Kirkus Reviews QR Code
GESTATION SEVEN by J. Stewart Willis

GESTATION SEVEN

One Was Black and One Was White

by J. Stewart Willis

Pub Date: March 30th, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5434-1015-0
Publisher: Xlibris

Young government scientist David Neale finds his life crumbling in a media firestorm after an unauthorized, after-hours experiment in human reproduction goes awry.

Willis flirts with the medical thriller formula in his debut, but instead of car/helicopter chases and sinister foreign assassins in darkened hospital high-rise parking garages, he puts a human-interest emphasis on all the plot threads more commercial potboilers leave out—the daily upheavals in the personal lives of researchers and families caught up in scandal after an unorthodox, unauthorized experiment. Neale, working for the National Institutes of Health in Alexandria, Virginia, has two kids and an unhappy wife. Caught up in visions of career glory and success, he had been drawn by two older colleagues into a rogue off-site experiment implanting surrogate mothers with primate cytoplasm. The goal was to trim the length and discomfort of human pregnancy by two months. But the experiment went wrong, leaving two dead mutant infants with Island of Dr. Moreau attributes (not dwelt upon in any horror-fiction detail). Ambitious young news reporter Mary Murphy stumbles across the fresh crime scene and tries to use David’s involvement as her springboard into big-time journalism. Local police detectives, lawyers, and politicians also smell career opportunities as the investigation becomes a national cause célèbre. Readers may find it either provocative or frustrating that there are few obvious villains in the traditional sense, little gee-whiz science-fiction speculation, and no race against time. David, meanwhile, remains a largely passive and somewhat pathetic protagonist, batted about by the morass of legal, ethical, and religious quandaries he has unwittingly unleashed. A question mark even hangs over whether he will ever learn his lesson (especially with conniving reporters). One can argue that in sacrificing facile action scenes, Willis makes the readers (particularly those with a fondness for Virginia place names and settings) think for themselves about judgments and consequences.    

A mild, cautionary tale about science ethics that sidesteps expected pulp-action clichés.