White Devils

Rating:
Summary: Good start; needed an editor.
Review: Terrific proposition but flabbily executed. Genetically engineered proto apes and maybe more in Africa, the kind and the terrible. Good, solid characters but too much lard. Needed to be cut by a third; in otherwords, sorely needed a good editor. Although, you know, I'm not that fussy and kinda liked it. The writer's view of Africa 30 years or so down the pike is both plausible and convincing. Looking forward to McAuley's next.

Rating:
Summary: Adventures in Gaia Capitalism
Review: The novel takes place in a near future Congo in which most of its rainforest has been turned to sludge by genetic engineering projects gone awry. The entire territory has been ceded to a global corporation called Obligate. Obligate hopes to profitably develop the Congo through a pro-green, anti-biotechnology platform stressing social responsibility - sort of like the Whole Foods supermarket, but on the level of a nation-state and with somewhat more totalitarian tendencies. It is within this context that we find the book's hero Nick Hyde, an ex-soldier who begins the novel as a volunteer for a non-governmental organization dedicating to exposing and documenting ethnic cleansing, but soon finds himself on a quest to uncover the secrets behind genetically engineered ape-like creatures who have been set loose in the jungle.

In style, the book is similar to Richard Morgan's Broken Angels. Both books are strong on adventure elements. The main characters in both books are reformed ex-soldiers driven to uncover the true motives of malicious future corporations and the governments beholden to them. Though certainly cynical of green capitalism as represented by Obligate, McAuley seems most concerned with exploring many of the more alarmist possibilities raised by genetic engineering. While he certainly does a good job exploring these themes, perhaps I am a bit jaded, as there are many revelations in the book (often directly referred to by McAuley as "secrets") pointing to what are by today's standards unethical applications of genetic engineering, but for which I wasn't surprised or moved. These themes, moreover, are well covered by other books in the tradition of Brave New World, for example C.J. Cherryh's classic Cyteen. White Devils is still a good read, however, for its adventure elements and its excellent portrayal of near-future Africa.


Rating:
Summary: The Near Future of Biotechnology
Review: This is my first book by Mr. McAuley, and I enjoyed this book very much. This book deals with the main character, Nick Hyde, at the beginning of the book has a violent encounter with the White Devils.

There are many characters with subplots Mr. McAuley woven into the book, and the future regarding biotechnology.

Mr. McAuley writes about the science of the future without getting into what I call "lecture mode", as I see in many science fiction books.

If you like action, science, and a believable plot in the not so distant future, then get this book!