Slovakia - The Man who saw Seconds - Alexander Boldizar
The podcast is listed on some database somewhere, so i occasionaly get emails from people promoting their books. A lot of the time they are American authors so I don't it any further and turn down their offers of promotional digital copies. The email from Alexander was interesting so i returned the email with some information about the project I'm doing, and he told me he was born in Slovakia! Win!. I've already covered Slovakia with The Science of the Stars by Gustav Reuss. Technically Gustav Reuss was born in Czechoslovakia, back when the Czech Republic and Slovakia where still a unified country. Alexander was kind enough to give me a free audio copy of the book. I was totally stoked to recieve a free book for this project, but i promise that won't alter my views on the book. Also as part of this project i'm also building a physical library of the books i'm reading, so I purchased a physical copy also.
The physical book:
Its a good looking book, pretty old school and simplistic artwork, nothing that would jump out at me, but it's a pretty little book.
The Story:
Its a super cool concept, basically the lead guy can see about 10 seconds into the future, which means he makes his money gambling. He's trying to lead a normal life and not let on to anyone his power. Things kick off when he's stopped on the train by a transit cop. The cop ends up injured and the local police then join in the man hunt. Due to our heros ability he can dodge bullets and is an incredible marksman. which means he never makes a deadly shot and remains unscathed.
The man hunt escolates and. infact we end up in a nuclear stand off with assured mutual destruction on the cards that woud effect 90% of the world!
How Slovakian:
After an email conversation with the author, and reading another blog interview about his work. This is very much inspired by the Eastern block, communism, and all those freedom fighters, cynics, and silent heroes that resisted the 'Man'
Would I reccomend?
Yeah, it's am action packed book. It's great fun. There a good bit of science in the middle all about cognition, and sonsory perception was was facsinating, but felt a bit out of place, or maybe just toooooo much science. Dunno, i'm not an editor.