Isaac Asimov: Destination Brain

Isaac Asimov
Ed. Mondadori
pp. 488

In these days of rest I have dedicated myself to taking stock of the books in my library.

When I took a book in hand to record the essential data, it came back to me when I had read it or where I had bought it, then I scrolled through the pages and read a few passages.

I don't know if you've ever been tempted to re-read a book. It happens to me from time to time.
It must be an unforgettable book of course and so it was also this time with "Destination Brain", by Isaac Asimov.
I bought the book in 1991 and read it in two or three days, in the summer, in Tuscany, during a stay in Pisa.
The truth is that I was misled by a book I had read some years before, borrowed from the library of Isili, the title was "Journey Hallucinating", also by Isaac Asimov, but it was a transposition of a film . In any case, mistake or not, I read the book and fascinated me.

When I opened the book to read a few sentences from the first few pages, I found myself on page fifty, almost without realizing it.
By now the recording work was interrupted, I would have picked it up the next day, or maybe never, but I had decided that for now I would re-read the book ... and so it was.

It is a story set in a not too distant future in which Americans and Russians compete for dominance in the scientific field.
Our hero is called Albert Morrison, and he has very little of the hero. He is a neuropsychiatrist who is not taken too seriously by his colleagues, not at all brave, with a failed marriage behind him and with the prospect of losing his job ...
During a conference, he was approached by a Russian scientist, Natalya Boranova, an expert in miniaturization, who invited him to join her team to help her solve a problem. He would also have benefited by having the opportunity to prove the validity of his theories.
Of course, Alber refuses, more out of cowardice than out of love for his country, despite the fact that the American Secret Service, represented by agent Rodano, would appreciate his involvement in verifying how far the Russians have reached in the development of their miniaturization project.
The Russians, failing to convince our Albert, kidnap him.

From the abduction onwards the action takes place in a secret laboratory where Albert, in spite of himself, becomes an adventurous partner of the Boranova team, which also includes Yuri Konev, Arkady Vissarionovich Dezhnev and Sophia Kaliinin.

The mission is to penetrate the brain of Professor Shapirov, who went into a coma following the failure of a miniaturization experiment, to try to retrieve information useful for perfecting the miniaturization technique.
During the journey Asimov introduces us to the different characters and their relationships. Each of them is a genius in his field.

Asimov, of course, as an excellent scientist who, as well as a writer, enriches his novel with plausible scientific details by which, reading the book, one discovers among other things the functioning of the brain, the most complex organ of the human body.

There is no shortage of surprises, which always keep the reader attached to the book until the end ... in which it turns out that Albert Morrison, in fact, is no other than ...
But I think I said too much.

Happy reading to you all!

Alessandro Rugolo