First UK edition
| |
| Author | Claire North |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Peter Kenny |
| Cover artist | Sophie Burdess (pictured) |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction / fantasy |
| Publisher | Orbit Books (UK) Redhook Books (US) |
Publication date | 8 April 2014 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 416 (UK), 405 (US) |
| Awards | John W. Campbell Memorial Award |
| ISBN | 0-356-50257-0 |
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is a novel by Claire North, a pseudonym of British author Catherine Webb, published in April 2014. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel,[1] was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel[2] and was featured in both the Richard and Judy Book Club and the BBC Radio 2 Book Club.[3]
Harry August is born in the women's washroom of Berwick-upon-Tweed station in 1919, leads an unremarkable life, and dies in hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1989. He then finds himself born again back in 1919 in the same circumstances, gaining the knowledge of his earlier life at an early age. He learns he is an OuroboranorKalachakra and is destined to be reborn again and again. He is not alone and is soon contacted by the Cronus Club, an organization of similarly affected members, who look after him in childhood in subsequent lives.
In later lives, Harry studies biology, chemistry, and physics. With knowledge from previous lives, he easily becomes a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge, where he meets an intelligent undergraduate student named Vincent Rankis. Vincent and Harry become friends as they talk about theoretical physics and the nature of time. Eventually, Harry and Vincent both realize the other is also an Ouroboran. Other members of the Cronus Club later inform Harry that the world is ending and that with each life Harry lives, the ending is becoming closer.
