He inhabits all of Leeds’ imaginary allies as well as his very real adversaries, shifting seamlessly and convincingly through various genders, races and personalities.īut this is more than a groovy mystery Sanderson uses Leeds as a launch-pad for theological debate.

Once again, Oliver Wyman’s narration is poetry.

I listened to the audio version, and devoured it in two sittings (it would have only been one were it not for work). In Skin Deep, the second novella in the series, Leeds is coerced into locating the corpse of a tech worker who was in possession of dangerous information-while at the same time outwitting a devious businessman and avoiding the strike of a first-rate assassin.Īs before, the plotting and character development is astounding. (Leeds isn’t a detective per se, but like fellow troubled genius, Sherlock Holmes, often finds himself consulting on cases). The result is a skill set unmatched by any other detective in literature. Put simply, like all of us, Leeds can access a limited portion of the information he receives from external stimuli, but he’s also able to access the subconscious bits via imaginary personalities. His mental manifestations, which he calls “aspects,” have names, back-stories and seemingly a life of their own, though they are bound by the limits of Leeds’ finite knowledge and experience.Ĭonsider it a cross between schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder and unconscious cognition. Leeds is afflicted with a mental disturbance wherein he has imaginary friends with benefits (no, not that kind, pervo, though two of his manifestations are going through a difficult breakup in this installment). It reaffirms Sanderson’s place as one of contemporary fiction’s most intelligent-and unpredictable-voices.Not long ago, I sang the praises of Sanderson’s novella Legion ( ), a mystery tale centered around the brilliant, unquiet mind of Stephen Leeds. Legion: Skin Deep is speculative fiction at it most highly developed. What follows is a visionary thriller about the potential uses of technology, the mysteries of the human personality, and the ancient human need to believe that death is not the end. He may have embedded something in the cells of his now dead body. The corpse is that of a pioneer in the field of experimental biotechnology, a man whose work concerned the use of the human body as a massive storage device. As the new story begins, Leeds and his “aspects” are hired by I3 (Innovative Information Incorporated) to recover a corpse stolen from the local morgue. Stephen Leeds, AKA “Legion,” is a man whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills.

Legion skin deep