coolreads # Retro Books # The Quantum Solution

The Quantum Solution
Author: Eric Van Lustbader
Publisher: Forge Book
ISBN: 9781250839138

Evan Ryder returns and fights for her life in The Quantum Solution, the fourth heart-stopping instalment of this enthralling series by master thriller writer and New York Times bestselling author, Eric Van Lustbader.

Ryder is an extraordinary intelligence field agent now working for the security arm of Parachute, a private company and the world leader in the application of quantum technology. In the past, Ryder has fought lethal battles in the modern global wars of power politics, extremist ideology, corrosive disinformation and outrageous greed.

But now, she finds herself in a battle arena whose dangers, while less obvious, are greater than anything the world has seen before - the present and future war of weaponised quantum technology.

When an elite Russian scientist and the American Secretary of Defense die suddenly, at about the same time half a world apart, of inexplicable catastrophic brain damage, the world’s intelligence services realise that the quantum war has begun.

Ryder and her longtime partner, Ben Butler, will risk their lives to find out who the true combatants are, and race to prevent an all-out war between America and Russia.

As Lustbader himself admitted, the novel began as a cautionary tale about quantum computing, and the dangers it might present. However, near the beginning of the first draft of the thriller, Russia invaded Ukraine and his thoughts began to shift. As Lustbader dug deeper into the cause of the war, it became clear to him that the invasion was determined solely through the will of Vladimir Putin. No one else in the Kremlin wanted it. And yet, Putin went ahead, making the greatest miscalculation of his career. Why? That was the question being asked. And The Quantum Solution seeks to give the reader an answer.

The book is divided into three parts and the thriller unfolds in many facets as Ryder gets an in depth perspective on her good friend and lover, Lyudmila Shokova as well as her boss, Marsden Tribe, who is the genius founder/owner of Parachute. The company's major business is constructing and utilising quantum computers. And how they must overcome the traps set by the enemy, Major Juliet Danilovna Korokova of GRU, who gets her orders from the Sovereign himself. The intrigues are both complicated and multi-layered as both Ryder and Tribe get suspicious of each other when the body count increases with victims dying suddenly of the Havana syndrome, a form of attack using weaponised microwaves that erupt their brains. These weaponised time crystals are known as qubits, the quantum particles.

Unknown to Ryder and Tribe, the actual killer who employs the tool of quantum energy to carry out the executions is a female agent, Zahra Planck who claims that Max Planck, the father of Quantum theory, is her great grand uncle. The twists and turns in this multifaceted thriller can be suspenseful and mind-boggling for the reader, who needs to keep track of who is who as there are many personalities involved.

The finale is quite unexpected. Will Ryder finally find peace with herself at the end of the story? 
An exciting and intriguing read.