Pale Highway

This strayed far from my typical Sci-Fi reads and I was slow to get into the groove. However, once I was invested in where this book would take me, I plowed through it. I'm glad I read it even though parts were hard to get through. It ended as good as it could; appropriately so. This tale takes us to an alternate reality. In current-day 2018, AIDS has had a vaccine for quite awhile, thanks to brilliant scientist and alcoholic Gabriel Schist. The Nobel Prize winner, now seventy-something, is losing his biggest gift and curse; his mind. The current setting: Bright New Day nursing home, where the rooms are filled with those suffering from dementia. As his mind deteriorates, his biggest challenge lands in his lap. A new plague is being covered up, but it is one that he is close to and works hard to find a cure. What he discovers is beyond his worst fear. I truly wish I could go into further detail, but to do so would take away from the experience. There are some trippy characters and scenes. There's also a fight to save humanity. The book is both present day and scenes from the past. The glimpses of Gabriel's life are appropriate to the story and flow well. The hard parts to get through (mentioned above) - if you've ever experienced someone deteriorating (either mentally or physically), some of the self-dialogue and scenes will hit you hard. Well, it should. I read a great deal as well as listen to music as much as possible. I couldn't imagine not having sight or hearing. I definitely can't imagine (and hope to never experience) losing my cognitive abilities. I've seen what it does to others - and that is bad enough. Reading the scenes with Gabriel and his daughter - uggh. This is Sci-Fi which happens to have Alzheimer patients as the primary characters. It is brilliantly tragic. I need to go plow through something light now.

4.5 of 5 Stars - ARC provided.

From the Publisher:

Gabriel Schist is spending his remaining years at Bright New Day, a nursing home. He once won the Nobel Prize for inventing a vaccine for AIDS. But now, he has Alzheimer’s, and his mind is slowly slipping away. When one of the residents comes down with a horrific virus, Gabriel realizes that he is the only one who can find a cure. Encouraged by Victor, an odd stranger, he convinces the administrator to allow him to study the virus. Soon, reality begins to shift, and Gabriel’s hallucinations interfere with his work. As the death count mounts, Gabriel is in a race against the clock and his own mind. Can he find a cure before his brain deteriorates past the point of no return?

#Fantasy #Feb2016 #NicholasConley #2016 #Book