Schrodinger's Gat - Robert Kroese

    2012; 206 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Science Fiction; Quantum Physics.  Overall Rating: 6*/10.

 

    For Paul Bayes, the time has come to pack it in.  Or as Shakespeare would say: it’s time to shuffle off this mortal coil.  He’s divorced, his kids dislike him, and he’s discovered he’s a crappy writer.

    He’s now at the San Leandro BART train station, and the next local train is about to arrive.  People are milling around, trying to get a primo spot for getting on the train.  Paul intends to jump onto the tracks in front of the train as it approaches.  Death should be swift.

 

    Fair is fair, though.  Paul allows Fate to give him an out.  He flips a coin.  Heads, he stays on the landing platform.  Tails, he jumps.  Luck is with him, the coin comes up tails.

 

    But as he starts to prepare to jump, a girl nearby—a very pretty, nearby girl—cries out “No!”, and Paul comes to a stop.  Did the girl know he was about to commit suicide?  If so, how?  Is she psychic?  A guardian angel?  Inquiring suicidal minds want to know.

 

    But now she’s running away!  If he wants answers, Paul’s going to have to chase her down.

 

What’s To Like...

    Schrodinger’s Gat is an ambitious merging of an Action-Intrigue tale with Quantum Physics.  Quantum Physics is a bunch of weird phenomena that take place at the sub-atomic level.  In Schrodinger’s Gat, Robert Kroese imagines what it would be like if those weird phenomena could occur at our everyday level.

 

    If you’re unfamiliar with Quantum Physics, don’t despair.  When some new weird phenomenon is introduced, such as the “Double Slit Experiment”, the author cuts away to a scholastic explanation of it, and even bookmarks the beginning and end of the discourse should you wish to avoid such sciencey stuff.

 

    In addition, there's a clever Mythological aspect to the story, courtesy of an ancient Greek goddess named Ananke.  She's the personification of inevitability and compulsion, otherwise called “determinism”.  The central theme in Schrodinger’s Gat is “Free Will versus Determinism”, and it is fun to watch how our protagonist, Paul Bayes, struggles to come to grips with this.  For instance, if everything in this world is predetermined, and you commit actions that will cause harm or death to others, are you really guilty? 

 

    The story stops at a logical spot, with the friction generated by Free Will vs. Determinism leading to a major calamity.  The major plot threads remain unresolved, implying that a sequel will follow.  But as of now, I don’t think the author has any plans for that.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 3.8*/5, based on 321 ratings and 150 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.55*/5, based on 460 ratings and 73 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “The blue pill isn’t really working for me, in case you hadn’t noticed.  What’s the worst that could happen?  You tell me I’m actually a brain in a vat in a laboratory on Mars?  Because that’s a step up from where I’m sitting.”  I’m exaggerating, of course.  Finding out I was a brain in a vat would be pretty devastating.  And of course I don’t really think she’s going to tell me that.  But I get the feeling she’s trying to play Morpheus to my Neo, so I play along.  (pg. 13)

 

    “My point is that it is possible to duplicate quantum indeterminacy—true randomness—on a macro level.  Like with Schrodinger’s cat.  Some physicists believe there’s no reason you couldn’t actually carry out Schrodinger’s thought experiment and have an actual cat that is both dead and alive.  Well, there’s one reason, I suppose.”

    The ASPCA?”

    She laughs.  “That too.  But I was thinking of the fact that the cat would have to be cooled to near absolute zero.”  (pg. 25)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Kindle version of Schrodinger’s Gat presently costs $4.99 at Amazon.  Robert Kroese has dozens of other e-books for your reading pleasure, primarily in sci-fi and fantasy genres.  Most of them sell for $4.99, with a few discounted to $0.99.

 

Death has its drawbacks, but it’s a pretty good excuse for missing appointments.  (pg. 45)

    I counted 22 instances of profanity in the first 5% of Schrodinger’s Gat, which I’d label excessive.  To be fair though, the frequency of cussing seemed to tail off after that.  I don’t recall any adult situations, although I would expect any sequel to have a romantic development betwixt Paul and Tali, the beautiful girl who interrupted his suicide endeavor.

 

    There were a few typos in the text, such as peer/pier, past/passed, big/bit, a prior/a priori, and build/built, but they were infrequent enough to not be a distraction.

 

    The main issue that I, and lots of other reviewers, have with Schrodinger’s Gat are the excessive scientific sermons about Quantum Physics.  Kudos to Robert Kroese for trying to blend scholarly science with thrills-&-spills.  Unfortunately, it just didn’t work.

 

    Without those Quantum Physics interludes, Schrodinger’s Gat is a novella-length quick and interesting read.  It would’ve been nice to have it lengthened by more Paul and Tali having further adventures including facing off against Ananke.  Maybe that can be addressed in a sequel.

 

    6 Stars.  One last thing.  One of my favorite Quantum Physics conundrums, called “the grandfather paradox” gets mentioned here.  It can be succinctly described as “what happens if you travel back in time  and assassinate your own grandfather?”  Since time-travel, both forward and backward, is predicted in Quantum Physics, this is something to think about when it’s 3 o clock in the morning and you can’t sleep.