Mind's Eye By Douglas E. Richards Exhilarating Look at Future in Scifi Thriller

Or was he insane already? No.
It couldn’t be. He felt totally rational.
And totally sane. He laughed out loud.
 Sure, he thought. I’m as sane and rational
as any other guy without a memory
 who wakes up in a dumpster and
 hears voices in his head.
~~

The stench was so utterly horrid that it seemed to be attacking him. It was the putrid stink of rot and of food gone bad. It was an unholy soup of dozens of odors that each would have been bad enough alone, but which seemed to clash in revolting and impossible ways when forced together. Panic squeezed his heart to near bursting as he realized he was drowning in this noxious cloud. He fought desperately to take a breath, but this act was somehow impossible. It was as though he had forgotten how, as if the mental wiring that triggered his breathing response had been neatly snipped. His burning lungs screamed at him for air, and he knew he had but seconds to live. 
Suddenly, from the depths of his panic, an epiphany burst forth. He wasn’t drowning. Instead, he was in the middle of a terrible nightmare, and his breathing reflex was only failing in the vivid dream world his mind had constructed. His physical body was asleep and paralyzed. He threw all of his will into tearing off the crushingly heavy cloak of unconsciousness,  and an instant later his full mind exploded to the surface, like a swimmer held down too long in the depths of a cold and murky ocean, and escaping just in time. Now fully conscious, albeit groggy, he felt the weight of eyelids that were shuttering his vision. He heard whispers in his mind; dozens of them. He could catch words and phrases; images. A kaleidoscope of activity just below the surface, blending together into a white noise; incessant chatter from hundreds of non-stop talkers all speaking at once. He shook his head to try to stop the maddening whispers in his mind, but without success. He anxiously opened his eyes. And was greeted by an absolute, impenetrable darkness...

~~

Mind's Eye

By Douglas E. Richards

Many science fiction novels are based upon actual research which has been explored. While recognizing that a writer puts the emotional fear and thriller components, I just had to see if and how long this research to implant control units in the brain  has been underway... And it's much longer than I imagined! Now I'm wondering just how far the potential has advanced...

The potential to use and control the Internet with your mind! I've been a Trekkie from the beginning, watching Star Trek and imagining living in a time when you could tell a machine to fix your next cup of tea...LOL... Now that I'm older, though, I am much more cautious about what the future may hold due to scientific experimentation...

It's bad enough when you awake in the darkness of a garbage dumpster and look around in fear trying to figure out where you are and what's happened...

But when you get out and find you are being hunted by "real people" with real guns, you've got to go into hyper-drive wondering, What the...???

Shit! he thought, almost hysterically.
He was dead! Hall clutched at the small 
sink for support,
reeling. He had killed a man. 
Hall didn’t remember who he was,
but he was certain he had never killed
 before. Bile rose in his throat as he
 pondered taking a life. Even though the
 man had been intent on taking his, Hall
suspected he would have puked if his
 stomach wasn’t totally empty.
~~~

Fortunately Hall was intelligent. Even though he had lost his memory and gained other abilities, he was able to quickly assimilate and pull together information into conceptual ideas. It didn't take any major skills, however, for him to realize that he could read the minds of people around him. No, in wasn't cool! He was quickly immersed in dozens of different conversations from all the people around him, hearing every words.. and, worse, learning that people really weren't very nice, even when they didn't realize another individual knew what they were thinking!
But he at least had learned that he was a Marine Biologist...

The man continued approaching, with practiced quiet. Hall’s five senses couldn’t have possibly detected that he was outside and approaching, let alone his precise position, but the sixth sense Hall now possessed could see from his attacker’s eyes, so he could judge with uncanny accuracy when to launch his attack. 

He whipped open the door with all of the speed and strength at his command, just as the man in his mind’s eye began to raise his gun, and was rewarded when the door handle slammed into the man’s outstretched hand, sending his gun flying. The assassin stifled a scream, and reflexively brought his now bloodied paw to eye level to assess the damage, discovering that at least two of his fingers were now broken.
Hall dived for the man’s gun, having no time to ponder this verification that his ESP was real, after all, and highly accurate.                                                                                     ~~~

It was unnerving to be eavesdropping on somebody's telephone call or conversations in order to discover what his probable name was and that somebody wanted him dead! He learned that it was Frank Bardino, a mob hit man, who was trying to kill him and right now he was fuming because Hall obviously had training and skills that had allowed him to capture him... And that he was supposed to be an easy science target. This guy certainly had a lot more going for him than he had been told! 

He had earlier identified the place on his head where it appeared he had been hurt. Now he was ascertaining that some type of implant had been placed in his brain which allowed him to think what he wanted to know and quickly be connected to the Internet...but was that the reason for the ESP he also had--and why had he lost all of his personal memory?

Nevertheless, he definitely knew one thing. He had to keep running... and it was at the next place--some type of office rental space building, that he busted into what he thought was an empty office. But she was there... And he couldn't read her with his ESP!

I liked Megan Emerson, the character Hall hooks up with, saving her life and killing two more men... I wondered whether her creative mind was part of the reason he could not read her thoughts... But, they did discover that they could talk telepathically which added a very cool dimension to the story! And, of course, along the way, they started to feel a personal connection...

Soon, not only the original guys who had been sent to kill him, but the federal government was after the couple. Word of his abilities--Hall had originally written an email and sent it to both the government and newspapers, but had not remembered doing it--was out. For the good or bad results! And there is no way for readers to know which, so we keep reading just to keep up with what exciting things are happening! 

Finally, Hall was able to piece things together from the Internet, locate where he had been and make contact with a representative of the company which had originally been doing the research--at least as much as they knew of the overall project!

High tension, cool futuristic possibilities along with unbridled fear of what could happen with so much control by one individual... Well you get the picture! This SciFi hypothesis is one of the best I've read and certainly worth your further exploration... But stay away from those who implant!!! LOL...


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Douglas E. Richards has been widely praised for his ability to weave action, suspense, and science into riveting novels that straddle the thriller and science fiction genres. He is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of WIRED, AMPED, THE CURE, MIND'S EYE, and QUANTUM LENS (October 1, 2014). He has also written six middle grade/young adult novels widely acclaimed for their appeal to boys, girls, and adults alike.

A former biotech executive, Richards earned a BS in microbiology from the Ohio State University, a master's degree in genetic engineering from the University of Wisconsin (where he engineered mutant viruses now named after him), and an MBA from the University of Chicago. In recognition of his work, Richards was selected to be a "special guest" at San Diego Comic-Con International, along with such icons as Stan Lee and Ray Bradbury. He has written numerous feature articles for the award-winning magazine, National Geographic KIDS--some having appeared in a dozen languages in as many as sixteen countries--as well as essays for the BBC, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Earth & Sky, Today's Parent, and many others.

The author currently lives in San Diego, California, with his wife, two children, and two dogs. Please feel free to friend him on Facebook at Douglas E. Richards Author, or write to him at doug@san.rr.com