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It started when I was 16 years old. A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger. No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit, you will never remember who I am.
At the end of the day, Death visits everyone. Right before that, Charlie does. You might meet him in a hospital, in a war zone, or at the scene of a traffic accident. Then again, you might meet him at the North Pole - he gets everywhere, our Charlie. Would you shake him by the hand, take the gift he offers, or would you pay no attention to the words he says? Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. He never knows which.
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 11th 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.
When Micajah Fenton discovers a crater in his front yard with a broken time glider in the bottom and a naked, virtual woman on his lawn, he delays his plans to kill himself. While helping repair the marooned time traveler's glider, Cager realizes it can return him to his past to correct a mistake that had haunted him his entire life. As payment for his help, the virtual creature living in the circuitry of the marooned glider, sends Cager back in time as his 10-year-old self.
Nothing ever changes in Sanders. The town's still got a video store, for God's sake. So why doesn't Eli Teague want to leave? Not that he'd ever admit it, but maybe he's been waiting - waiting for the traveler to come back. The one who's roared into his life twice before, pausing just long enough to drop tantalizing clues before disappearing in a cloud of gunfire and a squeal of tires. The one who's a walking anachronism, with her tricorne hat, flintlock rifle, and steampunked Model A Ford.
Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.
It started when I was 16 years old. A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger. No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit, you will never remember who I am.
At the end of the day, Death visits everyone. Right before that, Charlie does. You might meet him in a hospital, in a war zone, or at the scene of a traffic accident. Then again, you might meet him at the North Pole - he gets everywhere, our Charlie. Would you shake him by the hand, take the gift he offers, or would you pay no attention to the words he says? Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. He never knows which.
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 11th 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.
When Micajah Fenton discovers a crater in his front yard with a broken time glider in the bottom and a naked, virtual woman on his lawn, he delays his plans to kill himself. While helping repair the marooned time traveler's glider, Cager realizes it can return him to his past to correct a mistake that had haunted him his entire life. As payment for his help, the virtual creature living in the circuitry of the marooned glider, sends Cager back in time as his 10-year-old self.
Nothing ever changes in Sanders. The town's still got a video store, for God's sake. So why doesn't Eli Teague want to leave? Not that he'd ever admit it, but maybe he's been waiting - waiting for the traveler to come back. The one who's roared into his life twice before, pausing just long enough to drop tantalizing clues before disappearing in a cloud of gunfire and a squeal of tires. The one who's a walking anachronism, with her tricorne hat, flintlock rifle, and steampunked Model A Ford.
Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.
The Galahad, a faster-than-light spacecraft, carries 50 scientists and engineers on a mission to prepare Kepler 452b, Earth's nearest habitable neighbor at 1400 light years away. With Earth no longer habitable and the Mars colony slowly failing, they are humanity's best hope. After 10 years in a failed cryogenic bed - body asleep, mind awake - William Chanokh's torture comes to an end as the fog clears, the hatch opens, and his friend and fellow hacker, Tom, greets him...by stabbing a screwdriver into his heart. This is the first time William dies.
When Ivan Pritchard signs on as a newbie aboard the Mad Astra, it's his final, desperate stab at giving his wife and children the life they deserve. He can survive the hazing of his crewmates, and how many times, really, can near-zero g make you vomit? But there's another challenge looming out there, in the farthest reaches of human exploration, that will test every man, woman and AI on the ship - and will force Ivan to confront the very essence of what makes him human.
Joel Byram is an everyday 22nd century guy. He spends his days training artificial-intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980s new wave - an extremely obscure genre - and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems - until he's accidentally duplicated while teleporting. Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves.
When a spaceship landed in an open field in the quiet mill town of Sorrow Falls, Massachusetts, everyone realized humankind was not alone in the universe. With that realization everyone freaked out for a little while. Or almost everyone. The residents of Sorrow Falls took the news pretty well. This could have been due to a certain local quality of unflappability, or it could have been that in three years the ship did exactly nothing other than sit quietly in that field, and nobody understood the full extent of this nothing the ship was doing better than the people who lived right next door.
In 1988, 43-year-old Jeff Winston died of a heart attack. But then he awoke, and it was 1963; Jeff was 18 all over again, his memory of the next two decades intact. This time around, Jeff would gain all the power and wealth he never had before. This time around he'd know how to do it right. Until next time.
Martin Stillwater has a vivid imagination. It charms his loving wife, delights his two little daughters, and gives him all the inspiration he needs to write his highly successful mystery novels. But maybe Martin’s imagination is a bit too vivid.
Arlen Wagner has an awful gift: he can see death in the eyes of men before it strikes. He's never wrong. So when Arlen awakens on a train one hot Florida night and sees death's telltale sign in the eyes of his fellow passengers, he tries to warn them. Only 19-year-old Paul Brickhill believes him, and the two abandon the train, hoping to escape certain death. They continue south, but soon are stranded at The Cypress House - an isolated Gulf Coast boarding house run by the beautiful Rebecca Cady - directly in the path of an approaching hurricane.
Twelve-year-old Josy has an inexplicable illness. She vanishes without a trace from her doctor's office during treatment. Four years later Josy's father, psychiatrist Viktor Larenz, has withdrawn himself to an isolated North Sea island in order to deal with the tragedy. Then he's paid a surprise visit by a beautiful stranger. Anna Glass is a novelist who suffers from an unusual form of schizophrenia: All the characters she creates for her books become real to her.
Three minutes. That's all it takes for Meredith's entire world to fall apart when she watches the videotape of her four-year-old self with Becca, the mother she's never known. Can there be any truth in the strange and dangerous story her mother forced her to tell on camera? The search for answers leads Meredith to Darkwater Pool, the scene of the murder of a young woman, Cara, over 30 years ago. What could possibly be the link between her mother and the victim? The problem is, she's not the only one looking....
Crazy has no memory and feels no fear. Dangerous and unpredictable, he's locked away in SafeHaven, a psychiatric hospital, where he spends the long days watching Wheel of Fortune and wondering what the outside world smells like. When a mysterious visitor arrives and offers him a way out Crazy doesn't hesitate to accept.
High in his attic bedroom, 12-year-old David mourns the loss of his mother. He is angry and he is alone, with only the books on his shelf for company.But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in the myths and fairytales so beloved of his dead mother, he finds that the real world and the fantasy world have begun to meld. The Crooked Man has come, with his mocking smile and his enigmatic words: "Welcome, your majesty. All hail the new king."
Attacked and injected with a drug that slows his metabolism to a fraction of normal, Martin James becomes an unwilling time traveler who hurtles through the years. His children grow up, his wife grows older, and his only hope is finding the people who injected him in the first place - not an easy task when one day for Martin lasts four years. And while Martin James strives to find a cure before everyone he loves is gone, others are uncertain if his journey can be stopped at all.
He tried to take my life. Instead I took his.
It happened so long ago, I've forgotten the details. But he was desperate, hungry enough to kill. As I was dying, my hand touched his. That's when my first switch took place.
I looked through the eyes of my killer just in time to see my own body die.
Now switching is easy. I can jump from body to body, have any life, be anyone. All it takes is a touch.
Dynamic, interesting and inspiring. Make you think a lot about mind and body questions.
BUT the best thing is the narration. Just brilliant.
I did however enjoy The first fifteen lives of Harry August more. The idea of this book is intriguing but the plot becomes a little thin.
Any additional comments?
It was difficult to follow this book. There is a lot of character changes which the narrator preforms well, but there are also many jumps in time which confuses things.
For the first half of the book I was lost not understanding 'when' they were talking about. Maybe the time jumps would be conveyed better if you were reading text?
Story line tied together more at the end though there were some abrupt changes and jumps forward with little to no explanation of the lost time in-between.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
I don't know what to make of this book - overall I am disappointed. Once you get past the initial concept that an entity can move from one person to another by touch then you pretty much have it. There is a narrative thread running through the book but because it is being driven by a person that continually changes their bodies, interacting with similar creatures, it gets really confusing.
The writing is crisp and well observed but there is far too much violence with the same scenario being replayed again and again. It is described from the first person which has the effect of making it more more graphic, which I began to find waring. It would have been more effective if we cared about any of the main characters but despite some "flashbacks" to try and build a back story they seem to have no redeeming qualities. Thus when the end comes and a sunset is walked into we can breathe a sigh of relief that it is over!
I bought this on the basis of her first novel the first fifteen lives of Harry August which was clever and engaging but this book seems like an intellectual exercise. The story could have been written in the first person with the same character all the way through like an extended episode of Mission Impossible. I don't know if this is unfair criticism It may be more effective if you read it instead of listening, as i said I am not sure what to think.
Iain
15 of 18 people found this review helpful
An interesting concept that could have been a better book, if only the editor had been more diligent in editing, there is too much repetition and not enough development of the plot, the entities speak of love like Hollywood stars, often but never feeling it, and that makes the reader uncommitted to characters.
The section of the genie and the retelling from the grand daughter are the best achieved story with in the tale it feels like something from The Arabian Nights: One Thousand and One Nights, truly magic and sensual, also bitter and telling of the real depth of the genie's love.
A good second book but not as accomplished as the first book The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. if you like better book about body possession Anne Rice’s The Tale of the Body Thief is the one.
The reader was exceptionally good in his delivery and made the book shine with his acting.
27 of 33 people found this review helpful
The story is very similar in its general ideas and scope as her first book, which was excellent. However here the lack of truly new ideas and plot left me a little disappointed.
Narrator Peter Kenny was brilliant as ever. Outranks every other narrator I've heard on Audible by miles.
14 of 17 people found this review helpful
Struggled at the very start to get into it but as the story progressed, i found it very difficult to hit the pause button. Loved the idea, this is my 3rd audio book by this author and can't wait for more. Also love Peter Kennys voice
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
What did you like best about this story?
Excellent characters their personality remains despite their current body.
What about Peter Kenny’s performance did you like?
Such a good job for an unusual style of book, he kept the personality of the main character despite the changes in accent and gender.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
Don't let anybody tell you this is just more of the same. It may use a very slightly familiar mechanism to drive the story but her previous work, which is also brilliant, has none of the heart pounding excitement of this. Clever, thought provoking and edge of seat thrilling at the same time. Bravo!
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
I enjoyed this book, but not as much as Harry August. The characters were not as vivid or warm and the amoral nature of Kepler was understandable but distancing. However it was original, and after an unsteady start, I found the story to be well paced.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
Would you try another book written by Claire North or narrated by Peter Kenny?
I wouldn't read another Claire North, but have no problems with Peter Kenny's narration
Would you recommend Touch to your friends? Why or why not?
No. I very nearly gave up on this book: something I rarely do. It improved in the middle but I was pleased to reach the end and found I didn't care much about what actually happened.
What does Peter Kenny bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
He is a competent narrator but not the best.
Could you see Touch being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?
It would be possible and might be quite effective if it was in a much simplified form.
Any additional comments?
The concept of 'ghosts' and ' skins' I found interesting and the author had done well with consistency and accuracy in developing her theme. I thought the structure was OK but the overall plot was hard going and often dull or disjointed.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
A complicated twisted tale indeed.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Touch?
It's been a while since listening, but in general, The transition of the relationship between the two main characters.
Any additional comments?
More from Claire North please, the 1st 15 of Harry August was great, and this is not too far behind.
8 of 10 people found this review helpful
Great storyline, fast paced (don't let yourself get too distracted while listening or you may get lost). Narration was excellent, would have been a tough job doing so many different accents but was done beautifully. Loved being led on a world tour as i listened.
Not my usual style of book, but such a fast moving story that although convoluted is easy to follow. Loved it.
If you enjoyed The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, you'll probably like this. They are similar in theme and have the same (very good) narrator.
Harry August was a man that lived the same life over and over again. This book is about ghosts who inhabit the bodies of people (who have no memory of it) and pass from one to another via touch.
There is lots of action and it's a good story. However, it didn't seem as taut as the Harry August novel and just below it in quality somehow. That being said, it was enjoyable and certainly worth a listen!