This book contains three short stories, out of which, the second one I enjoyed the most.

First story: Legion

We are introduced to Stephen Leeds, a kind of private investigator, and a man who suffers from hallucinations. Many deem Stephen a genius, since he can read and absorb knowledge almost instantly. The way he manages this, is by harnessing his affliction by manifesting /aspects/. These aspects act as a reservoir for specialized information collected by Stephen and help him out with whatever analysis or information he may need for his current task.

This short story focuses on the mistery of a camera that can take pictures of the past. Stolen by its creator from the company that backed him up financially, Stephen is tasked with getting it back.

What I liked

  • I enjoyed the multiple personalities concept, I haven’t read something like this before and it was interesting to see the dynamic he had with his aspects

What I (sort of) didn’t like

  • A bit short for my liking, I had to double check and verify that it actually was over.

Second story: Skin Deep

This time around, Stephen is forced to participate in the recovery of a corpse. What’s special about this corpse, is that it has encoded in its cells, all the research information of a bio tech company. This company had developed a new virus, which was used as a delivery system to encode data into the body’s cells. The problem with this, is that the virus could be used to provoque abnormal cell growth (cancer).

What I liked

  • This story gives us more background on Stephen himself, and we know that his current ‘system’, the aspects, was actually taught by his former love interest (who ended up ghosting him). And it’s starting to fall apart.
  • The way he gets the best out of the assassin that’s following him is very clever and it pushed the right buttons for me when it comes to social engineering.
  • The ending where he figures out the corpse’s message about his true delivery system of the information.

What I didn’t like

  • I thought that cells start decaying pretty fast after the person dies, that corpse spent some time buried, is the information still available? I don’t know how it exactly works, but meh, I can give it a pass.

Third story: Lies of the Beholder

In this one, Stephen is forced to assist to an interview with a reporter, as a way to repay a favor from the previous story, but they’re promptly interrupted by a text of his former love interest who is reaching out to him for help. He drops everything and goes back to his mansion to gather up his aspects and find a way to reach her, to reach Sandra.

The main story revolves around Stephen’s /system/ falling apart and finding Sandra, who turns out has aspects as well.

What I liked

  • Sanderson communicates amazingly the desperation of not knowing what is real and what isn’t. It was very interesting seeing how Stephen started falling apart.

What I didn’t like

  • The futuristic VR thing, I could buy that their brains filled or made up for the inconsistencies in the VR they were inmersed. But saying that their brains rewrote the code was just inaccurate (at least that’s what I remember it said)
  • Again the VR thing. Just by flashing a light, suddenly you’re in? With no pseudo mechanism already installed in the brain? Nope, can’t buy that, the setting of the story is not a futuristic one, and the tech is supposedly rooted without any kind of magic/supernatural thing.

Conclusion

Overall I enjoyed the three stories, and the conclusion feels like a parallel to what Sanderson (and other writers?) must feel, about voices inside of their heads and how they put them in stories and give them life of their own.

There are certainly better stories out there, and I wish the VR flaws weren’t present as it detracted from my enjoyment of the book ending, but otherwise I would recommend it if you don’t have anything more pressing in your backlog.