Futuristic flourishes deck out a down-and-dirty story of a murderous conspiracy that roils an elite boarding school and its brainwashed students. The year is 2036. Gyromobiles have largely replaced automobiles. They cruise the skies above San Angeles, a city created to handle California's population explosion. In the desert, a massive tower thrusts skyward. This is Stansbury School, home to 4,000 students (known as specimens), ages 6 through 18, most destined for Ivy League schools. They exist on an elaborate med cycle that stimulates intellectual and physical growth while suppressing sexual and aggressive urges. A lethally armed security force controls "unbalanced" specimens. Foremost among these is Cooley, a rebellious orphan on scholarship who won't take his pills. His adversary is another scholarship orphan, Goldsmith, unpopular valedictorian and steely enforcer of the rules who yearns for friends. Might a crisis cause the two to bond? Yes indeed. Five Stansbury graduates, unbalanced ex-specimens, have been brutally murdered in San Angeles. Cooley stumbles onto the scene of the sixth serial killing and is set up as the perpetrator, but then his nemesis Goldsmith uncharacteristically breaks the rules and visits the San Angeles murder scene. He realizes he and Cooley are both pawns, and eventually discovers the killings are linked to an imminent Senate vote in Washington that would bestow a trillion dollars annually on Stansbury. The novel spins out of control as murder reaches the school's executive suites. In comic-book heroics involving laser syringes and heat-seeking ThermaGuns, the orphans hold off Security long enough to allow a former valedictorian, despite her "deep, red, andwet" wounds, to simulcast damning testimony to the Senate committee. A first novel that sacrifices a serious consideration of eugenics and the price of progress to the greedy demands of a tangled plot.
In the year 2036, the world's best boarding school is the Stansbury School. The students, better known as specimens, are screened at a young age and then given twelve years of the finest education-and developmental drug regimen-available. Graduates go on to dominate in all the top colleges, Forbes 500 companies, and government positions.
But when several alumni are murdered, school officials decide to keep the police in the dark. They discreetly ask the school's valedictorian to solve the mystery, but he discovers that the most obvious culprit, the school's chemically-imbalanced delinquent-and his own nemesis-is being framed. Together, the two unlikely allies uncover a massive conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of the Stansbury administration and the United States government.
In the year 2036, the world's best boarding school is the Stansbury School. The students, better known as specimens, are screened at a young age and then given twelve years of the finest education-and developmental drug regimen-available. Graduates go on to dominate in all the top colleges, Forbes 500 companies, and government positions.
But when several alumni are murdered, school officials decide to keep the police in the dark. They discreetly ask the school's valedictorian to solve the mystery, but he discovers that the most obvious culprit, the school's chemically-imbalanced delinquent-and his own nemesis-is being framed. Together, the two unlikely allies uncover a massive conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of the Stansbury administration and the United States government.
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169804263 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2007 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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