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.

So Douglas Quaid’s in hiding after just learning his life is not his own. His world is falling apart…and things aren’t going to get better but maybe he’ll get a couple of answers…while we will soon have more questions.

Chapter 11: Help

So here’s where we learn that Lori is Ricther’s wife…which shows another of Cohaagen’s stupid moves. Ricther is a psychotic jackass and according to this book he and Quaid’s former self didn’t get along. So choosing Richter’s wife to act as Quaid’s fake wife is a bad idea. As Ricther’s right hand man, Helm, says “I wouldn’t want Quaid —ing my girl”. Should Cohaagen be surprised that Ricther would take the opportunity to kill Quaid? He may have even given Harry the order to kill, which means Harry may not have been as responsible for things going belly-up. (Much like Lori, am I right? Eh? Eh?) So I’d apologize, but Doug still remembered nothing and Harry might have been smarter to warn Lori about what happened and the two of them watch Quaid a bit closer to see if he does in fact have total recall (and we have a title drop in this chapter).

On Quaid’s side, he hides in a hotel when he gets a call warning him that he has a tracking device in his head and that water will disrupt the signal. However, here’s where the novel adds to the story, by giving us some more history on Hauser, which if you think about it interferes with the ambiguous “is he dreaming or is it real” idea director Paul Verhoeven was going for. Why be given the thoughts of this character if Quaid will never hear it? Why would Hauser’s history be important if he’s just fake memory file 41A at Rekall? Also, somebody remind me of this scene (especially if you’re reading along) when I finally go over the failings of Cohaagen’s plan near the end of the book.

We learn the man’s name is Stevens and Richter catches him and takes him out. So if you ever wondered who he was and what happened to him, his history is in this chapter. He also goes over how Cohaagen rose to power and the man’s failing to hold control of Mars the way he did the Northern Bloc government as he now has a revolt on his hands.

This was a rather long chapter for this book and the next one is real short so our next installment will feature the next TWO chapters. I know, I said I wasn’t going to do this like I did with War For Cybertron, but this is a special case.

Next Time: “Johnny” and “Hauser”

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