Seizure

Rating:
Summary: Poorly written, want-a-be thriller...
Review: I have not read Robin Cook in a long time, and this book reminded me why. Cook hunts around for the newest medical/ethical problems and then uses it for fodder for his books. I remember reading and then seeing his very first medical thriller which came out when I was at college. It was about the possibility of using people who were purposely put into a coma, in order to use their organs for harvesting and transplantation. It was one of my first introductions to medical ethics, or the lack of such ethics.

Unfortunately, in the past 27 years, medical ethics has gotten worse, not better. Though they manage to stave off in this country the possibility of using people for organ donors against their wish or against the wishes of their families, in other developing countries, this is not an ethical problem. They go ahead and do whatever they want ethically.

This book brings up something I a currently working on. The use of women to get pregnant only to have the fetus aborted at 20 weeks in order to use the fetus for stem cell lines, and in this case, a possibility I had not thought of, the very unethical killing of female fetuses for getting to their ovaries which have cells very much desired for use. Oh goody, Cook just gave unethical medical personnel another idea. I agree it was probably out there anyway, but Cook probably provide the ones who were too dumb to think of this with the information they would like to have. All of this is done for money, in countries where they do not have the FDA or peer review, and other such things to keep medicine and science honorable. Not only do such groups prey on those scared of degenerative disease, but they also prey on the poor women of developing countries who are desperate for money.

This book did not have a single person who was ethical in it. Not even the Catholics who were approached concerning the Shroud of Turin, did things ethically. They wanted protection from legal mandates concerning lawsuits against them for allowing abuse by priests. Whether this type of bargaining goes on in political circles by religious groups in reality, I don't know. Probably, from what I've seen in my bioethics and disabilities groups.

A book without a character who can be considered 'good' makes for poor reading, fiction or not. I forgot how sloppy Cook writes. At the end of this book, none of the various subplots were solved. Everything is just left standing. Even if Congress and political powers tried to do a cover-up of medical abuse in other countries by a member of Congress, it would almost certainly be looked at by the press. A senator dies after jumping from a hotel room 38 stories up, and he is nude except for black socks, and a researcher he had been lambasting in Congress dies with him? No newspaper is going to ignore that.

In fiction, plots don't work unless there is some suspension of reality and the reader allows himself to be talked into the plot by the author. This does not happen in Cooks' books. Like other reviewers, I had a horrible time finishing this book. It was boringly written, and the only reason I finished it was because I was interested in this area of medical ethics to begin with, and wanted to see how far and how bad the situation was. If Cook is going to hand out ideas to the many medical businesses out there in the world, I want some type of forewarning.

Don't think I will pick up another one of Cook's books again. Waste of my time. Waste of anybody's time...

Karen Sadler

Rating:
Summary: When Medical. Political,& Business Ethics Go Awry
Review: In this novel, Dr. Robin Cook sheds light on the moral and ethical concerns which accompany medical/scientific research. He show us how a senator who takes an absolute and inflexible public stand on controversial research ithat involves the use of embryos, suddenly does an about face, when he develops a chronic and incurable disease himself. The senator volunteers to be the human subject, i.e., "guinea pig" for the *very* procedure that he was so staunchly publicly against ... Why? Because the procedure has a high probablity of curing his Parkinson's disease. The Senator has an unusual request as to the source of the donor cells, from which the embryos will create dopamine making cells ...

The personality of the senator was described fully and in depth, and had the personalities of the main characters, Daniel Lowell, MD, Ph.D. and Stephanie D'Agostino been developed better, I would have given this book a rating of 5. Overall I found this novel to be excellent. It reveals the realities that cause otherwise intelligent and moral people to take unusual risks. These two people risked losing both their excellent reputations and standing in the scientific community and their bio tech research company because Congress did not sanction their medical procedure, although it proven to have successful outcomes on animals. Another interesting twist in this book, is the extreme measures some unique investors take to recover their money, when they realize the value of the stocks have plummetted.

Dr. Daniel Lowell and Dr. Stepanie D'Agostino utilize a research clinic and hospital in the Bahamas to test their procedure on their volunteer human subject. The bizarre circumstances which occur during and after the procedure are all too real ... as anyone working in the healthcare industry can attest. Odd things can and do happen for many reasons ... I am certain this book would be a huge hit as a movie, as so many preceding books by this author have been. The theme is current and relevant. The politician is believable, especially as he does not represent the interests of the public but his own. The main characters when played by a popular actor and actress would have the added benefit of visual appeal which would provide depth to the personalities. This book falls into the "I can't put it down until I am finished reading it" category. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

Rating:
Summary: Forgettable fluff
Review: Robin Cook is considered the master of the medical thriller. A best-selling author since his debut novel COMA, Robin Cook sets the bar as to what it takes to write a solid medical thriller. In this case, his book revolves around the possibility of using genetic engineering to cure diseases.
Senator Ashley Butler has Parkinson's disease. He has Presidential aspirations and will seek out any possible cure of the disease no matter how long the odds are. He focuses in on a promising start up company run by Dr. Daniel Lowell who invented a technique to implant DNA into the brain to stop the disease. The problem is that it has never been tested on humans. Butler doesn't care and demands the treatment while holding over Daniel's head the possible passage of a bill that will kill his company. Will it work?
Cook weaves a whole book around the premise of genetic engineering. Given his long-term history of writing medical thrillers, he has a whole host of stock devices in an attempt to create a more exciting plot. However, the plot gets increasingly contrived and unrealistic as the book moves along. Is it really necessary to throw Italian gangsters into the mix? Why must the DNA come from a certain substance that reeks of divinity? Stock characters do not add any substance to the work. The disappointing and predictable ending is an appropriate exclamation point for this bit of fluff.

Rating:
Summary: Frankenstein Meets Da Vinci Meets the Sopranos! Too much!
Review: "It's the story of two titans, in their own separate arenas, yet strangely similar in their hubris, who had achieved greatness but suffered tragic faults. Senator Butler's was a love of power, which had evolved from a means to an end and of itself. Dr. Lowell's, I'd guess, was a desire for financial recognition and celebrity status appropriate in his mind to his intellect and contribution. When these two men collided by conspiring to use each other for their own purposes, their tragic fault literally brought them down." (Epilogue, 382)

Carol Manning's final character assessment of protagonists Dr. Daniel Lowell and Senator Butler basically says it all. I guess the central idea here is, as Robin Cook says, "the regrettable collision of politics and rapidly advancing bioscience" (Author's Note, 386). ...And honestly, if the plot focused more around the Frankenstein-like theme of the irresponsibility of scientific research and innapropriate political influence in this arena, the story would have been much more effective. Dr. Cook, however, also felt the need to not only include a sub plot about a mafia-connected investor but also to capitalize on the success of Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" by including controversial information about the authenticity of the Shroud of Tourin. He even mentions Leonardo Da Vinci at one point!

Unethical biotechnology, religious relics, organized crime - there were just too many different things crammed into one story! It got so ridiculous that, after establishing the plot in the first few chapters, I skimmed through most of the book. Ironically, the last chapter and the epilogue really gave me all I needed to understand Butler's and Lowell's fate. The best part of the book was Dr. Cook's "Author's Note", which provided some very interesting commentary about the unethical relationship between medical reserach and politics. Other than that, this was book was extremely disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Too Far Fetched
Review: Robin Cook had me hooked when I first read Coma. I read all of his books with a vicious furor. Then as I read more of them, I noticed that they started to take on a sci-fi type story. That's when, in my opinion, Cook started to go downhill and hasn't stopped since.
Like Coma and Cook's other books, this book revolves around controversial medical issues. Two scientists involved in stem cell research and therapeutic cloning are forced by a conservative Southern senator to use their untested gene therapy to cure his Parkinson's disease. Since the procedure requires DNA, the senator asks them to use blood from the Shroud of Turin. The scientists must travel from Boston to Italy to the Bahamas, constantly avoiding scrutiny by people trying either tostop them or to discover their plans. The procedure finally takes place within the last 70 pages, making for an anticlimactic ending, especially given the possibilities established by the overall premise. With a number of loose ends not tied up in a completely satisfactory way, the book almost begs for a sequel but I don't think I'd even bother reading it. This book was way too far fetched.

Rating:
Summary: A big disappointment
Review: I'm a reader who likes to whiz through a good book and not have to think much about what I'm reading. I used to be able to do that with Robin Cook novels, and I LOVED them. I am in the medical field and absolutely adored Dr. Cook's early works. His recent novels, though, seem to be harder to follow, and not as focused on the actual medical thriller genre that I love so much. I yearn for something like Coma, Harmful Intent, Outbreak, etc. Earlier Cook works would have me up til the wee hours, sometimes finishing his book in a matter of 1-2 days. I couldn't even get past the first 3 chapters of this one. Big disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: another good thriller
Review: Wow, after reading some of the other reviews i feel like i must have been reading a different story. i liked this book. it was typical robin cook. all his books have "issues" to be explored and this one is no exception. i think he brings an awareness to his novels that others do not. it was a fast paced story. it was not his best effort but he definitely had you thinking by the end of the book and i think that is his intention. the characters are well developed and you can feel a range of emotions toward them. i would recommend this book to anyone. keep writing robin.

Rating:
Summary: Robin Cook Casserole
Review: Remember when Robin Cook wrote tense medical thrillers? Books that combined medicine with interesting characters that you actually cared about as a reader, and could almost identify with?

That's not this book.

Instead, take the mobsters from "Blindsight", the megalomania of "Godplayer", the Wingate Clinic from "Shock", the human cerebral experimentation of "Brain", the FDA procedural flouting of "Acceptable Risk", and a tiny pinch of the archaeology of "Sphinx", and you'll have "Seizure", a story that seems like a hodgepodge of Cook's other novels thrown into a blender and half-baked to a distinctly unsatisfactory conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely Disappointing
Review: This book was not only diappointing, it was boring and anti-climatic. Robin has lost his golden touch. Time to return to doctoring. Robin's use of his books to make political statements takes reading for the sheer joy of it obsolete.

Poorly written!!

Rating:
Summary: 3 1/2 is more accurate
Review: For a while, I thought that this was going to be a terrific book. Most of his stories have the same basic stroy line, however this one is rather original.

Though I enjoyed this variety, I was still upset with several things that happened later on. It seemed as though he ended the novel where he did so that it would not be very long. It was far too sudden of an ending.

Also, I was so interested in this novel mainly because I have termporal lobe epilepsy. The problem was not only that the novel had a very small part dealing with the epilepsy. The other problem was that my seizures are much different. I can remember when they happen, and, when I have one, I am not able to think clear enough to speak clearly. The only similarity is that I do have weird tastes, where as Butler had weird smells.

In the end I was disipointed in the end because it was too fast, and what little was there that I was hoping for did not come the way I was expecting. However, if you do not care about the end of the novel, then the rest of it was good, because it gave a more original type of story.