Review: The Friar's Lantern Greg Hickey

The Friar's Lantern by Greg Hickey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

This is a choose-your-own-adventure type of book. This is pretty heavy on the math, science, and legal terminology. As the main character is taking part of a scientific study and sitting as a juror on a murder case, I did find that parts of the story were a bit repetitive especially since it was so heavy on the science and legal aspects. The author did do a good job making sure those parts were accurate and I do appreciate and author that takes the time to do their homework.

As for the choose your own adventure part, I felt that while the writing of the book was good, the chapters were a bit too long for my taste before you got to the point where you made a choice if you even got to choose something at the end of a chapter. Having flipped back and forth between the two choices, several times they ended up with the same outcome regardless of what you chose. That gave me the impression that no matter what I chose, I was going to end up where the author wanted me to go, which is fitting because that is what the book is about. I feel shorter chapters would have allowed for more unique outcomes, which is my preference in these types of books. I like having more choices, but I understand that writing a novel is cumbersome enough and creating a book with multiple outcomes is even more difficult. The author did a good job with this and should be commended for taking on this format. I eventually just read through to one final outcome and I'm happy with the experience. I bookmarked the pages that had choices so I can go back and try again some other time because I did like the plot and I'd like to investigate the other possible outcomes.

Onto the plot, our main character (I don't think the author ever tells us his name and I couldn't find it when I went looking) is taking part in a study involving an MRI and the ability of a model to predict human decision making. The study indicates that after being presented with some information the subject with make a choice between Box A, Box B, or take both boxes. In those boxes is either a million dollars, a thousand dollars, or nothing depending on the choice you make and what the model predicts. Our MC has an MRI and is asked to come back in a week and make his choice. During that week, he must sit as a juror on a murder case and decide if a man is guilty of manslaughter, second degree murder, or both. During his week between his MRI and decision about which box to take and during the trial, he has to think hard about the human decision process, statistics, and moral conviction. The reader is presented with choices at various points in the story to guide the MCs actions when he has to make a decision.

Overall, I thought this was well researched and well written. I do enjoy this format of book, and I look forward to exploring the other outcomes. The choice points where in logical places, and this book gives you something to think about as you are reading and when you are done.

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