by Anura Guruge
on January 4, 2021
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I discovered Carl Goodman’s ’20/20′, serendipitously, on Amazon’s ‘Audible‘ PLUS CATALOG. Given my obsession with vision, I couldn’t overlook that title. I am glad I looked into it. As you can see above, I thoroughly enjoyed the book — especially since I too had had two fancy toric lenses implanted in my eyes just a year ago. Via the elusive magic of Twitter, I was even fortunate to interact with the author, Carl Goodman. We are both brits, and we both like to write. That was a good start.
I enjoyed 20/20 so much that I, of course, went looking for the sequel — & that was ‘Lifesign’. They both follow a similar template. The indestructible, near Super-Womanish ‘DI Eva Harris‘, in both stories, is tackling two parallel investigations: one a massive, ongoing Russian drug cartel & the other a series of murders connected with a cutting-edge development in medical science. In 20/20 it was implanted lenses. In Lifesign it is CRISPR-based gene manipulation to achieve ‘senescence therapy’ — i.e., extending lifespan by slowing/halting cell aging. In both instances it is genuine, topical, cutting edge stuff.
Mr. Goodman, who claims to be a graphics designer (in an interview I found), does a prodigious amount of research into a bewildering array of topics to make his tales riveting, thought-provoking & educational. This is when it struck me that he was as good, if not better, than ‘Dan (Da Vinci Code) Brown‘. Dan Brown (a fellow New Hampshirite) changed my life. Mr. Goodman, though he has enchanted it, has NOT changed my life — at least as yet. So, I don’t go around lightly making comparisons to Dan Brown. Less than a handful of folks have changed my life — & I value them greatly.
But, to be fair, Mr. Goodman’s capacity to tackle a huge variety of different topics — ranging from guns to gene editing, cyber hacking to cyborgs, and transhumanism to therapeutics — & synthesize them in a way that a lay person can understand is humbling. Dan Brown was good at that. So is Carl Goodman. And that is where I think his genius lies. He also tells a good story — simply, but with aplomb.
Yes, cold hearted critics will find ‘holes’ in his story & styles. So, what? The Da Vinci Code had huge holes & even I found some. That is why it is fiction.
One interesting thought. I LISTENTED to both books. As I have already noted listening to a book is profoundly different to reading it. The narrator of this book, Louise Brealey, was also brilliant. She has to get a fair amount of credit for making this yarn so easy on the ears.
All-in-all, Car Goodman has impressed me much. He makes me smile — especially when he talking about programming & IT stuff. SMILE. I had not heard the word ‘heuristic‘ in decades! Wow. It took me back to the 1970s. DI Eva Harris is a recent British computer science graduate. She did a stint in Southampton. I, in 1974, was in the first batch graduates to get a degree in ‘Computer Technology’ (from Swansea). I lived in ‘West End’ (a suburb of Southampton) while working for IBM at Hursley. Yes, his stories take me back. He has Eva visiting a surgeon, early morning, in Harley St. I did that in the late 1970s — to see an eye specialist. So, yes, I am also kind of biased. But, Carl Goodman — LIVES UP TO his name.