Format read: ebook provided by the authorFormats available: Paperback, ebook
Genre: Science fiction
Series: Double Helix #1
Length: 212 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace
Date Released: June 11, 2012
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository
Two men, one face. One man seeks to embrace destiny, the other to escape it.
Danyael Sabre spent sixteen years clawing out of the ruins of his childhood and finally has everything he wanted–a career, a home, and a trusted friend. To hold on to them, he keeps his head down and plays by the rules. An alpha empath, he is powerful in a world transformed by the Genetic Revolution, yet his experience has taught him to avoid attention.
When the perfect human being, Galahad, escapes from Pioneer Laboratories, the illusory peace between humans and their derivatives–the in vitros, clones, and mutants–collapses into social upheaval. The abominations, deformed and distorted mirrors of humanity, created unintentionally in Pioneer Lab’s search for perfection, descend upon Washington D.C. The first era of the Genetic Revolution was peaceful. The second is headed for open war.
Although the genetic future of the human race pivots on Galahad, Danyael does not feel compelled to get involved and risk his cover of anonymity, until he finds out that the perfect human being looks just like him.
There were so many threads to this story! I’m not surprised that they weren’t resolved by the end. This story is too big to get everything wrapped up in a nice neat package in one book. The story continues in Perfect Betrayal, and finishes in Perfect Weapon. It’s a good thing they’re both available. Waiting would be torture!
Genetic manipulation is one of the great themes in science fiction. How will human beings react when we learn to control what we are? Are we as a species wise enough to make those kinds of decisions? How will the “have nots” feel about the “haves”? And vice-versa?
The genetic lottery is not fair in the first place. Pretty people have an easier lot in life than ugly people. Smart people have better chances than less intelligent people, unless they are statistical outliers. Adolesence is always miserable for people outside social norms.
What if you (or your parents) could rig the game? How would society treat the results?
Just think of the X-Men. The superior beings, the mutants, do not get treated well by regular humans.
In Perfection Unleashed, there is a parallel situation. Scientists have created a so-called “perfect” human, certainly a genetically superior human, and he is considered a lab specimen with no rights.
Mutants exist, but they are strictly controlled by law and monitored. Clones are also looked down upon. Even “normal” humans born via in-vitro fertilization experience some pretty nasty prejudice.
Yet the story is not so much about science run amok as it is about humans going crazy. A scientist lost his young son and his wife. He became much, much too involved in an unethical experiment. Because he spent all his energy on his work, his remaining son came to hate him, and the “perfect human” that his work created.
But it really started with the scientist’s over-involvement in his work. And doesn’t that happen now?
Galahad is the experiment. His rescue begins a chain reaction that drags in the alpha empath mutant Danyael, who turns out to be Galahad’s double. But only in looks. They have entirely different sets of powers.
As they unravel the riddle of how these two men came to be each other’s twin, they and their unintentional allies uncover a scientific and government conspiracy to create a supersoldier that results in abominations tearing through the Washington D.C. suburbs.
Escape Rating B+: I want to know where the mutants come from, or how they evolved. This future doesn’t seem that far from now, but there’s a link missing somewhere, and I really need to know. Cloning technology has seriously improved in this future, too.
The story moves along at an absolutely breakneck speed. I didn’t stop turning pages except to sleep, and I hated getting off the bus. Stops were not convenient!
This is a sci-fi action thriller. The chills never stop tingling down your spine. I wish that the human behavior in the book wasn’t so easy to imagine, but that’s what made the story so compelling.
I love when a book doesn’t let you up for air but sometimes life gets annoying as you have to stop to live it..sheesh! When the premise and world-building are plausible, it gives me goosebumps!
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