''The Simultaneous Man'' is a 1970

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel by

Ralph Blum There is some evidence that, in addition to being a writing system, runes historically served purposes of magic. This is the case from the earliest epigraphic evidence of the Roman to the Germanic Iron Age, with non-linguistic inscriptions and the ...

, where

brainwashing Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwash ...

and

psychosurgery Psychosurgery, also called neurosurgery for mental disorder (NMD), is the neurosurgical treatment of mental disorder. Psychosurgery has always been a controversial medical field. The modern history of psychosurgery begins in the 1880s under th ...

techniques are used to create a copy of the experiences and memories of one person in the body of another.

Plot summary

The book's protagonist is Andrew Horne (nicknamed "Bear"), a Russian-born U.S. scientist, who works at "West Wing" on ''Project Beta'', a secret government

mind-control Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwash ...

project, which aims to perfect the art of brainwashing until it is possible to completely re-make a person's mind and soul. The Project operates on hopeless cases from psychiatric wards, and "prison-volunteers" who would otherwise be executed. The Project's first Remake having failed disastrously, it is decided to base the second Remake on the mind of Horne himself. The prison-volunteer chosen for the Remake is a Black soldier, now referred to as ''Prisvol 233/234'', who has killed an officer and been sentenced to death. The project first uses ultrasound to destroy his access to his old memories, and then, having washed the slate clean, exposes him to immersive movie reenactments of Horne's childhood, college days, war service, and entry into the Project. (As this is performed, the reader discovers that Horne himself was on the receiving end of torture and brainwashing in the Korean War, which he fought against by creating a "

false self The true self (also known as real self, authentic self, original self and vulnerable self) and the false self (also known as fake self, idealized self, superficial self and pseudo self) are a psychological dualism conceptualized by English psychoa ...

" which he betrays to the enemy, the "

Lieutenant Kijé Lieutenant Kijé or Kizhe (russian: Пору́чик Киже́, translit. Poruchik Kizhe), originally Kizh (Киж), is a fictional character in an anecdote about the reign of Emperor Paul I of Russia, in which the cover up of a transcript ...

defense"). At the end of the process, 233/234, now known as "Black Bear", ''is'', for all intents and purposes, Andrew Horne in a new body. However, when Security realizes that Black Bear also has all of Horne's secret knowledge and considers him a security risk, it sets off a chain of events where their mirror image identities will lead both Black Bear and Horne to "East Wing" in Russia.

References

* ''Brainwashing: The Fictions of Mind Control : a Study of Novels and Films Since World War II'', by David Seed, Published by Kent State University Press, 2004. . See pages 228 to 230.

External links

''The Simultaneous Man'' entry at Sci-Fi Index
1970 American novels 1970 science fiction novels Dystopian novels Fiction about memory erasure and alteration Fiction about mind control Psychosurgery in fiction {{1970s-sf-novel-stub

Plot summary

See also

References

External links