Peter James - Host

review by Brian Lowen live on the bookshow 19th April
I am sorry to say that this is the first book by Peter James that I have not really enjoyed.

I found it too long and much too detailed. Maybe it is because I am not fully computer literate that I found a lot of the text rather boring and above my head.

The subject and plot of the story are quite amazing though. We are taken into the world of Cryonics – the freezing of bodies that have either died or are just about to die and then storing them in a frozen state for years until medical science has moved on sufficiently so that when thawed out again they can be cured of their illness.

Brilliant scientist Joe Messenger believes that people can be made to live for ever. Knowing the human body can be frozen indefinitely, Joe devises a way of downloading a human brain into a supercomputer called ARCHIVE.

Joe’s wife however is worried by his preoccupation with ARCHIVE, which seems to be developing a distinct and sinister personality of its own.
Joe takes on a brilliant, and extremely attractive young female student at the University where he works. She falls in love with Joe but is dying of a brain aneurism. Before she finally succumbs she manages to download her brain into ARCHIVE. It was her dying request that her body is frozen at the cryonics centre attached to the University and this is carried out.

Then a series of macabre accidents befalls Joe and his family and he finds himself facing the terrifying consequences of his own obsessions.

You really have to open up your mind to accept the strange happenings that occur in this book otherwise you will fail to complete the course as it is a long book of over 600 pages of small print.

Only recommended to those who enjoy outlandish tales involving computer science.