What would you do if you lived the same lifetime over and over and remembered everything from your previous lives? Would you try to protect the world? Or destroy it?
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Author: Claire North
Pages: 405
Format: Paperback
Originally Published: April 8, 2014
Publisher: Redhook Books
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: June 2, 2024
My rating: 
Thoughts
This book is marketed as a time-travel story. That’s not quite true. It really only takes place from 1919, when Harry August was born, through whatever years he dies.
It would be more apt to call this a multiple-universe story. Technically, each life he and others like him live creates an alternate timeline. They can change the future. (Obviously they can change the future; but they can change the far future.) But they can also affect the past!
The fact that it’s told in a non-linear format, from Harry’s point-of-view, makes it all the more fascinating.
Throughout his lives, and really throughout the latter half of the book, Harry is trying to stop another one like him, Vincent Rankis, from destroying the world. It takes multiples lives to pull one over on Vincent, who has lived many lives himself.
The novel explores concepts of immortality, memory, and the ethics of power. It is quite thought provoking and will stay with the reader for some time afterwards.
I’ve seen this book on a number of “top ten” sci-fi lists. In fact, I was at a Barnes & Noble in Portland, OR, when I spotted it on the shelf. Something drew me to make the purchase that day rather than wait and order it another time. When I was paying, the next cashier over stopped with her customer to comment that it was one of her favorite books and she still thought about it from time to time.
This was an easy 5 out of 5 stars to give. It has a lot to chew on and is one of those books that I could see myself re-reading in a couple years.
