Limitless: A Novel

Very good book, reminds me of a gritty, unhappy, version of "The R-Master" by Gordon Dickson. The one thought that kept circling through my mind as I read this novel (in one sitting) was: "Knowing all of this, would I still take such a drug?". In my case the answer would "Yes", so I have to wonder if I should be more sympathetic towards athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs, or indeed, anyone who uses any substance for simple pleasure. Highly recommended.Revisiting my review several years later: This is really a 5 star book for me, as I've reread it several times and enjoyed it just as much each time, so it's going from a 4 to a 5. I enjoyed the movie, too, although the ending is quite different. Highly entertaining nootropic science fiction.

I enjoyed this one (rejoice!).Full disclosure: I saw the movie first and happened to love it. A lot of times when that happens, I end up begrudging the book its differences (which I realize makes next to zippo sense). This is exactly what happened to me with Fluke by James Herbert, but in fairness, it was up against my former 10 year old self's obsession with the movie of the same name that I watched once a week for years before reading the book.I was delightfully surprised to discover I enjoyed the book almost as much as I did the movie when it came to Limitless (if not more). What an utterly creative effort on Glynn's part. I really do think the movie's changes didn't affect my enjoyment of the movie or my subsequent reading of the written material it originated from.For a book that contains no real fantastical elements (my preferred genre, usually), this book held my interest all the way through and actually got me wanting to be a stock broker at one point. That's saying something, considering I work as a writer at present.Fantastic character development, easy to follow storyline, enough twists and turns to satisfy readers who need a little incentive to continue on: Limitless has all of these.I did note one grammatical error in the Kindle edition ("your" and "you're" used in the wrong way). I'm also not sure if the author happens to be English/British but the main character sure did use a lot of English colloquialisms. The phrase "straightaway" comes immediately to mind, but there are more. I believe the book was also written in UK English, so be prepared for extra "u"s within words and "z"s replaced with "s"s on occasion if you're American. Really, the main character's proclivity for using traditionally English phrases when he was supposed to be an East Coast American was really my only complaint. I found it endearing, albeit entirely unrealistic.Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. And yes, I did think the book's ending was far superior than the movie's, if admittedly a bit more depressing.

I'm a fan of the movie, and I'm finally reading the novel, 20+ years after publication, and 10+ years after the movie was released. I did find the novel to be absorbing, which is a tremendous credit to Glynn's writing, considering that I was very familiar with the basic plot from having seen the movie a number of times. It's interesting to discover what made it from the page to the screen, what was left out, and what was invented out of whole cloth for the screenplay. And there are spoilers in this review for both book and movie. These are some of my observations:The novel is written in the first person, as Eddie's recounting of events, something the movie tries to leverage with first-person voice-over narration, but the book gives a better feel than the movie for what's really going on inside Eddie's head, because movies are inherently a third-person medium. The author has the ability to go into detail about Eddie's thoughts and feelings in a way that the movie (or any movie) just can't.Some of the dialogue in the movie is word-for-word from the book, which did make me smile. The brief conversation in French (leading to an equally brief sexual encounter) that is shown in the movie is a week-long romantic entanglement in the book. The events of the book are set against a backdrop of heightened tensions between the US and Mexico, and the death in the hotel is of the wife of a prominent Mexican artist, rather than a random model whose name we barely learn. In both book and movie, the question of whether Eddie committed the murder is left murky, but the book leans toward Eddie as the killer, while the movie suggests strongly (without confirming) that The Man In The Tan Coat did it. In the book, there's also no Morris Brandt (the high-powered criminal lawyer), and no police lineup--in fact, the book ends with Eddie on the run from the murder accusation, and awaiting imminent death from withdrawal--the Hollywood ending of the movie is exactly that.The details of how Eddie came to meet Kevin, and how Kevin connected him to Carl Van Loon, are much better explained in the book than in the movie. The connection in the movie is tenuous at best, and, frankly, a little hand-wavey. The merger in the book is pretty obviously based on the AOL / Time-Warner merger that was occurring around the time the book was written. In the book, Van Loon and his company are brokering the deal, rather than a being party to it, which makes more narrative sense.The girlfriend character from the movie, Lindy, does not exist in the book, and Eddie seems less of a loser at the outset of the book than he sees in the movie. He's got similar struggles, but he's not on the verge of self-immolation the way he is in the movie. The movie introduces the girlfriend character so that she can dump him to give the viewer a visceral cue as to how much of a loser he is.One thing I think the movie does a bit better than the book is to give the viewer a feel for what it's like to be on the drug--the ability to speed-run through life while doing things that would have previously been beyond your abilities, and getting all of the answers right while displaying an utter, unshakeable confidence that tiptoes up to the edge of arrogance without stepping over. The book describes it too, and does it well, but I didn't quite feel it the same way I do when I watch the movie, which is a credit to Bradley Cooper's performance and the tremendous job he does of bringing that out.It's also obvious to me that the character of Carl Van Loon is based more than a little on Donald Trump—the pre-politics Trump, the glitzy business mogul and denizen of the gossip pages that some of us are old enough to remember from the 1980s and 1990s. He's described as "brash and vulgar," and as wanting to reclaim the title of “World’s Tallest Building” for NYC (something that Trump proposed back in 1985). Given that, there's some ironic retrospective humor in the movie's casing of Robert De Niro (who would become a vocal Trump critic after the 2016 election) in the role of Van Loon.

Finished the book in a week. Life changing. Strongly recommended. Looking forward to get the next one!

The book is well-written and extremely well structured. I read it because I have seen the fim maybe 10 times. So, question .. which ending is more plausible. the book's disaster or the film's optimism. They are both perhaps too extreme, but that is media today. On balance, the film's pen-ultimate 12 month gap, just prior to the final sequence, is just as theoretically plausible as the book's negative close, given that Eddie hsd the funds in the right pace and at the right time to schedule the "tapering off" . Bottom line, it hinges on the viewer's or the reader's mind set. Optimism is always easier to take.

I have never written a review for books on amazon although I have bought like over 20 books, but I have adrenaline pumping in my veins — somewhat fuelled by mdt lol — to write one for this. I have seen both limitless movie and series and they , without a doubt remain my favourite and I mean it, the latest addition has been this book which i finished literally minutes ago and it was such an amazing, heart-pumping, mind blowing motivating, inspiring, ‘oh freaaaak’ book/journey that I can literally feel my heart racing and my veins pulsating; I have never felt anything like this for any book, it is definitely one of my favourite although making it my favourite is injustice to the expanse of what I feel for it, a moon ride for sure!Speaking of the condition, it arrived with no issues, pages were crisp, binding was firm and the book/cover/contents were neat and clean, so five stars for that.

I felt the pacing was slow enough to experience what Eddie goes through while in the movie most of it is a highlight reel, we hardly get insight into his feelings and what it's like for example to do any of the things he does

In lingua inglese ma molto scorrevole, ben scritto. Riempie alcuni buchi lasciati dal film, anche se il finale è molto diverso..