The Second Angel
Registered by ARTurner of Coventry, West Midlands United Kingdom on 6/7/2005
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
2 journalers for this copy...
Amazon Synopsis:
"It is 2069 and mankind is on the brink of extinction thanks to a virus that will wipe out four fifths of the population within ten years. In a world where blood is more valuable than gold, a man, whose daughter needs regular blood transfusions, must do all he can to get at the supplies."
"It is 2069 and mankind is on the brink of extinction thanks to a virus that will wipe out four fifths of the population within ten years. In a world where blood is more valuable than gold, a man, whose daughter needs regular blood transfusions, must do all he can to get at the supplies."
Passed to UrbanSpaceman at the Unconvention, Apres Café Bar, Summerrow.
Acquired at the Unconvention last weekend. Onto the the TBR pile...
A potentially interesting book that fails to live up to its promise.
First things first – the blurb on the back of the book is wrong. Our hero, Dana Dallas, does not attempt to break into the First National Blood Bank to steal blood to save his daughter – she gets killed on pages 119-120 of this 430 page book – his motive is revenge for the killing and that of his wife.
The story is set in 2069 in a world where 80% of the population has an AIDS-like virus called P2. The lucky 20% who are clear live separate protected lives and deposit blood for their own future use. An intriguing idea that could be developed nicely as SF, I think.
The Second Angel is actually marketed as a thriller, though. Perhaps this is just as well – the general reviews inside the cover are very complimentary. SF critics would, I think, generally pan this book. What seems radical and amazing to Esquire and the Mail on Sunday (e.g. quantum computing, genetic modification) are, in fact, ideas that have been used to much better effect elsewhere.
I’d be prepared to forgive this, though, but for two things.
Firstly, the book takes itself so damn seriously. Kerr has included so much background information that it gets in the way of the plot. This is not achieved just by info-dumping in the main text, but also by swathes of footnotes some extending to almost half a page in size. I found that the size and frequency of these interfered with the flow of reading – this is meant to be a thriller, not an academic textbook. Do we really need a 10-line footnote explaining the link between a the name of an unimportant piece of equipment and the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Or is the author just showing off?
Secondly, if a book really is to be driven by such attention to detail, then it needs to get its facts *right*. There were all sorts of sillinesses.
One of the silly bits: The P2 virus can be cured by a complete blood transfusion. No. Sorry. If this was possible, then AIDS would be cured that way. It’s vital for the plot, though, because this has led to a market for blood ($1.7 million per litre!) and so it is stored in massively protected blood banks which Dallas has heretofore designed the security systems for.
Other silly bits:
Dallas stays in a “hyperbaric hotel” and the baddies pressurise his room to many times atmospheric pressure to soften him up. Dallas wakes up and feels the pressure. No. it doesn’t work that way – ask any scuba diver – your body equilibriates. A few minutes later the room is depressurized, but Dallas doesn’t go down with the bends.
The heroes have to make their way past a nuclear reactor on the Moon but don’t have shielded suits and get irradiated. Given all the other equipment got together for the heist, those suits really wouldn’t have been difficult to obtain.
And, since I am the UrbanSpaceman, I have to add two more silliness related to spaceflight. One was the description of the space toilet wherein, because of the zero-gravity, you have to push the excreta in the right direction with your (clad) fingers. Sigh. Couldn’t Kerr even find out how the toilets work on the shuttle or space station? And finally, spaceships that burn helium as a fuel. Oh puh-lease….
There's more, but I think that's enough.
First things first – the blurb on the back of the book is wrong. Our hero, Dana Dallas, does not attempt to break into the First National Blood Bank to steal blood to save his daughter – she gets killed on pages 119-120 of this 430 page book – his motive is revenge for the killing and that of his wife.
The story is set in 2069 in a world where 80% of the population has an AIDS-like virus called P2. The lucky 20% who are clear live separate protected lives and deposit blood for their own future use. An intriguing idea that could be developed nicely as SF, I think.
The Second Angel is actually marketed as a thriller, though. Perhaps this is just as well – the general reviews inside the cover are very complimentary. SF critics would, I think, generally pan this book. What seems radical and amazing to Esquire and the Mail on Sunday (e.g. quantum computing, genetic modification) are, in fact, ideas that have been used to much better effect elsewhere.
I’d be prepared to forgive this, though, but for two things.
Firstly, the book takes itself so damn seriously. Kerr has included so much background information that it gets in the way of the plot. This is not achieved just by info-dumping in the main text, but also by swathes of footnotes some extending to almost half a page in size. I found that the size and frequency of these interfered with the flow of reading – this is meant to be a thriller, not an academic textbook. Do we really need a 10-line footnote explaining the link between a the name of an unimportant piece of equipment and the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Or is the author just showing off?
Secondly, if a book really is to be driven by such attention to detail, then it needs to get its facts *right*. There were all sorts of sillinesses.
One of the silly bits: The P2 virus can be cured by a complete blood transfusion. No. Sorry. If this was possible, then AIDS would be cured that way. It’s vital for the plot, though, because this has led to a market for blood ($1.7 million per litre!) and so it is stored in massively protected blood banks which Dallas has heretofore designed the security systems for.
Other silly bits:
Dallas stays in a “hyperbaric hotel” and the baddies pressurise his room to many times atmospheric pressure to soften him up. Dallas wakes up and feels the pressure. No. it doesn’t work that way – ask any scuba diver – your body equilibriates. A few minutes later the room is depressurized, but Dallas doesn’t go down with the bends.
The heroes have to make their way past a nuclear reactor on the Moon but don’t have shielded suits and get irradiated. Given all the other equipment got together for the heist, those suits really wouldn’t have been difficult to obtain.
And, since I am the UrbanSpaceman, I have to add two more silliness related to spaceflight. One was the description of the space toilet wherein, because of the zero-gravity, you have to push the excreta in the right direction with your (clad) fingers. Sigh. Couldn’t Kerr even find out how the toilets work on the shuttle or space station? And finally, spaceships that burn helium as a fuel. Oh puh-lease….
There's more, but I think that's enough.
