The Flicker Men Is a Chillingly Plausible Scientific Thriller
Full disclosure: I am incredibly biased when it comes to books like this one; anything that contains in-depth quantum mechanics, noir overtones, creepy cosmic horror, weird real-world science and philosophy, existentialism, and a touch of paranoia to stick the whole mess together is absolutely going to be up my alley (it takes all kinds). With that out of the way, Ted Kosmatka’s The Flicker Men, his third novel, pushes those buttons in ways that will appeal to anyone looking for a dark sci-fi-tinged jolt. It’s a suspenseful scientific thriller that makes unexpected turns into territory best left unspoiled.
Eric Argus is not in a good place, using threats of suicide to help himself control his drinking habits and depression in the wake of a catastrophic nervous breakdown that forced him to leave his position at a research laboratory and made him a pariah. As the book opens, he’s face-up on a beach with his gun and some liquor, waiting for…something.
The Flicker Men
Hardcover $27.00
The Flicker Men
By Ted Kosmatka
Hardcover $27.00
Something turns out to be a best friend with an offer of a last-chance three-month job conducting research into whatever topic he’d like. At first, Argus treats it as a brief pause in his downward spiral, but a chance delivery of an electron gun changes his tune. He decides to re-create Richard Feynman’s double-slit experiment, investigating a quantum uncertainty that seeks to prove that observation changes an object. When the tried-and-true experiment throws out an unexpected result, Argus retests it again and again, discovering an even stranger result: humans seem to be the only things on Earth that can affect the outcome of Argus’s experiment.
Naturally, the world goes into an uproar. Religions take it as proof of a human soul, the scientific community tries to prove Argus did the experiment incorrectly, and Argus’s team is unwillingly thrust into the public eye. But aside from all the human attention, something decidedly other takes an interest in Argus’s work, too—and soon his lab is in ruins, his friends are being hunted down, he’s being visited by mysterious “resistance fighters,” and the only clue he has is a cryptic message: “Beware the Flicker Men.”
The major strength of Kosmatka’s storytelling is how plausible it all seems. Yes, it’s loaded with cosmic horror, but as the bibliography (and Kosmatka’s extensive research into the subject) can attest, there’s more than a grain of truth to it. Excised of the overt sci-fi trappings, it feels like a breakthrough that could actually happen five or 10 years down the road. My own expertise in quantum mechanics is, of course, rather limited, so I can’t say for sure how plausible the science is, but a large part of science fiction is making the impossible sound possible, something Kosmatka excels at, never once straying into technobabble or leaning on Clarke’s Third Law. He balances exposition with scientific explanations well enough early on that by the second half, when the science gets fuzzier, we’re already well onboard.
Characters aren’t lost amid the theorizing Eric Argus is a compelling protagonist, and his plight kept me reading into the night. A man perpetually on the edge of his own self-destruction, he uses self-destruction as a way to keep his willpower in check, with the aid of a gun he calls “Panacaea.” It is Argus’ realization that he isn’t as powerless as he thinks he is, and his attempts to do something about his situation, that really make the book work.
The Flicker Men offers cinematic pacing, real stakes, and strange, thought-provoking ideas about the rules governing reality and even our own consciousness. Despite the cracking pace, it’s incredibly deep, with a nervous, paranoid energy that gets its hooks in early and doesn’t let go until the finish.
Something turns out to be a best friend with an offer of a last-chance three-month job conducting research into whatever topic he’d like. At first, Argus treats it as a brief pause in his downward spiral, but a chance delivery of an electron gun changes his tune. He decides to re-create Richard Feynman’s double-slit experiment, investigating a quantum uncertainty that seeks to prove that observation changes an object. When the tried-and-true experiment throws out an unexpected result, Argus retests it again and again, discovering an even stranger result: humans seem to be the only things on Earth that can affect the outcome of Argus’s experiment.
Naturally, the world goes into an uproar. Religions take it as proof of a human soul, the scientific community tries to prove Argus did the experiment incorrectly, and Argus’s team is unwillingly thrust into the public eye. But aside from all the human attention, something decidedly other takes an interest in Argus’s work, too—and soon his lab is in ruins, his friends are being hunted down, he’s being visited by mysterious “resistance fighters,” and the only clue he has is a cryptic message: “Beware the Flicker Men.”
The major strength of Kosmatka’s storytelling is how plausible it all seems. Yes, it’s loaded with cosmic horror, but as the bibliography (and Kosmatka’s extensive research into the subject) can attest, there’s more than a grain of truth to it. Excised of the overt sci-fi trappings, it feels like a breakthrough that could actually happen five or 10 years down the road. My own expertise in quantum mechanics is, of course, rather limited, so I can’t say for sure how plausible the science is, but a large part of science fiction is making the impossible sound possible, something Kosmatka excels at, never once straying into technobabble or leaning on Clarke’s Third Law. He balances exposition with scientific explanations well enough early on that by the second half, when the science gets fuzzier, we’re already well onboard.
Characters aren’t lost amid the theorizing Eric Argus is a compelling protagonist, and his plight kept me reading into the night. A man perpetually on the edge of his own self-destruction, he uses self-destruction as a way to keep his willpower in check, with the aid of a gun he calls “Panacaea.” It is Argus’ realization that he isn’t as powerless as he thinks he is, and his attempts to do something about his situation, that really make the book work.
The Flicker Men offers cinematic pacing, real stakes, and strange, thought-provoking ideas about the rules governing reality and even our own consciousness. Despite the cracking pace, it’s incredibly deep, with a nervous, paranoid energy that gets its hooks in early and doesn’t let go until the finish.