Check out my Q&A with the author... Anyone by Charles Soule (Interview & #Giveaway)


Welcome to my tour stop! This book sounds so interesting, guys! Check
it out, my interview with the author, and enter the tour giveaway below...

Anyone
By Charles Soule
Adult SciFi
Hardcover, Audiobook & ebook, 432 Pages
December 3rd 2019 by Harper Perennial

Summary

Charles Soule brings his signature knowledge—and wariness--of technology to his sophomore novel set in a realistic future about a brilliant female scientist who creates a technology that allows for the transfer of human consciousness between bodies, and the transformations this process wreaks upon the world.

Inside a barn in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a scientist searching for an Alzheimer’s cure throws a switch—and finds herself mysteriously transported into her husband’s body. What begins as a botched experiment will change her life—and the world—forever…

Over two decades later, all across the planet, “flash” technology allows individuals the ability to transfer their consciousness into other bodies for specified periods, paid, registered and legal. Society has been utterly transformed by the process, from travel to warfare to entertainment; “Be anyone with Anyone” the tagline of the company offering this ultimate out-of-body experience. But beyond the reach of the law and government regulators is a sordid black market called the darkshare, where desperate “vessels” anonymously rent out their bodies, no questions asked for any purpose - sex, drugs, crime... or worse.

Anyone masterfully interweaves the present-day story of the discovery and development of the flash with the gritty tale of one woman’s crusade to put an end to the darkness it has brought to the world twenty-five years after its creation. Like Blade Runner crossed with Get Out, Charles Soule’s thought-provoking work of speculative fiction takes us to a world where identity, morality, and technology collide.  

Praise for ANYONE

“(Anyone) is fast-paced and suspenseful. Soule’s uncomfortable vision of the future will please readers of cutting-edge speculative fiction. ” —Publishers Weekly
“With his second novel, Anyone, Charles Soule establishes himself as an author that readers of speculative fiction will love for years to come. The book will leave you thinking about gender, power, and what it means to be human for long after the final chapter.” —Jennifer Wright, author of Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes That Fought Them

“Soule has wrapped a sharp, prescient investigation of the human mind inside a breakneck thriller that will have you riveted until the very last twist. Anyone is truly a book for everyone.” —Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M

“I spent much of my childhood inside DARPA, where my father was Deputy Director, and this book captures the imagination and double-edged sword of our greatest scientific leaps. The same technology that can cure the world’s ills might also cause us to spiral into our own greed, selfishness, and vanity. Charles Soule’s Anyone is a remarkable, consequential novel and a terrifying wake-up call.” —Susan Henderson, author of The Flicker of Old Dreams

“Anyone is an intense, superbly crafted, edge of your seat thrill ride. I loved the two slowly converging storylines, not to mention the most dedicated, hardcore character I’ve read in a long, long time. Who would you be if you could be anyone? I’d really like to be Charles Soule and have written this book.” —Sylvain Neuvel, author of Sleeping Giants

“An imaginative, time-fragmented thriller about the bitter and potentially deadly consequences of body-snatching. Readers won’t feel that they’re on the edge of their seats as much as they’re on a balance beam above a pit of lava while trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube.” —Kirkus Reviews

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Interview

Would you tell us a little more about the main characters from ANYONE?

The book has two main characters. The first is a brilliant cognitive scientist named Gabrielle White. While researching an Alzheimer’s cure, she accidentally invents what comes to be called the Flash - the technology in Anyone that allows people to move their mind into other people. The second is a woman named Annami, who lives about twenty-five years from now where The Flash has become completely ubiquitous in society - think how we use smartphones now. For spoilery reasons I won't get into, she wants to destroy the entire flash network, just tear the whole thing down. Those two stories intertwine in the narrative to make what I hope is a pretty cool read.

What one piece of advice would they give about "flash” technology (the technology that allows humans to transfer their conscience to someone else’s body)?

Go into it with an open mind. See what you might learn from the experience of looking out at the world through someone else’s eyes.

If you could choose to transfer your conscience into another body, who would you choose and why?

It would have to be someone as different as possible from myself. I would want to learn from the experience, or more specifically their experience. Maybe someone with different physical capabilities. Someone much older or much younger. A different gender or level of ableness. The idea would be to understand myself, the other person, and the human condition - pretentious, maybe, but that would be my goal.

Did you find anything especially interesting while researching or challenging while writing ANYONE?

I spent a lot of time studying the basic science of thought. Things like what happens in the brain when we become conscious of something, what personality “is,” what memory “is” from mechanical, physical and spiritual angles. It was all very fascinating - there’s a point where the machinery of our bodies interlaces with our experience to make something that’s “us” - call it a soul, call it a complex program running on the brain’s software - I think it’s fascinating.

What’s one of your hobbies or something we might not know about you?

I play a bunch of instruments. Guitar is my main, but I can make music on lots of things, and pursued it as a career back in the day. If I wasn't a writer, and I didn’t have to go back to being a lawyer, I would be a musician. Still haven’t totally crossed it off my list.

What are you working on next?

I have a ton of upcoming releases besides ANYONE (out on 12/3). My new creator-owned comic series, UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY launched in early November from Image Comics, I’m writing Ben Solo’s origin story in STAR WARS: THE RISE OF KYLO REN for Marvel Comics, which begins 12/18, my other creator-owned comic CURSE WORDS just wrapped at issue 25, I’m taking over Marvel’s flagship Star Wars series in January, and I recently announced TV/movie deals for ANYONE & UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. I’m also in the process of working on my third novel! More info on that coming soon. If you want to keep up with all my upcoming projects, you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter here or follow me on Twitter, or just visit my website.

About the Author


Charles Soule is a Brooklyn, New York-based novelist, comic book writer, musician, and attorney. While he has worked for DC and other publishers, he is best known for writing Daredevil, She-Hulk, Death of Wolverine, and various Star Wars comics from Marvel Comics (Darth Vader, Poe Dameron, Lando and more), and his creator-owned series Curse Words from Image Comics (with Ryan Browne) and Letter 44 from Oni Press (with Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque.)

His first novel, The Oracle Year, about a man who can see the future and way this ability changes the world, will be released in April 2018 by the Harper Perennial imprint of HarperCollins.  

PHOTO CONTENT FROM MARC LEMOINE


Tour-Wide Giveaway


- 5 Winners will receive a Copy of ANYONE by Charles Soule.
- Giveaway is open to International. | Must be 13+ to Enter Ends | December 23, 2019

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