Peter James: Host (UK 2019)

From the Publisher:
Brilliant scientist Joe Messenger will stop at nothing in his quest for immortality.
When he meets and falls for Juliet Spring, a gifted young researcher who claims to have stumbled on a way to transfer human consciousness into a computer, he believes the final breakthrough is near.

Then tragedy strikes and it seems as if the quest is doomed to failure. But as Joe is caught up in a series of bizarre and increasingly sinister accidents, he finds himself facing the terrifying consequences of his own obsessions...

Peter James: Host. How far would you go for your life's work? Includes new introduction from the author. Orion, ISBN: 9781409181262 (August, 2019), 624 p., £8.99.

Peter James: Host (UK 2000)

From the Publisher:
Like Dr Frankenstein, brilliant scientist Joe Messenger will stop at nothing in his quest for immortality...
Brilliant scientist Joe Messenger believes that people can be made to live for ever. Knowing the human body can be frozen indefinitely, Joe devises a way of downloading the human brain into a supercomputer called ARCHIVE.

But Joe's wife, Karen, is worried by his preoccupation with ARCHIVE, which seems to be developing signs of a distinct and sinister personality of its own.

Then, just as Joe is on the brink of a scientific breakthrough, a series of macabre accidents befall him and his family - and Joe finds himself facing the terrifying consequences of his own obsessions.

Peter James: Host. Orion, ISBN: 0752837451 (December, 2000), 623 p., £6.99.

Peter James: Host (USA 1995)

From the Publisher:
Joe Messenger is an award-winning specialist in artificial intelligence. The son of a cryonics pioneer, he believes that people can be made to live forever. But he also knows that merely freezing the body is not enough without one's brain - one's consciousness - a cryonically preserved person will be incomplete. Joe, a computer genius, devises a way to download the human brain into a supercomputer called ARCHIVE. Joe's wife, Karen, finds his cutting-edge research increasingly disturbing, particularly his obsessive work on ARCHIVE, which is developing signs of a distinct and sinister personality. Karen's complaint that ARCHIVE is beginning to dominate their lives is not idle paranoia - it is truer than even she realizes. Karen and Joe's marriage is further threatened when he falls for Juliet Spring, a gifted young scientist whose loveliness is matched by her keen insight into Joe's work. But just as the pair are on the brink of a scientific breakthrough, a series of macabre accidents befall Joe, Karen, and their son, Jack - clearly the work of some malevolent force. It becomes increasingly evident that the obsessions that have shaped Joe's life are about to blow his family apart.

Peter James: Host. Villard Books, ISBN: 0679437339 (November, 1995), 469 p., $24.00.

Peter James: Host (UK 1993)

From the Publisher:
Award-winning artificial intelligence genius Professor Joe Messenger believes it will be possible for people to live very much longer -- and ultimately for ever -- through the advances of modern science. His father was a pioneer of cryonics -- the freezing of humans -- and Joe believes the way to immortality lies in a combination of cryonics and artificial intelligence.

Married, with a three-year-old son, Joe's life is already scarred by one family tragedy. His wife, Karen, who once admired his ideas so much, now finds them increasingly disturbing, but what threatens her most is ARCHIVE, Joe's revolutionary supercomputer, which is already developing signs of a distinct, and maybe sinister, personality and beginning to dominate their lives -- in more ways than they realize.

When Joe meets and falls for postgraduate student Juliet Spring, a gifted young computer scientist, he senses a kindred spirit -- and when she tells him she has stumbled upon a way of transferring human consciousness into a computer he believes that the breakthrough he has worked for all his life may be on the brink of happening.

Then tragedy strikes and it seems at first that Joe's hopes have been dashed. But his troubles have only just begun. For the impossible is about to happen and the obsessions that have shaped Joe Messenger's life are about to blow him and his family brutally apart, as what seems at first to be a series of bloody, macabre accidents turns into something worse than he could ever have imagined.

A malevolent, single-minded force is at work. Demands are being made so bizarre and murderous that Joe cannot believe they are real. But if his wife and son are to survive, Joe Messenger had better start believing...

The Times said of Peter James's last novel, Prophecy, 'Peter James is getting better with every book... an atmosphere so charged with menace that readers will find themselves glancing over their shoulders.' In Host, an electrifying novel that brilliantly matches terror with technology, he has surpassed himself.

Peter James: Host. Gollancz, ISBN: 0575056193 (December, 2000), 475 p., £15.99.