Just a few lives

The Naked Man told me I needed to read the book The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.  He was right.  This is one of those books that had me thinking for days afterwards, going back over my life and looking at events in my past in a new light.

I will talk about the book, but I won't spoil anything beyond the first couple of pages.  The idea behind it is that some people, just a tiny fraction of the population, is reborn when they die.  However, they are reborn in a strange way - they are born again into the same situation they originally were but gradually regain all of their memories of past lives.  So if you were born in 1920, you would live a normal life, dying in 1990 say, and then be reborn again in 1920 on a new version of Earth.  Each of these people proceeds through Earths the same way - if I meet you on Earth v1, and we both die, we both get reborn on Earth v2.  If I die really young on Earth v2 though, I might next meet you on Earth v3 after you die another time too.

The book primarily looks at what happens when people like this try to cope with other people in the same situation.  They form alliances, get into conflicts with one another, and try to change the world in all kinds of ways.  Having many lives to try to accomplish goals can change your capabilities hugely though - firstly, you have an amazing breath of skills to draw upon.  On top of that though you can just try things over and over again until you succeed, though this might entail living seventy years between attempts!

I have spent much time recently considering how I would handle events in my life if I had all the knowledge and abilities I have now.  How would confrontations with bullies go in grade six if I had the confidence and public speaking abilities I do now?  (Answer:  I would win.)  What would I do in university, given that I already know the things I know?  Would it be better to just take the same courses again and do well without trying, or would it be better to take totally different subjects?  Would I try to be friends with the same people?

How do you decide what to do with your life when you have an infinite number of lives to work with?  Just figuring out goals takes on all kinds of new angles.  If I always die by 2050 I might not care what happens after that since I just live through 1978 to 2050 over and over again forever.  I could just live a life of luxury, coasting off of bets on sports results and lotteries, but after hundreds of years of decadence would I still just want to be rich and sit around playing board games for yet another life?

I suspect I would end up grabbing money and power via gambling and then spend my years whiling away the time as an eternal hedonist.  I don't know that changing the world would hold much appeal when the world will simply reset itself every time I perish.

But you can't be too sure.  After all, people change after a couple hundred years and lifetimes of experience.

This book is fun to read, engaging, and makes you think.  It also holds together remarkably well, which is rare for science fiction that involves time travel.  I recommend it to everyone without hesitation as it combines great ideas with grounded, tight writing.  It is rare to get a book so thought provoking and so easy to read at the same time.  I certainly plan to tackle whatever else Clair North writes to see if I enjoy it as much.