Bewilderment by Richard Powers

 Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022--San Antonio

Bewilderment by Richard Powers is a science fiction book that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.  It is the story of a father who is an astrobiologist professor and researcher and his son who struggles with handling daily social life.  A fellow researcher has developed a way to train the mind to "feel" emotions of others, and uses the son as a subject, since his deceased mother had been a subject at the beginning of the study to set up a recorded base of memories of specific emotions.  At the same time, the world is in trouble politically by lack of concern for the environment and people's affects on it.  The father's research involves searching for planets with the potential for intelligent life and creating credible possibilities of the form life on each planet might be.   The book alternates between chapters of what is happening in the life of the father and son and chapters of different planets with descriptions of what life might be like on them.  The story of the father and son and what is happening on earth is interesting.  I found the stories of life on the different planets to be less interesting, especially after reading a few of them.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.