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.

When we last left our hero he had learned that his wife wasn’t his wife, and they had only been together six weeks. Quaid’s on the run now.

Chapter 10: Subway

This is all action, as Quaid escapes from Richter and his goons. Lori told Richter that Quaid doesn’t remember anything, and I still say he would have shaken off the Recall experience if Harry hadn’t been overzealous in his response. And yet he will never be blamed for starting this mess. Mostly because Richter will screw everything else up in his pursuit of Quaid, violating direct orders for his own reasons, not brought up just yet so we’ll get into his motivations possibly next time. I know at some p0int Helm, Richter’s secondary, gives us our exposition. We do know he doesn’t care if civilians are killed as he and his men willingly shoot at Quaid in public and innocents gets shot up in the process. At one point Quaid even notes that they might of got him had they bothered to aim. So they kind of suck at this, don’t they?

Where this chapter really shines is in how Anthony describes Quaid’s escape. You can see it in your head even if you haven’t seen the movie. The exposition finally adds to the piece rather than telling us about how horny Quaid is. or describing things just to say “hey, we’re in the future”, or how horny Quaid is. (Yes, that part needs to be brought up twice, since that’s all we had of Quaid’s character beyond false memories and an obsession with Mars.) From the escape from the apartment, to crashing through the x-ray scanner at the subway, Anthony really sets the scene in your head, which makes me think he saw the actual movie before writing it. He may or may not, since I’ve never seen the script. There’s also the parts where Quaid’s other self “takes over”, and the ability to confirm that shows the novel’s advantage over the film, just as the movie has its own advantages over the book.

This was a great chapter and I’m hoping to see more of this kind of writing as we go on. Please let this be the end of Horny Quaid. At least until he gets to a certain place on Mars.

Next Time: Help

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