Review: Temperament by K. Aurum

Genre: Literary Novella

Description:

“The stroke took his hand. The implant gave it back. Then it kept going.

Jon Finn was a violinist before a stroke stole his right side and his voice. The experimental device his doctors offer is a quiet miracle: it restores his hand, his speech, his playing. His recovery astonishes the hospital. His bowing has never been cleaner. He and the woman he loves have never fought less.

And, note by note, word by word, he is vanishing.

The implant doesn’t take his life. It takes his self: smoothing the edges, finishing the sentences, choosing the notes he used to reach for. Everyone sees a man restored. Only Jon feels his own wanting drain away.

Spare, unsettling, and quietly devastating, Temperament is a debut novella about identity, illness, and the hidden cost of being made better; a story that grows shorter and quieter as its narrator disappears.

Written by a practicing physician, it lingers where medicine can’t answer: when everything you can do remains, and only the you is gone, is that still you?”

Author:

“K. Aurum is a physician and computer engineer who can’t sit still. Medicine, music, tech, games, books, he’s obsessed with all of it: one day perfecting his chess openings, the next drilling holes in wood to build a virtual pinball cabinet. Now, somehow, he’s writing books of his own.”

Appraisal:

This is an interesting read that should get you thinking. I’d just read a few nonfiction books about AI prior to reading this book and while from a technical standpoint the medical technology imagined in this story isn’t AI, it raises some of the same issues those who pay attention to such things are pondering. How far is too far when integrating new tech into a process currently performed by humans or, in this case, actually into a human body. If the choice is allowing a person to die or come back with greater skills obtained using artificial or unnatural means, is that okay? Where is the line? I don’t have the answers, but this story certainly started me pondering the questions.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

A small amount of adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

Review is based on an advance reviewer copy so I can’t gauge the final product in this area.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 25-30,000 words