The Cairo Pulse
by B.B. Kindred
I received a reading copy from NetGalley and Troubador Publishing Ltd in exchange for an honest review.
“Throughout recorded history there’d been both religions and individuals who believed that all human experience existed in a cosmic reservoir that could potentially be accessed; the Buddhists with their Akashic Records, Carl Jung and the Collective Unconscious, Rupert Sheldrake’s Morphic Resonance.”
I am fascinated by this concept.
Haven’t we all experienced those flashes of lucidity that arrive-depart with lightning speed and infinite grace? I know I have. Fleeting moments that put the world on pause for a few nanoseconds. Everything is still and perfect and knowable. There is something more, something open and natural. A whole galaxy floats before you with its beauty and magnitude. A sense of sublime perspective. And then it’s gone.
“Nothing was lost on me, not the pitching waves or rustling grass, the pine and salty air, the caramel sand that nuzzled my feet, the skin pleasing breeze, the mingling scents of my following companions. Everything was delicious and captivating, no ripples of dislocation or question. A head untenanted by thought and memory, filled with only knowing.”
What if we learnt to reach that state and harness its potential? What might become of us, then?
The earth emits electromagnetic energy. This is a scientific fact. Humans are conductors of electricity and our brains emit electromagnetic waves. These too are facts. It does not seem to me so entirely far-fetched that our brains might one day be able to harness that energy. That we will become attuned to the natural electromagnetism of this universe. What precisely would come from such an evolution is up for debate and B.B. Kindred’s characters are exploring just that.
This is not a new idea; many grasp at this same notion. Blockbuster films like The Matrix and Lucy grew from the same place as B.B. Kindred. Both films are really quite weird, objectively. (And their endings suck, subjectively.)
Often the problem with this kind of exploration is maintaining a coherent story while also successfully conveying a wildly abstract theory. This novel isn’t exactly a sci-fi, but that’s probably where you’d find it in a bookshop. (N.B. It’s currently only available as an eBook, so don’t actually go looking!) It reminds me of titles like Nod by Adrian Barnes and Eleanor by Jason Gurley – both of which I read last year and both of which defy easy genre classification. They are playing with huge ideas, possibilities and ways of thinking and being. It is easy for the ideas to take over the story. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s better to know that going in. In regards to The Cairo Pulse, it’s success as a story is mixed. The best moments in the novel are those that venture into cosmic experience and the comedown that follows. Wonderment hit down by normality, the flippancy and self-awareness of it all.
“I woke feeling irritated by the sharpness of my thoughts”
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