While some readers didn't like this book, I enjoyed it. The story is about a cellular biologist who is trying to save his granddaughter from dying from cancer. The doctor has a radical new treatment that manipulates parts of cells related to aging, known as Telomeres. His experiments have shown that as the body gets older, Telomeres stop working and causes the body to stop renewing itself. He also believes they can stop cancer cells from reproducing.Luke Abramson, the biologist, kidnaps his granddaughter, Angela, as he races across the country to a medical facility where he can treat her. He engages with former students and other friends to help him along the way. The race is on as the police are on his trail to bring back Angela to her parents. Two other forces are at work here. The company that has funded Luke's research sees a bonanza with the treatment. If it can cure cancer, the owner can make billions. The treatment also could extend human life well beyond today's life expectancy. The other competing force is the US federal government. People there are convinced that if this new treatment and resulting drugs come on the market, it will ruin the US economy. If people can live much, much longer, the economy will collapse, because Social Security, Medicare and other programs will go bankrupt. They assume people will retire at 65 and live so long after, that they will bankrupt social and retirement programs.Eventually Angela is cured and Luke shows diminished aging, since he begins the same treatment. Once this happens, he is coerced into working for the US government in a secret research facility in the middle of nowhere. This is a great story of how vested interests want to stop progress and keep the status quo and power in their hands.Eventually Luke makes all his research available for free on the Internet and everyone lives happily ever after - I just through that in for affect. This is a fast, intense read. When a brilliant but crotchety 75-year-old cellular biologist's granddaughter is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, he quickly realizes that he is the only chance she has for survival. But when everyone objects to his proposed treatment, he turns his SUV into a makeshift medical facility, abducts the nearly-comatose girl and convinces her doctor to come along, and begins running from one medical research laboratory to another. While he begins treating his granddaughter with an experimental regimen he believes will kill the cancer, he realizes that he doesn't have the stamina to complete what he has set out to do. And so he begins injecting himself with a genetic factor that has the potential to reverse aging in humans. At times this is a bit too crowded with characters and their various motivations, but Ben Bova, old master that he is, has created a cutting-edge story of medical breakthroughs that is hard to put down.
Do You like book Transhuman (2014)?
not surprised at the 2.7 stars this one got. from fellow goodreaders.
—loganna
This is a good short story but somewhat predictable.
—melovemoi
Horrible ending :( Good book, up until the ending.
—dernika1
