One of the strongest and most innovative novelists in America today and rightly compared to William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon, Joseph McElroy gives us a work of intellectual science fiction, both

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One of the strongest and most innovative novelists in America today and rightly compared to William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon, Joseph McElroy gives us a work of intellectual science fiction, both spooky and profound: an astonishing and moving illumination of human consciousness. An engineer suffering from radiation agrees to have his brain removed and used in an IMP - interplanetary monitoring platform. Orbiting the earth in a satellite, the brain's function is to monitor its physiological self as part of a solar energy project. When the brain begins to go beyond simple monitoring and reflect upon itself, it becomes more than an IMP. It becomes an IMP PLUS which grows and develops an imagination that releases images and fragments of memories from its terrestrial life and other rich and fascinating data. Eventually it develops an autonomous intellect and affective life and cuts itself off from ground control. In the unraveling drama and fate of IMP PLUS, the reader senses an unsettling and disquieting allegory to the postmodern condition.

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