The Consciousness Plague

Written by:
Paul Levinson
Narrated by:
Mark Shanahan

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
16
Narrator
Release Date
May 2005
Duration
8 hours 22 minutes
Summary
From of the author of The Silk Code, winner of the 1999 Locus Award for Best First Novel, comes another intriguing blend of science fiction and hard-boiled police-procedural mystery. The Consciousness Plague is about memory, more particularly, how the loss of memory, in slivers of time deducted from a growing number of individuals, can subtly undermine and play havoc with everything from the investigation of serial stranglings to candlelight dinners. Dr. D'Amato, NYPD forensic detective, investigates a spate of unusual cases of memory loss and finds evidence of a bacteria-like organism that has lived in our brains since our origin as a species and may be responsible for our very consciousness. There's evidence for this consciousness bug in the ancient Phoenician and Viking cultures and everywhere Phil looks in our world. A new antibiotic crosses the blood-brain barrier and inadvertently kills this essential bug. Phil himself becomes a victim of the memory drain, and must struggle to get the proper authorities to pay attention before everyone loses so much memory that they forget that they forgot in the first place.
Reviews
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Eric

When I first saw the title, I was hoping it would explore meme theory. I knew it wouldn't when I read the description, but the concept was intriguing enough, so I gave it a listen. While I liked the production well enough (good reader voice, some sound effects & music), I couldn't help feeling like I was listening to a made-for-tv script of something trying to be a Michael Crichton thriller. There were a lot of areas that could have been developed more, and there were some really annoying aspects to the writing. A pet peeve of mine is the use of anything but "he said" - this text was rife with "he allowed", "he added", etc. I also felt that all the characters in the story gave way too much importance and drama to very mundane things about themselves and each other. Overall, this audio book warrants about a B- or C+, making it OK to keep you occupied during a long road trip, but probably not worth a focused listen.

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Marjorie

Since I really like scientific or medical mysteries, I expected to like this but I was disappointed in this one. The characters were shallow and the important ones not developed enough to make them believeable. The plot is predictable and the premise far-fetched. Although I can see merit in the underlying idea of the book, it just didn't hold together for me. The reader did a fine job.

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