Unforgettable
Eric James Stone
Baen Books
trade paper $15
ebook $7.55

So here’s an interesting little novel (by “little” I mean a reasonable length, not a doorstopper, IOW, a compliment) that plays with some scientific ideas in a new way.

Nat Morgan is literally forgettable.  One minute after you leave his presence, you will completely forget having met him.  No computer has any record of him.  He doesn’t show up on camera.  The only way he can leave a permanent record is by writing something down.  That’s the only method he has of being recalled.

So naturally, he works for the CIA.  There’s an entire prototcol he uses to get his handler to accept that what he says is true.  There’s also a file in his handler’s desk with enough information about Nat that the guy will trust him.

Nat is on an assignment to steal a quantum chip prototype when he and a beautiful Russian spy  (Are there any other kinds?  Only a few.) who is also trying to steal the chip are captured.  Things get interesting when she remembers him after they part ways.

Soon he and Yelena are working together to try to stop an Iranian villain from bringing a new type of quantum computer online that will take over the world.

This was a fun spy thriller that owes as much to James Bond (and says so) as it does to scientific theory.  In fact, don’t think too much about the theory behind Nat’s ability.  Stone does a good job of coming up with a scientific explanation for what’s going on.  In fact, he did a better job than I was expecting.  I’ve a few physics degrees lying around, so getting me to buy any explanation of the forgetting aspect of Nat’s power was a hard sell.  Stone pulled it off, although there are places where he does engage in some handwaving or simplly skips the details, like how Nat manages to stay employed by the CIA once he’s hired.

There’s plenty of action in this one, and in many ways it’s a James Bond style novel, only without Nat bedding multiple women or killing people left and right, a la Bond.  The book has a relentless pace and rarely slows down.  Stone still manages to make Nat (and to a lesser extent Yelena and an Iranian scientist who wants to defect) to be a fully created character, not some cardboard cutout.

I’ve only seen the people-forget-me trick used once before, and that was in an early Larry Niven novel I read in high school.  (I want to say World of Ptaavs, but it’s been literally decades since I read the book and could be wrong.)  Stone’s take on the trope, if two examples can be called a trope, is a little different than Niven’s.  If I remember, Niven used this forgettable ability as a psi power, while Stone’s is completely quantum mechanical.  Still, that’s not bad company to be compared to.

This was a fun book, and I’m looking forward to Stone’s next one.