J.J. Abrams is an acclaimed and hugely successful film and TV writer and director (Fringe, Lost, Alias, Felicity, Star Trek, Cloverfield, Mission: Impossible, and more), Doug Dorst is an award-winning novelist. In this book they have created a multi-layered mystery-within-a-mystery, book-within-a-book which presents the reader with clues and twists, much in the same way as Abrams' TV series have done. Nothing is what it seems, and the reader has to work hard to decipher the deceptions. Inside the presentation slipcase is a 1949 novel by a secretive, revolutionary writer, V.M Straka. Ship of Theseus is his final novel, and the copy you are reading is from the library of the Pollard State University. Throughout the book are notations and ephemera (postcards, letters, a map, newspaper clippings), constituting a secret correspondence between Jennifer and Eric, a college senior, and a discredited graduate student. The novel and the notations must be read simultaneously. The novel tells the story of an unnamed man with no memory of his past, who is forced aboard a half-wrecked ship with a monstrous crew. He suffers a series of mysterious events, which appear to bear some relationship to the life of the enigmatic author, and are probably a code of some kind, as are the footnotes. Our two readers are attempting to decode the book, and also share the information they have about Straka. As the book progresses, they appear to be under threat from forces they don't understand.
It's a compelling and strange experience to read this book. I know I missed many of the secrets and clues, and I'm sure a second read would reveal more. The production quality is excellent, the whole conceit of the book is very well carried through - the pages look old, the book even smells old, the inserted ephemera look real and authentic. Fans of J. J. Abrams will be well rewarded by this reading experience.