Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds by Peter Adam Salomon

PseudoPalms Press, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1093780673

Available: Paperback,  Kindle edition, audiobook

Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds has a fascinating concept, and turns out to be more relevant to our times than I’m sure the author expected. Taking place in the near future, I’d say this is more a sci-fi thriller than horror. Our protagonists are L and M, the only two occupants of a gigantic bunker on an Earth where all life appears to have been destroyed. Neither L or M have any memory of their lives prior to waking up in the bunker, and the parameters of the AI in charge are set to make it almost impossible to discover what happened and who they are. Their only escape is a drug that flatlines them for eight minutes and thirty-two seconds. During that time they “jump” into the minds of one of six gifted teenagers secretly working together on a complex, mysterious, and fatal project.  L and M are only able to get short glimpses, though, and have difficulty remembering what they’ve seen once they’ve been “brought back”. It takes an extended flatlining on M’s part, and rapid repeats of inducing her death on L’s part, to piece together the six teenagers’ terrifying plan and the consequences of its results.

While the idea is interesting, and puzzling the pieces together was enough to keep me reading, the lack of character development in this book is a serious flaw. Because L and M don’t have memories, and don’t seem to have much interest in even exploring much of the bunker, it is hard to get a sense of who they are and what they’re like. It’s unclear why they have to die repeatedly to learn about the past or why flatlining would specifically take them to random parts of these specific teens’ lives. Outside of all being genius-level intelligent, it’s also not really clear why these teens would choose to work together. While their leader is clearly alienated from humanity, others seem to have positive relationships, and their willingness to participate was confusing to me.  Although I ultimately found it to be unsatisfying,  I appreciated Salomon’s creativity,  and there were enough unexpected moments to keep me reading it all the way through in an afternoon.

Editor’s note:  Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds  was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel.