The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (2014)

I'm a sucker for stories where the main characters is stuck in a time loop. Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow stand out, but this one took it to an entirely new level. The title itself is a giveaway for the time loop -- an entire lifetime. The concept of replaying your entire life sounds interesting, but the complications that come up when you (and perhaps others) can do this were problems I hadn't seen explored in Sci-Fi before. ( )

By now I've read a handful of these 'multiple lives'-themed sci-fi novels and none of them have disappointed. In fact, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is one of the more original multi-generational epic adventures I've ever read.

This is the story of the eponymous Harry August who is blessed (or cursed, depending on your viewpoint) to live his life on rewind/repeat for all time, and all while retaining his memories. The setup is there's a small percentage of the human population who are born with this aberration, this ability to remember from life to life, and these people are born, live and die in eras stretching all the way back to ancient times and all the way into the future. And their lives often overlap which means they can, in effect, talk to each other across the centuries. The worldbuilding is quite clever and delightful. As for Harry, he lives from approximately 1920 to until he dies, which is usually around the end of the 20th century.

I won't go into the details of the plot but I do recommend giving Fifteen Lives a chance if the above summary sounds intriguing. I will highlight a few character traits that I thought were nice touches of verisimilitude. Apparently with the limitations of a single life out of the equation, it's interesting to see how these scattered few choose to live. In other words, when death is inconsequential and most of your choices don't matter, then how does one pass the time? For example, one character lives for pure hedonism, another devotes her lifetimes to helping others like herself but who are younger, and another seeks the thrill of war for its own unique experience.

It's stories like this that allow me to step outside of my own life, theoretically-speaking, and examine living in general by taking the long, long view. ( )

I received a free ARC of this book from the publisher, Redhoof Books, in exchange for a review.

What a great story! I was drawn in by the idea of living several lifetimes, sort of like the movie "Groundhog's Day". Before I knew it, it was more than just a recounting of one man's journey, but a mission, to stop another from destroying the known world. The intricate story told over fifteen lifetimes of one person, and the detail to historical events was very interesting. Add in personal conflicts, personal debates over moral/ethic issues, and you have this writing. Claire North has done a superb job in creating a tale that makes a reader question things, or sit back and ponder that whole "what if...". ( )

3.6 stars
A bit of a slow start for me, with a non-linear story telling that seemed a bit jumpy at first. The story involves time travel, or at least a Groundhog Day like view of time where certain people live their lives over & over from birth to death, but in each consequent life they remember everything that happened in all of their former lives.

I trudged through the slow beginning because I wanted to see where the author was going with the concept, and found the rest of the book enjoyable.


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