When I read this book, a simple thought entered my mind... Who was he KIDDING? Robin Cook, that is.
Mr. Cook writes books of a genre, and excels at it. This, even I cannot deny him. However, has anyone noticed his fixation with chromosome 6?
He mutates the short arm in the book titled after the same chromosome and does away with/ adds NGF to parts of it in Mutation.
It is in this medical horror genre that he excels and perhaps he should have stuck to his knitting. Sci-fi? Really, Mr. Cook?
I pick up a book, thinking it must scare me out of my wits with yet another future, yet so possible medical-ethic-breaking effort and I get pseudo-aliens?
This book, unlike his usual ones, speaks of a long lost race that resides under the ocean, and is thoroughly peaceful, unlike their cousins above land.
In a bizarre turn of events, a group of the unruly, almost neanderthal by comparison, cousins from up over land up in this white world. Expectedly, mayhem breaks loose and events turn topsy turvy.
A truly unjustified attempt to diversify. Much like Stephen King writing a Danielle Steele, or John Grisham’s ’’Skipping Christmas’’.
I may sound prejudiced, but it is my opinion that authors aught to write to their strengths and in case they do diverge, the results must at least meet a certain minimum criterion of quality, must they not?
This does not mean that I am against creative expression. However, if I, as an author must compete in a hitherto unventured category, must my book not be at least as good as those already present in the genre?
Would you compare Abduction with The War of the Worlds and still find it acceptable? Time Machine? 20, 000 leagues under the sea? Journey to the centre of the earth?
It’s a thought; you decide.