The Flicker Men

Kosmatka (Prophet of Bones) has written a brilliant novel about the potentials of scientific discovery and its effects on the world. Eric Argus, a struggling unemployed alcoholic, is given a second chance by a friend at a leading research company. Having left his previous experiments behind, Eric, a physicist, replicates another physicist's old experiment that allows him to see for himself the paradoxical nature of light and matter. In the process of running the experiment, Eric changes the course of several lives as he shares a truth—only human beings can collapse the wave function in the experiment, suggesting there is a "soul"—and in the process accidentally unleashes something larger: not all human beings can do this. What does it mean for the world that there are "soulless" individuals and who are they? Eric's experiment is seen as a threat by many, and soon he is facing not only the destruction of his work but also of his life, friends, and family.