Reviewed by: Pete Barber
Genre: Techno-thriller
Approximate word count: 75,000-80,000 words
Availability
Click
on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or
Smashwords store
Author:
John Nelson is Director, Quality and Risk Management,
Patient Safety and Infection Control for a community hospital in Utah. Against
Nature is his first novel.
Description:
While
executing a space walk, an astronaut snags his suit and unknowingly contracts a
deadly disease. On returning to earth, the infection is missed during
debriefing and the Shuttle crew disperses to their home countries and they
begin to spread the disease, which is fatal to mammals within two weeks of
being contracted. With no known cure, a worldwide pandemic occurs.
Appraisal:
The premise
of the story, while not new, is compelling enough—examining how the world would
respond to a highly infectious and incurable disease. However, I struggled to
suspend disbelief and therefore found it hard to get immersed in the story. In
part this was because of the seeming ease with which sweeping events and
decisions were made, for example when the US government tried to cover up the
fact that the disease was initiated at NASA, by claiming it came from a
terrorist chemical weapons factory situated on the Pakistani border, and
immediately mobilized 300,000 troops and invaded Pakistan—this effort would be
considerably more difficult.
In part
because the characters, particularly the US President and Vice President and
various influential media moguls, didn’t ring true to me—too stereotypical and
two-dimensional.
The
underlying moralistic tale about corporate America being bad and self-serving
and elitists—told by realizing a series of well-worn conspiracy theories--and
leftist-leaning South American countries having the right political and
cultural approach—justified by extolling their social fairness and free health
services, often seemed to swamp the storyline. For my taste, too much of the
story was taken up with narrative explanations of this political dichotomy. If
the purpose was to delivering an Orwellian message through the veil of a story,
for me, the story needed to be stronger.
Format/Typo Issues:
None.
Rating: *** Three stars
No comments:
Post a Comment