Host

Notes

Host by Peter James is more techno-thriller than a crime novel.

The novel lays claim to being the first electronic book. When it was published in 1993, the hardback version came with two floppy disks. It is debatable if this was a marketing or a technical coup.

Publisher’s Synopsis

Brilliant scientist Joe Messenger believes that people can be made to live forever. Knowing the human body can be frozen indefinitely, Joe devises a way of downloading the human brain into a supercomputer called ARCHIVE.

But Joe’s wife, Karen, is worried by his preoccupation with ARCHIVE, which seems to be developing signs of a distinct and sinister personality of its own.

Then, just as Joe is on the brink of a scientific breakthrough, a series of macabre accidents befall him and his family – and Joe finds himself facing the terrifying consequences of his own obsessions.

‘Easily James’s best book to date; a thought-provoking menacer that’s completely technological and genuinely frightening about the power of future communications.’ Time Out

‘Compulsive … I cannot remember when I last read a novel I enjoyed so much.’ Sunday Telegraph

Read a full review of Host by Peter James at Kirkus.