Chiller

On the verge of a breakthrough with his experiments in cryonics--the practice of freezing a corpse for future revival--Alex Cowell finds his experiment has brought about a confrontation with society's outdated concept of mortality

A promising first novel about cryonics (the freezing of human bodies for potential revival in the future), this science-based thriller set in contemporary Southern California challenges the idea that death as we know it is final. Alex Cowell and Susan Hagerty, respectively general manager and researcher at the cryonics firm Immortality Inc., successfully revive a cryonically preserved dog with the use of transglycerols, which prevent individual cell destruction during the freezing process. Their feat attracts the skeptical attention of the media, arouses the hidebound prejudices of Hagerty's employers at the university hospital on whose faculty she sits, inflames the self-righteous anger of Orange County preacher Carl Montana and inspires a holy crusade by the mysterious George, an unlikely but believable combination of religious nut, computer whiz and serial killer. Thanks to an unholly alliance between George and the Reverend Montana, sabotage and murder haunt Hagerty, Cowell and his girlfriend Kathryn Sheffield, until Immortality Inc.'s future--and their own--is on the line. Written in an expansive, easygoing style that fleshes out each character but sometimes blunts the narrative drive, the novel has snappy dialogue, believable science and the required plot twist that will prompt readers to exclaim, "Of course!" Blake does a good job of tying everything together, as well as putting forward the intriguing proposition that people are just as afraid of those who have the power to give life as they are of those who take it away.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Cryonics medical technifiction in the Michael Crichton vein but--despite the title--more thriller than horror chiller. A ``chiller'' is the dismissive name for frozen folks who await resurrection when medical science can deal with their once- fatal problems. Biochemist Alex Cowell runs Immortality Incorporated in Orange County, California, and has about 36 clients on ice, including his dog Sparkle. But he and Dr. Susan Hagerty--a researcher who's developed a transglycerol that avoids cell rupture (or freezer burn) during superdeep frigidity--bring Sparkle back from the dead after first having alleviated his spinal tumor with surgery that the dog could not have withstood while alive. Sparkle is the first major success in cryonics. Vitality Incorporated, meanwhile, a rival group that secretly has the bodies of John Wayne, Howard Hughes, Peter Sellers, and others on ice, is a registered archival tissue bank that does cryopreservation research--except that it's really a scam run by two religious phonies out to sucker millionaire celebs. Its chief phony, Dr. Lomax, once revived 12-year-old George, an orphan who drowned in a frozen lake. Then patches of George's brain went blooey, and as George grew older in foster homes, he became a body-builder, a credit-siphoning computer hacker, a religious fanatic, and at last a serial killer. The two phonies finally get terminator George under their control and sic him onto Immortality Incorporated. The reader may well wonder what's happening after George murders Alex, Susan, and their assistant Kathryn. But then the story leaps ahead 38 years, and the trio of dead researchers is brought back to life in the next century! And crazy George, much older, is still around, as are the two phonies, who've managed to join Immortality and Vitality into one group.... A nicely paced debut that holds up throughout, though George's misdeeds as a credit thief are far more compelling than his kill- sprees. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Blake's long, complex medical thriller tells the story of the resurrection of three pioneers in the cryonics movement who die in the 1990s and get unfrozen 38 years hence, in a brave new world where people call old-fashioned ideas "twencent" (meaning 20th century) and read newspapers on screens instead of in print. A doctor, a biochemist, and a lab assistant revive a dead dog from frozen suspension in liquid nitrogen--the first mammal ever to "come back." But they are stalked by a religious fanatic, a brilliant but demented computer hacker who sees their vocation as the devil's work. The gore starts on page one of the prolog and doesn't end until p. 496. Blake's easy way with humorous dialog lightens the proceedings, however, and there's a glorious surprise ending. This first novel is recommended for large public library collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/93.
- Joyce Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.