Joshua Ali Quare wakes in 2019 at the age of 140 in a strong youthful body with no memory of his past, to find he is at the center of a vast and deadly conspiracy. The only clues to his identity are the records he has left--messages from the man he once was...
As Quare journeys through his past, he discovers he has been a key figure in the history of a turbulent, violent century--soldier, criminal, assassin, spy. A century filled with killing plagues and warring cults, ruthless corporations and dying nations. A century where treachery is often the only way to survive.
Now someone is looking for him. Someone from his past. And Quare must learn the terrifying secret of his history before it unleashed devastating consequences for the future of the human race.
Josh Quare wakes up in 2109 with his memory almost gone. Fragments start falling into place. More comes back as he reads notes that he left for himself.
The story goes back & forth between the present and an episode from the previous century. It turns out that Joshua has had seven different identities. At an early age he is recruited by an Organization, and soon after given an injection. The consequences are that he'll have an almost perfect memory for fifteen years, and then be violently sick for sick months, at which point he will wake up, recover, be ten years younger, but have little or no memory of anything that happened after the injection.
Barnes comes up with several ideas in this book, The Meme Wars, where artificial intelligences are taking over humans. The AI's started as smart weapons that took out opponent's resources until they finally started taking over control of the people.
The story had lots of good ideas, but the picture of the world is almost always in some sort of global conflict. There seems to be little or no virtue, even in our protagonist. He feels sorry (some of the time) about some of the terrible things he has done, but this book doesn't have a lot of redeeming qualities.
The book is OK, but don't make a special trip to get it. There is tons of other stuff that you can read.
