Madly-breeding mutant mice menace Hampshire, Sussex, and eventually most of England, becoming meaner and more man-like with every new generation in this latest thriller from the author of Manrissa Man and The Immortal Coil. While writers with better manners stick to the streets and footpaths of their proper genres, it is Van Greenaway's pleasure to rampage through the alleys behind the big houses, tipping over dustbins, annoying everybody within earshot, and making a thorough nuisance of himself. In Mutants, this determinedly unfashionable writer spray-paints the fences of C. P. Snow, Doris Lessing, John le CarrÉ and countless innocent English crime-writers. A trio of research scientists, headed by Quentin Quarrier and employed by multinational drug firm Price-Pearson, has been trying to speed up the gestation process in mammals, and they've been rather successful--except for a few unpleasant side-effects. With all the latest in gene-splitting and recombinant techniques available, the scientists have even managed to blend human chromosomal material into their experimental mice; but, alas, the beasties, timorous and sleekit no longer, have become as nasty as cabinet ministers and twice as dextrous, and every few weeks they double in size. Of course, they get loose, allowing official Britain to show its very worst face. Cheerily pessimistic, Mutants aims at lots and misses plenty, but it's always fun and nastily provoking.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1986
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Victor Gollancz--dist. by David & Charles