

I can’t help but wonder if this is a book that if I read at a different time, I might enjoy it more. Some stories I will always love, some stories I will never love. Then there are some stories that I think my general mood/attitude can greatly impact my reaction. Unfortunately I will never know for sure, at least not anytime soon. Perhaps if I pick it up in a couple of years, I will forget all of my questions/concerns/nit-picking with this one and can start fresh. ...more

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Sep 11, 2014 Kevin rated it liked it

I enjoyed this book. It was not a great read but it was well-written. Basically it is about a guy named Harry and others that when they die they are reborn at birth and live their life again with memories of the old lives. I think the main reason I rated this book a three is that it seems the story tells more often then shows what is happening. Though interesting, I found this method slowed the story down. Worth a read, just not one of my favs.

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Jun 04, 2015 Paul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own-audio

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North is a book I almost gave up on, but I’m glad I didn’t because I ended up liking it. I have never gone from a book I thought about DNFing to liking a book this much before.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is a science fiction book about a man that lives the same life multiple times. Harry August remembers all his previous lives and when he dies he is recreated back to the beginning where he started. Harry travels the world in search of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North is a book I almost gave up on, but I’m glad I didn’t because I ended up liking it. I have never gone from a book I thought about DNFing to liking a book this much before.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is a science fiction book about a man that lives the same life multiple times. Harry August remembers all his previous lives and when he dies he is recreated back to the beginning where he started. Harry travels the world in search of knowledge and meets many different and compelling people. Eventually he finds the Chronos Club, a club of people just like him, individuals that relive their lives. Harry finds out that each generation of Chronos Club members talk to the previous generation and the upcoming generation. People like Harry knows what happens in the future and can also pass messages back through time. When an ominous message gets passed down from the future that the world is ending, and that it is constantly getting sooner, Harry knows that one of the Chronos Club members must be involved.

Basically, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North is a time loop novel, but each of Harry’s lives are different. The same things don’t happen for each of Harry’s life but the large events in society always happen. The Chronos Club tries not to interfere much with things and most of the time events are so large it is virtually impossible to do so. It is written in first person from the viewpoint of Harry August. The book is mostly linear but jumps back to Harry’s previous lives at times to explain something that gives the current scene more context. The beginning was difficult for me to get into as the narrator only described Harry’s life and there was very little dialogue. The normal voice of the narrator was monotonous and made an already dry beginning of a complex book, more boring. Claire North’s description of Harry’s origins, though important to the story, was long winded. Once Harry finds the Chronos Club, about 1/4 of the way into the book, the book becomes much better.

There is a ton of history involved in this book. From the 1920’s to about the 1990’s, Harry experiences all that the world has to offer and during that time our world goes through a huge change. As a person that loves history, this was easily one of the best parts of the entire book. Harry sees different events unfolding around him but we get a slightly different perspective based on his experience over his lived lives. I think if you enjoy history then this book might be something you’d enjoy.

Harry isn’t necessarily the most interesting character and I think the slow start plus this fact made me almost quit the book. Harry, in all intensive purposes is boring but I find him to be a good guy. I think Harry is a great counter to the story’s antagonist, who is by far the most interesting character, and when he comes into the book, makes the book so much better.

The thing that is important to understand before you read this book is that the enjoyment of this book will come down to how much you like the basic premise. If the idea of someone living multiple, same lives, and the ability to transfer information from the future into the past, isn’t something that sounds intriguing, than you probably won’t care for the book much. A lot of the conversations go into scientific detail and theory about this type of “time travel,” and that is where this book just came alive for me. There are many classic science fiction discussions that deal with time travel in this book. I found myself thinking about the ramifications of something like this if it was real. When a book causes me to think about it while I’m not reading it, then it has done something unique.

4/5 16/25 Possible Score

Plot – 4(Strong)

Characters – 2(O.K.)

Setting/World Building – 4(Strong)

Writing Style – 3(Good)

Heart & Mind Aspect – 3(Good) ...more

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May 27, 2016 Miriam Michalak rated it liked it · review of another edition

The writing was fabulous- - but there was just a bit too much of it and I found myself bored and struggling through the second 3rd of the book which was a real shame. Loved the premise and the writing. Look forward to more Claire North!

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