Brilliance

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Nick Cooper, a federal agent, has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in--and betray his own kind.

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Timely and engrossing submitted by eknapp on September 6, 2016, 3:18pm Alternate history terrorism thriller. For the past three decades, approximately 1% of people have been born as functional savants. Narrow-focus processing and pattern recognition abilities, like Rain Man without the autism. . There's a woman who moves where people won't be looking, rendering her functionally invisible. A man who anticipates the stock market to the tune of $300 billion. A human lie detector. And a guy who reads intent, making him a human bloodhound and a demon in combat.

Naturally, the majority feels threatened and we're left with social chaos, "brilliants" pitted against "normals" and gifted terrorists against a brutal government counterterrorism agency with unprecedented powers. (It's like a much more action-oriented, short-scope version of Nancy Kress's splendid Beggars in Spain.)

Sakey's global social unrest manifests in interesting ways. Norm-vs-abnorm has supplanted most of the biggest real-world issues in Brilliance. Nobody wastes energy railing against homosexuality. There's even peace in the Middle East. Technology has leapt forward thanks to the brilliants, checking climate change early. Pretty good world-building.

The action is great. The dialogue is solid enough. The author does a terrific job realizing the abnorm abilities (eg the lie detector folks tend to be driven insane by the hurricane of dishonesty assaulting their perceptions.) The big twist is ripped from every book Dan Simmons ever wrote but there's more than enough good to trump the bad.