Secret life of a townie

Monday, December 8, 2014

Friday, December 5, 2014

The Genome by Sergei Lukyanenko

2/5 stars

I don’t even know what to say about this read. So I’ll try. This book is divided into 3 sections. The first section, I could not put down. The reader is immediately thrown into world of space and genetically altered beings and we are introduced to Alex Rominov a space captain who happens upon a young girl and helps her.

The second section is heavily laden with thoughts of love and Alex’s supposed inability to love since he is a pilot he is only able to love his ship. This part was where the flip switched. At 52% I found myself putting the book down a lot and very easily. The entire story changed into something reminiscent of a fourteen year old boy’s dreams of romance and sex. Alex turns into a man-whore with the women on the ship, the descriptions of him connecting to the ship sound like erotica, and then the love-square develops with Alex, Kim, the boy trapped in a gel-crystal, and the female doctor on the ship. Ugh.

The third part of the book turns into a whodoneit, complete with a Dr. Watson and Mr. Homes investigating a murder on the ship. Not my cup of tea.

The author does give a warning note before the start of the book about cynical and immoral things. The Genome is well written, the fictional aspects are greatly executed, but I still feel like this book could have been something amazing besides a tongue-in-cheek mockery. Maybe that’s what the author was trying to accomplish, maybe he wanted this work to really stand out from the pack, but I feel like it could have been executed differently.