The Immortality Factor

From the Publisher

“Ben Bova's latest near-future SF thriller supplies a suspenseful ride and plenty of high-tech hardware as it builds to a climactic confrontation over Washington, D.C.”  —Publishers Weekly on Powersat

Publishers Weekly

Bova's cautionary medical thriller, the uncut version of his 1996 novel Brothers, explores the political, social and religious ramifications of what could be humankind's greatest medical breakthrough-organ regeneration. When biotech lab director Arthur Marshak discovers a way to grow replacement organs and limbs within a patient's own body, the uproar from religious extremists, conservative politicians and sensationalized media coverage threatens to derail the project. When Marshak decides to let a "science court" in Washington, D.C., rule on the validity of human organ regeneration, the subsequent travesty of a tribunal not only imperils his career but also his tempestuous relationship with his estranged brother, who happens to be married to Arthur's ex-fiancée. Even an implausible love triangle and a cast of two-dimensional characters can't dim the forcefulness of Bova's message: the singular significance of science in modern-day society. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Bova is best known for science fiction (Orion Among the Stars, 1995, etc.) that displays an unusual awareness of the role of politics in the scientific process. Here, he adapts that awareness to his second contemporary suspenser (after Death Dream, 1994), this involving one Arthur Marschak, head of Grenford biotechnical lab, where a genetic technique for allowing the body to regenerate injured or diseased organs has been discovered. Grenford has become the target of fundamentalist protestors, who believe that Arthur's breakthrough would disrupt God's plan; at the same time, Arthur's brother Jesse, a surgeon who has won humanitarian awards for his work among the poor in a Bronx hospital, opposes the life-extending treatment on the grounds that only the very rich will be able to afford it. The conflict is exacerbated by the fact that Jesse's wife, Julia, broke an engagement to Arthur to marry the doctor; and by Jesse's workaholic neglect of their dying mother. Meanwhile, the corporate ownership of Grenford is trying to fight a hostile takeover and is considering selling off the lab as a means of raising money, while at the same time Arthur convinces friends in Washington to convene a science court where the merits of his technique can be decided from scientific evidence alone. (Much of the novel consists of sensational testimony that, to Arthur's disgust, has nothing to do with the issues.) In the end, the good scientists win a victory of sorts, and the brothers achieve a reconciliation—hardly a surprise, but there's plenty of excitement along the way.

An effective mix of science, politics, and family struggle in a novel that should reach a wide audience.