Horror Book Reviews
More Details...Price: $25.95 |
Title: Invasive Procedures |
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Review of Invasive Procedures
- George Galen is a brilliant scientist, a pioneer in gene therapy. But Galen is dangerously insane â he has created a method to alter human DNA, not just to heal diseases, but to âimproveâ people â make them stronger, make them able to heal more quickly, and make them compliant to his will.
Frank Hartman is also a brilliant virologist, working for the governmentâs ultra-secret bio-hazard agency. He has discovered how to neutralize Galenâs DNA-changing virus, making him the one man who stands in the way of Galenâs plan to "improve" the entire human race.
This taut thriller takes the reader a few years into the future, and shows the promise and danger of new genetic medicine techniques.
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Comments for Invasive Procedures
- Posted on 2008-06-22
Tedious and unrealistic
** SPOILERS **
Well, I for one didn't enjoy this. I'm okay with a sci-fi story set in the present but I couldn't wait for it to be over.
The glimmer of a promising premise just had no delivery whatsoever (IMHO)...
A brilliant but deranged scientist (the villain) and his giant zombie-like assistants kidnap some random-ish people (inc. the hero) in order to perform radical experimental surgery on them designed to prolong the villain's life (Oh yeah - the villain first came to the attention of the authorities when he develops some disease-reversing virus which works... this then provides the excuse to have this government agency pursue him).
So then the band of kidnap victims - recently operated upon against their will, have now acquired harvested organs plus with computer chips rammed into their nervous systems via a neck incision - try and escape and there's some sort of confrontation out in the deserted woods.
Mega-yawn...
Score: 2
- Posted on 2008-05-15
The short story that should have stayed a short story
Scott Card is one of my fav authors. one of his forte's is the short story. Enders game started as a short story and became one of the best selling sci fi novels ever. this book was a good ,unique, fast paced short story. what happened in the novelization ot it was it became an overwrought, "i know what is going to happen", too long book.
the story is simple. genome expert george galen is nuts and thinks he is the messiah and seeks immortality thru the manipulation of the DNA of his followers. the characters are somewhat interesting and you get a good feel for their "self" from the writing but the action nature of the book make it seem like an old ,"bang-bang" action movie and little else.
no harm in reading the book but you will not read anything you have not read before.
Score: 2 - Posted on 2008-04-06
Johnston USING Card's name
Since Ender's Game, I've respected OSC as one of the best writers SF has to offer. However after reading Invasive Procedures I was quickly shocked and wondered how Card could produce such a horribly written novel full of unbelievable plots, expected twists, and a cast of the most cliché characters I've read in a long time. I kept telling myself, this can't be right--I know Card could write better material in his sleep.
But that's just it! Card didn't write Invasive Procedures, so if you're buying it for the OSC name on the cover, ignore it. It seems this novel was a "collaboration" between OSC and Aaron Johnston (an old time friend of Card's). It's based on a short story called Malpractice published by Card in the 70's (which is actually a really good story) and it looks like Johnston is attempting to use Card's name in a clever little marketing ploy to get unsuspecting OSC fans to purchase this garbage.
So again, Orson Scott Card DID NOT write this book. My only real disappointment is that Card actually let Johnston put his name on it after reading it.
Score: 1
- Posted on 2008-03-16
Orson Scott Card Disappoints - Don't Waste Your Time on This
I've been a big fan of Card starting with the superb Enders Game series, but boy was I let down in this one. I felt like I was reading the script of an action movie, where the only thing that matters is the action and the chase scenes and screw the content.
The plot is thin and there is little, if any, science fiction. The absurdity of the "duplication" with a chip was just too much. With all of the advances happening in science and cloning today, this is the best he could come up with? It seems this book was written only to cash in on Cards name, and not to provide a well written science fiction book that is worth spending your time on.
Score: 1 - Posted on 2008-03-01
It almost doesn't get worse than this . . .
Uch. You know, not even a week ago I updated my Amazon profile to list some of my "favorite authors." Among them I listed Orson Scott Card and now, to my high annoyance, I have to go remove him from that list, because I refuse to have anyone think I count among my favorite authors a man who could have written something this bad.
How bad is it, you didn't ask? Let's just say if this book is adapted into a "Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie" I'll consider it a grand departure from the Sci-Fi Channel's previously high-caliber level of filmmaking.
Where to even begin? Well, let's start with the unbelievably clichéd characters. We have Frank, the modest, kind superhero protagonist. Monica, the beautiful, helpless woman who's actually really, really smart because she's a doctor, and who will "do anything to protect her child!" Wyatt, her son, who should be nominated for Most Understanding and Well-Behaved Child Who Has Ever Lived. Hal, the hot-headed guy whose fiery temper and bad attitude you know, from the minute you're introduced to the character, is going to blow the cover for the "good guys," cause them more trouble and eventually force someone to try to kill him, which they will be conflicted about. There's also a "lame" boss who, despite being completely incompetent, has somehow managed to become the head of a major government organization. We even get a nice subset of interchangeable henchmen, including the token hot woman soldier who "don't appreciate being looked at like a piece of meat."
The premise of this book is that the supervillian evil bad guy, George Galen, a once famous geneticist blacklisted from the medical industry because of his wild, wacky ideas about curing diseases using gene therapy, has started his own underground gene therapy labs. He's developed a "virus" that can restructure a person's DNA and fix defects, like the ones that cause sickle cell anemia or Parkinson's. Galen has recruited followers, called Healers, who go around and heal sick people with his supervirus. Where does Galen get the money and resources to build dozens of super-labs and get the materials and minds necessary to develop the cure that all the great minds working at legit government-funded labs can't figure out? From the supervillian vault of endless gold of course! Or maybe he had a rich uncle, by the name of Bill Gates, die and leave him a big inheritance. That piece of information is left for the reader to devise herself.
So why is Galen a supervillian evil bad guy? Well, because the virus that cures people is coded specifically for each person it infects, and if anyone else catches it, they're killed almost instantly because the virus, apparently, melts off your face. Now, I'm not a doctor, so I speak from zero expertise here, but I don't think a virus can kill someone, um, instantly. In fact, at first we're told it takes two to seven minutes, already a ridiculous stretch, but all the characters who "catch" the virus seem to die much faster than that.
But, ok, so there's the problem that if the virus gets out, it could kill hordes of people. Still, the Healers quarantine (with sturdy plastic sheets!) those they're curing, and then give them a magic "countervirus" to make the bad virus go away once their disease is cured. So Galen is really good right? The BHA, the organization that Frank, the virologist, is working for that is trying to stop these Healers and their crazy disease-stopping virus, is really kind of bad, right? Afterall, all they're essentially stopping is the progress of science, and people from getting cured of previously incurable diseases. Despite the potential recklessness, Galen is doing a great good, is he not?
Sadly, even this potentially interesting moral dilemma is destroyed. The reader quickly figures out that Galen is really only in this for himself, with some, dare I say, hare-brained scheme to make himself immortal.
This book is about as entertaining as watching a bad Michael Bay movie. Cheap, overdone action scenes; cheesy, predictable unnecessary character romances; and horrible, unbelievably bad dialogue. Seriously, if you are an Orson Scott Card fan, put this book down like the virus that it is, and run in the other direction.
Score: 1