If you had trauma so debilitating it kept you from functioning normally in society, wouldn't you take whatever risks you could to remove the memory of those events? Three civilians of Tokyo Bliss Station are given that opportunity when they are each contacted by the great Dr. Paxton Dunn. His revolutionary new process, known only as LENG, promises to target specific memories and remove them, thus removing the effects they cause on the people who experienced them.
The three test subjects all have a unique flavor of trauma. Until recently, Senna was a member of a cult. Now she is the sole survivor of the organization's attempt to mass suicide by colliding a ship filled with its members into a portion of the space station. Han is a brilliant teenager whose mother happened to be one of the people on the other side of that same collision. While traumatic on its own, the fact that her voice is used as the default female voice for almost all automated devices means she seems to haunt him wherever he goes. The result is, he doesn't leave his quarters. Finally, there is Zurri, a famous model whose trauma is very recent. While Senna and Han have had months to try and deal with their problems, Zurri's happens just before the trials. During a live broadcast, Zurri's stalker, Tony, confronts her and immolates himself in front of everyone.
All three are invited to Dr. Dunn's lab on the isolated Jupiter moon, Ganymede. Considering Paxton's fame and reclusiveness, how can they possibly turn down an invitation from a man who is attributed to so many breakthroughs in the modern era? When Han's first treatment removes the outright aggression he feels towards Senna because of her unbidden role in his mother's death, it's clear right away that this experimental procedure has merit, but none of the three patients feel exactly at ease in the lab, especially when they start encountering strange and unexplained phenomena that neither Paxton nor his small staff seem to be aware of.
As the story progresses, we get deeper insights into the three trauma victims and we also get the idea that their personalities are being subtly changed with each subsequent treatment, but that's what they want right? By removing the trauma, they are changing a piece that makes them who they are, but hopefully for the better, right? When I first picked up Reclaimed, I expected questions like these to be the meat of the story. I was expecting a veiled philosophical discussion about how the memories of a person make up that individual's personality, and while that is a core topic explored in this book, it also offers a lot more and is an entertaining story with a hint of Lovecraftian horror, just set in space.
So far, I am impressed with Roux's ability to weave a thriller set in the stars. Both Reclaimed and Salvaged nail that tone. While I wouldn't classify either as Hard Science Fiction, like say The Expanse, it is far from the softer ones like Star Wars. Speaking of which, I was pleasantly surprised to realize Roux contributed to Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View and her story focusing on Leia's adoptive parents' final hours before the Death Star attack is one of the more memorable ones to me. So, not only do I recommend Reclaimed in particular, but Madeleine Roux is an author worth keeping an eye on in general.
