GermLine

Rating:
Summary: Genetic engineering pushed front and center
Review: GERMLINE by Dr. Nelson Erlick is a provocative medical thriller that examines the plausible future of gene therapy and genetic engineering. Briefly summarized, the "Collaborate" is a global consortium of financial and scientific corporations backing a plan for advanced gene therapy based on a technology that can introduce whole chromosomes into the developing human fetus in order to correct genetic abnormalities. The chief protagonist of the story, Dr. Kevin Kincaid, is the brilliant physician-researcher employed by a Collaborate health care and research entity, the Benjamin Franklin Healthcare Network (BFHN), to create and perfect the protein vector, HACV.V7 that inserts the new genetic material into the targeted germ cells. Fearing monopolistic abuse of the technology, two organizations oppose Collaborate and seek to acquire V7's design: the Defense Advanced Research Progects Agency (DARPA - a very real government body) and the Anti-Genetic Action Committee (AntiGen).

GERMLINE's premise is intriguing, the action is occasionally exciting, and the dialog is well done for a "debut novel". However, the book has several rough edges that allow me to award only 3 stars.

There's an excess of characters that significantly impact the storyline: Kincaid, Frederick Grayson (the head of BFHN), Eric Bertram (Chairman of Collaborate), Dixon Loring (Bertram's megalomaniacal deputy), Trent McGovern (head of AntiGen), Kristin Brocks (DARPA's security chief), Helen/Tracy Bergmann (of AntiGen), Dr. Roderick Stevenson (Chief Pathologist at the Collaborate's isolated research complex, Delphi), Marguerite Moraes (at Delphi), and Blount (a Collaborate thug). By my count, four or five of these players could have been left on the cutting room floor, thus streamlining an already complex plot.

Background information provides depth and realism to fiction. As an award-winning researcher and ex-surgeon, Dr. Erlick is well positioned to provide such. However, perhaps he went over the top. For example, when referring to the neurotransmitter glutamate, a character mentions APMA-kinate receptors, voltage-independent synaptic responses, voltage-dependent NMDA-receptors, and metabotropic-subtype receptors. Or, regarding certain custom-created genes:

"We back-coded for the genes ... (placing) them with gene regulators on the q arm of our designer chromosome, position 23q11 through 23q14 ..."

Such esoterica could be understood, I'm sure, by workers in the field. But I gather that Erlick desires a wider readership; your average reader's eyes may glaze over.

I personally was totally unsympathetic towards the "hero" of the story, Kincaid. Sure, at the very beginning his wife and two children are murdered. However, the author never established for the reader a close relationship between the four, so it was hard to care. Kevin was simply the brilliant physician robot wound up and sent on his way to engage the Bad Guys. And Kevin's relationship with Helen/Tracy was forced all the way to the end.

Lastly, I suspect that GERMLINE's specter of gene therapy going awry is the author's personal apprehension. Unfortunately, sinister global conspiracies in fiction are tricky constructs. They're only sinister if the general consensus holds them to be so, like the nuclear Armageddon brought on by KGB plotters so popular in Cold War potboilers. In GERMLINE's case, the maleficence of the conspiracy is perhaps subjective and not to be shared by all.

I think additional editing could lift this thriller to the 4-star level, and I believe Erlick has a viable career as a fiction writer ahead of him if he elects to pursue it.

(Note: This review is of an advance uncorrected proof in the publisher's binding sent to me by the author, who has since informed me that the book has undergone some editing.)

Rating:
Summary: GREAT book
Review: I couldn't book the book down, and neither could a friend, who picked up the book when I put it down. Am very excited to see book number 2. GREAT read, GREAT book. I see a movie in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent medical s-f thriller
Review: I was offered the opportunity to read a galley of this book before it went into print, and I can say without reservation that I was not disappointed. There are several concurrent plots (pun intended), and the third-person narration shifts from one to the next very smoothly. There's an Andromeda Strain quality of inexorability and gathering velocity as more pieces of the puzzle fall into place for the reader, leading to a not entirely predictable climax. As with so many things, there is no one clear solution to the moral and ethical questions posed by the book, and the ending leaves some tempting teasers lying about for the reader to sieze and worry at if so inclined. It is clearly a story of how one set of (fictional) people reacted to the dilemmas, and I found it difficult not to keep asking myself, 'How would I have reacted?' The necessary explanations of the highly-technical processes and jargon peculiar to genetic research were on the whole handled very well; there was no sense of being 'talked down to' although I think some of the explanations could have been a bit clearer than they were. On the whole, I found the topic intriguing, the treatment thought-provoking, and the style and presentation very good. I give GermLine four stars out of five, and a rating of PG due to some of the fairly graphic descriptions.