Invasive Procedures

July 9, 2007
In this intriguing medical thriller from bestseller Card (Ender’s Game
) and screenwriter Johnston, George Galen, a disgraced geneticist, feeds and medicates the downtrodden with the help of a genetically altered band of helpers known as Healers. In the form of a virus called V16, Galen has developed an effective treatment for many incurable genetic diseases; the problem is that when V16 isn’t expressly tailored for each individual patient’s DNA, the results are disastrous. Enter virologist Lt. Col. Frank Hartman, recruited by the federal Biohazard Agency to catch Galen and create an antidote. As Frank and his team work frantically, romantic threads unspool, while Galen insists that if the government would just stay out of his way, he could save countless lives. Based on Johnston’s screenplay for Card’s 1977 story “Malpractice,” the novel plays out with few surprises, but raises pertinent regulatory questions.

September 1, 2007
This novel began life as Card's 1977 short story "Malpractice," which Johnston adapted into an unproduced screenplay. The two authors then developed another screenplay, which has now been expanded into this medical thriller. Dr. George Galen is a brilliant geneticist, but his vast ambitions have put him at odds with the medical research community and led him to create an underground research project resulting in the Healers, a group of humans with beyond-normal strength and remarkable self-healing powers. Further work produces V16, a virus of cloned genes that can be tailored to cure diseases in a specific person. Unfortunately, the virus is quickly fatal to anyone else. Several bizarre deaths catch the attention of the U.S. Biohazard Agency, which taps Dr. Frank Hartman, an infectious disease researcher, to investigate. The novel follows Hartman as he becomes one of Galen's guinea pigs and then leads a group of other victims in an escape attempt. Although a well-known author of such popular sf as the Ender series, Card has written a medical thriller "ripped from tomorrow's headlines." Gratuitous gore and sex are refreshingly absent. Purchase where Card and medical thrillers are popular.A.J. Wright, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham Lib.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2007
This near-future thriller is based on Johnstons screenplay adaptation of Cards 1977 story Malpractice, an early example of biotech sf. The plot is a duel between virologists. One scientist is promulgating a virus that has already altered many human beings into, for instance, Healers (mutated young men, primarily), who are reminiscent of a death squad made up of movie Terminators. The other virologist, at the behest of a secret government agency, is trying to stop the first. The novel wins the reader over on the basis of execution rather than conceptual originality, with pace, characterization, and chilling suspense all polished to a high gloss.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)