Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were a reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

Poor Quaid. All he wanted was to get away from it all without going away in the hopes that his dreams would go away. Instead, his nightmares haven’t even begun yet.

Chapter 8: Harry

Something I’m going to be doing, since most of us know this story via the original movie, is examining how badly Cohaagen screwed this plan sideways. (This is of course assuming that this isn’t the dream and had the movie continued Quaid wouldn’t have either woken up or been seen in a mental hospital or something.) Now, we know why Quaid was in the situation he was. It doesn’t make a lot of sense as I’ll demonstrate, but there is a reason. So Quaid goes to Recall because his memories are seeping through, and how does Harry respond? First priority is take Quaid where he won’t be found and apparently blow his head off, which would totally screw up what Cohaagen had planned. This will be a running theme until Quaid reaches Mars, where it will become a huge deal. Hopefully Piers Anthony tried to work some of that out. Basically, Cohaagen’s flunkies seem determined to ruin his plan and not from direct incompetence.

Here, Harry is going to kill Quaid but he doesn’t even remember going to Recall and probably wouldn’t if Harry hadn’t shown up. The doctors at Recall were playing CYOA and that would have been the end of it, or at least things were still salvageable. Instead, Quaid kills him and his pals and will set up a merry chase which will further confuse events. And not because Quaid decided to play games with his brain but because Harry reacted stupidly to Quaid playing games with his brain. Nice job, Harry. This is kind of your fault and Cohaagen will probably never realize that. Of course every other screw up will come from our primary villain and Cohaagen’s only stupid plan at concept. But still mostly Harry’s fault.

Next time: “Wife”

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• Chapter By Chapter: Total Recall adaptation Ch. 6
• Chapter By Chapter: Total Recall adaptation Ch. 7