**Observer , by Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress is a slick modern, hard sf, standalone, medical thriller combining classic Robin Cook with the hard edge of Black Mirror and Altered Carbon.

**Observer , by Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress is a slick modern, hard sf, standalone, medical thriller combining classic Robin Cook with the hard edge of Black Mirror and Altered Carbon.

After neurosurgeon Caro Soames-Watkins's career has gone down in flames, she receives a strange job offer from Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sam Watkins, a great uncle she barely knows, and desperation overcomes any suspicions. Watkins's mysterious medical facility conducts research into the nature of consciousness, reality, and life after death. Two obstacles stand in his way: an intel leak and his failing body may not last long enough for the tech to be ready. As danger mounts, Caro finds more than she bargained for: murder, love, and a deep disturbing look into the nature of reality.