Quantum Night

BOOKS BY ROBERT J. SAWYER

NOVELS

Golden Fleece

End of an Era

The Terminal Experiment

Starplex

Frameshift

Illegal Alien

Factoring Humanity

FlashForward

Calculating God

Mindscan

Rollback

Triggers

Red Planet Blues

Quantum Night

THE QUINTAGLIO ASCENSION TRILOGY

Far-Seer

Fossil Hunter

Foreigner

THE NEANDERTHAL PARALLAX TRILOGY

Hominids

Humans

Hybrids

THE WWW TRILOGY

Wake

Watch

Wonder

COLLECTIONS

Iterations

(introduction by James Alan Gardner)

Relativity

(introduction by Mike Resnick)

Identity Theft

(introduction by Robert Charles Wilson)

For book-club discussion guides, visit
sfwriter.com

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This book is an original publication of Penguin Random House LLC.

Copyright © 2016 by Robert J. Sawyer.

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eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63888-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sawyer, Robert J.

Quantum night / Robert J. Sawyer.

pages ; cm

ISBN 978-0-425-25683-1 (hardcover)

1. Psychologists—Fiction. 2. Violence—Psychological aspects—Fiction. 3. Quantum theory—Fiction. I. Title.

PR9199.3.S2533Q36 2016

813’.54—dc23

2015028314

FIRST EDITION:
March 2016

Cover design by Rita Frangie and Danielle Mazzella Di Bosco.

Cover art: statue of Lady Justice © Christian Mueller / Shutterstock; abstract technology background © arleksey/Shutterstock.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

FOR
CHASE MASTERSON

BEAUTIFUL INSIDE AND
OUT

The Canadian Light Source synchrotron, the University of Manitoba, and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights all really exist. However, except for certain public figures used satirically, all the characters in this novel are entirely the product of my imagination. They are not meant to bear any resemblance to actual people who hold or have held positions with these or any other institutions.

The real public figures who feature in this novel include Canadian politicians Naheed Nenshi (the current mayor of Calgary) and Justin Trudeau (the current prime minister), as well as Russian president Vladimir Putin. Given this is a story in part about quantum physics, if they don’t like the future portrayed here, they can rest assured that in some other quantum reality they have different fates.

Although my fictional characters refer to the work of many real academics, including philosopher David J. Chalmers, consciousness-studies expert Stuart Hameroff and his collaborator physicist Roger Penrose, and psychologists Bob Altemeyer, Angela Book, Robert D. Hare, Kent Kiehl, Philip Zimbardo, and the late Stanley Milgram, the extrapolations and sometimes contradictions of the findings of those academics presented by my characters are also products of my
imagination.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to
David J. Chalmers
, PhD, Director, Centre for Consciousness, Australian National University;
Kevin Dutton
, PhD, author of
The Wisdom of Psychopaths;
John Gribbin
, PhD, author of
In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat;
and
Stuart R. Hameroff
, MD, Director, Center for Consciousness Studies, The University of Arizona, Tucson.

Thanks also to
Jeffrey Cutler
, PhD,
Lisa Van Loon
, PhD, and
M. Adam Webb
, PhD, of the Canadian Light Source, Canada’s national synchrotron, in Saskatoon, and to
Matthew Dalzell
, who used to work there. Thanks as well to
Jeremy Maron
, PhD, Researcher-Curator, Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Thanks to clinical psychologists
Christopher Friesen
, PhD,
David Nussbaum
, PhD,
Jill Squyres
, PhD, and
Romeo Vitelli
, PhD; clinical psychiatrist
Norman Hoffman
, MD; and neurologist
Isaac Szpindel
, MD.

Many thanks for stimulating conversations and wonderful feedback to
Alisha Souillet
,
Elizabeth Cano
,
Nick DiChario
,
Vince Gerardis
,
Walter Hunt
,
James Kerwin
,
Kirstin Morrell
,
Sherry Peters
,
G.W. Renshaw
,
Don Thompson
, and
Matt Whitby
.

Thanks, as well, to my wonderful beta readers:
Robb Ainley
,
Ted Bleaney
, Rev.
James Christie
,
David Livingstone Clink
,
Shayla Elizabeth
,
Dan Falk
,
Paddy Forde
,
Marcel Gagné
,
Belle Jarniewski
,
Herb Kauderer
,
Rebecca Lovatt
,
Kayla Nielsen
,
Virginia O’Dine
,
Lynne Sargent
,
Hayden Trenholm
, and
Sally Tomasevic
. Thanks for other assistance to
Paul Bishop
,
Dan Brook
,
John Dahms
,
Fingers Delaurus
,
Matthew Pounsett
, and
Jamie Todd Rubin
. Thanks also to copyeditor
Robert L. Schwager
, PhD.

Huge thanks, as always, to the Aurora Award–winning poet
Carolyn Clink
, who helped in countless ways; to
Adrienne Kerr
at Penguin Random House Canada’s Viking imprint in Toronto; to
Helen Smith
, also at Penguin Random House Canada; and to
Jessica Wade
at Penguin Random House USA’s Ace imprint in New York (and also to
Ginjer Buchanan
, who commissioned this book for Ace before retiring). And, of course, many thanks to my agents: the late
Ralph Vicinanza
, who negotiated the contracts for this book, and
Chris Lotts
, who saw it through to publication.

Finally, most of all, gigantic thanks to my wonderfully patient readers. I had a twenty-year run of averaging a novel a year, but leading up to and following the death from lung cancer of my younger brother, the Emmy Award–winning multimedia producer
Alan Sawyer
, I took time off. It’s been three years since my last novel,
Red Planet Blues;
I hope you’ll think this one was worth the wait.

It may be a requirement for a theory of consciousness that it contains at least one crazy idea.

—David
Chalmers