"A novel theory of consciousness" is the subtitle of this new novel, by Dan Lloyd.

You know it's going to be heavy going when the dust jacket blurbs are from Daniel Dennett, Rebecca Goldstein, and David Lodge.

This ain't gonna be no Robert B. Parker mystery, that's for sure.

But hey, it got good reviews, and it's about the nature of consciousness, so of course I'm gonna read it.

Anyway, this book, which I've been reading at bedtime just prior to falling asleep for the past several weeks - I told you it was gonna be heavy stuff - is really two books.

There's the actual novel, which takes up the first 221 pages, and is pretty good, and then there's the non-fiction stuff about the nature of consciousness, which takes up the last 107 pages and could just as well have been left out.

Then there's a bibliography and notes for another 24 pages, more wasted paper and dead trees.

The novel's perfect for bedtime, though.

It's about a grad student named Miranda Sharpe, and the sudden disappearance of her advisor, world-renowned expert on the nature of consciousness Max Grue.

Miranda decides to solve the mystery of Grue gone missing, and so the book begins.

And ends.

The author, Dan Lloyd, like all the "experts" in the field of AI and consciousness studies, believes he has THE answer to the puzzle of consciousness.

Guess what?

He doesn't have a clue.