Customer Reviews

the Experiment

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

John Darnton's Pulitzer Prize credentials and industry plaudits at the top of this page duped and misled me. No prizes for this yarn. The book fails from the classic high-concept, poor-execution syndrome. The idea of an island of clones as an organ farm for the rich and famous is the fodder of good thrillers. What would happen if one of these poor clones escaped and made his way to New York City in search of his twin? Imagine the thrills and fun a reader could have turning pages to find out if this renegade fish out of water could stay one step ahead of the bad guys and foil the whole conspiracy!

No such luck. The novel's trouble begins as soon as the hapless twin manages a convenient escape from "Clone Island." From there, he quickly teams up with the "real" Jude and his girlfriend. Then they're off on a slow-witted, cross-country trek to find out -- well, we're never quite sure what they're looking for.

Our bumbling trio of hard drinkers (immune to hangovers!) prove to be amateur sleuths when it comes to unraveling conspiracies that reach all the way to -- surprise! -- Washington D.C. They could be swept up and killed at any time. Instead, they are allowed to traipse across the country, SLOOWWWLY unearthing clues to their pasts. The trio is never clever enough to figure out the big picture or who is supposedly chasing them. I ceased having fun. By the end of the story, the mad scientists finally sit our hero down and spell out the plot to him in a few pages of rushed narrative so the reader can make sense of this plodding story. Imagination, apparently, has run dry in New York.

Darnton shows off his investigative-reporting chops by expositing the science of cloning and life extension, presented here as a series of character lectures. This is more biochemistry than I needed to make this elementary plot work for me. Bombard the reader with cool science to make up for lazy plotting -- is that the formula for best sellers today? If he had worked half as hard to develop the plot and characters, we might have had some fun here.

I expected more from Darnton. His world-class wordsmithing barely stopped me from tossing this bore aside unfinished. And Darnton's shameless name-dropping in the "acknowledgements" buys him few points -- he makes sure we all know that he personally interviewed Dolly's creator so he would understand how to make clones. I would have been more impressed had he sought the counsel of Patricia Cornwell, not for the pat-on-the-back sound bite the editors snared for the cover, but rather for showing him how to craft a tasty page-turner.

Skyler lived his whole life on a secluded island as one of dozens of test subjects in a ground-breaking experiment being conducted by The Lab. The Lab, where Skyler has called home for 25 years will soon become a frightening memory after he makes a gruesome discovery; the mutilated body of another "subject". Skyler flees the island and ends up in New York where he comes face to face with himself.

Jude is a reporter for a local tabloid and becomes engrossed in his newest subject, a younger yet identical version of himself. Along with Tizzie, a medical researcher in biology and identical twins, the three set out on the long path to discover what the meaning is behind The Lab, the "Orderlies" who follow them around, and why there is suddenly a rash of similar murders.

Darnton did an excellent job in his research for this state-of-the-art thriller. If you enjoy biological thrillers, The Experiment is the book for you. I love this kind of novel, but I thought Darnton got a little too detailed at times when discussing the biological aspects of the story. When the technical descriptions went on too long, I found myself skimming right over them. It seemed this information got a little technical for the lay person who is just looking for a good suspense story.

Darnton presents a great story-line and "The Experiment" kept me up late at night reading. The characters develop well, especially Skyler, who becomes a personal friend. There is suspense, action, murder, and of course, biology to keep you interested until the very end.

As a reader of several novels a week, I expect -- at a very minimum -- that the author of a book at least TRIES to be creative. Darnton must think the reading public are all a bunch of fools. With his credentials, he should be ashamed of himself for cheating us -- his readers. I'm sure that after the undeserved success of his first novel, NEANDERTHAL, that he is laughing all the way to the bank and really doesn't care about entertaining his readers. We're not morons, Darnton. Don;t ever do this again to us. You've forever lost me as a future reader of your fiction. Shame on you.

This is the first novel by John Darnton that I have read. It is very well plotted and well researched, has interesting characters that you care about, moves very swiftly, and clearly explains the basis of recent genetic research. In spite of all these positives it nowhere near lives up to the potential that it could have achieved for a book by an author of his proven abilities. It appears that Darnton vacillated; he has written a book that has elements of a major work of fiction that philosophically and scientifically investigates such phenomena as cloning, gentic experimentation, organ transplants, and the effect of hereditary influences on identical twins but then also attempted to create an action-filled suspense novel to be quickly read without much contemplation.

The story begins with Jude Harley, a newspaper reporter, investigating a murder where the corpse had been mutilated, apparently to conceal the victim's identity. He is concurrently assigned by his editor to research a story on identical twins, which leads him to interview a leading expert in that field, Dr. Elizabeth Hurley. Meanwhile, alternate chapters introduce us to Skyler, a young man caught up in very strange circumstances on an island off the Atlantic coast. As you may guess, the lives of these three major protogonists are interwoven in strange ways that form the basis of this story. Jude and Skyler come face to face under dangerous circumstances, and appear to be twins despite the apparent immpoosibilty of that fact. For various but connected reasons several other murders occur and despite their suspicions regarding each other Skyler, Jude and Tizzie go on the run together in an attempt to discover their buried history and to unravel a conspiracy which reaches to the highest levels of the FBI and is attempting to destroy them.

I found the plot absorbing enough to get totally hooked, and some segments are incredibly well written and absolutely riveting. Unfortunately there are also some sloppy and unbelievable sequences that seem out of character with the reality that the author is trying to create. At times it seems that Darnton didn't quite know how to keep the reader's interest while getting to the ending that he desired and so forced action that is inconsistent with human nature and the pcharacters in this story. In summary, I liked the suspense, was glad that I read the book, but disappointed that it did not live up to the potential of the plot and its best parts.

When Jude stumbles into his identical self, Skyler, Judes life will never be the same. Ironically before Jude runs into his twin, he is involved in research about twins for the newspaper the Tibbet, where he meets Tizzie. Tizzie is a specialist on twin behavior. This trio finds themselves in the middle of a scientific conspiracy of cloning and the longevity of human life. While on the search for the truth, they find unthinkable tasks going on around them. The conspirators are of all sorts, rich wanting longer life, scientists just interested in the science and longer life, almost every one around the trio. Now that they have figured out most of the facts in this conspiracy, they have to figure out how to solve the problem and get out alive.

I enjoyed this nove, but was disapointed in the ending. I felt that with all the information shared and the complex story line, that the author cut the end of the novle short, and in the process made the ending predictable which didn't hold up to the great story weaved out for us. This was a great read, very informational. The characters were great the author did a wonderful job brining them to life. The concept of cloning I am sure is not that far off, lets just hope it never gets to the point it did in this novel. I can't say this is a must read, but I can say it wont be a waste of time.

My plane was late and I had finished my book. The extra books were in my checked luggage. I picked this book up in the airport gift shop thinking "any port in a storm" and not expecting to enjoy it. Wow! The time flew. I became interested in the characters and found myself finally walking onto the plane while still reading. Almost made me glad to be delayed.

If I'd read this book when I was in Junior High or even High School, I might have found it enthralling and a nice diversion..but as an adult who expects more, I can't recommend it.

Characters are barely sketched out and then are forced to remain incredibily dumb until other characters explain all in lengthy exposition.

The book had some ideas and a few moments but never really did anything with them.

Darnton did an excellent job for such a scientific tale. True there were errors (saying you couldn't more than identical twins, the fixed slides), but he had a good grip on the ideas of biology. He introduced RFLPs, the idea of introducing genes via a virus vector- all things that are commonly used in molecular biology. The tale was enthralling and for a man who does not enter the lab every day, excellent.

Clones. Genetic engineering. Sonnenkinder. Secret organizations of powerful people. If this is what you're looking for, Darnton has included them all.

The Experiment is strictly escapist literature. The fun is in guessing the next step in this formula novel. You'll need to feed your incredulity a heavy dose of immuno-suppressants.

Without a string of unbelievable coincidences, there'd be no story. (If you have a doppelganger, you *will* end up sitting next to him on the plane flight to your grandmother's funeral.) And Darnton uses the lazy writer's ploy of having his characters doing the stupidest possible thing in any circumstance....P>For those who don't read escapist literature in order to be depressed, I can tell you that this novel has a happy ending. I just won't tell you what.

The pace of "The Experiment" is equal to that of a perfect ballgame and John Darnton nearly hits this ball out of the park with few small exceptions.

Skyler, Jude and Tizzie are each fascinating people and we are given adequate information about each; however, late in the book there is no substantiation given for the shift in personal relationships. It is as if the author had meant to give us reasons these choices were made - but forgot to write those paragraphs.

Darnton stayed true to the basic scientific principles laid down as basis for the experiment (conspiracy) and his timeline was consistent with one single exception. It concerns a set of triplets and where they originated -- and more importantly how and when. Psychotic behavior isn't something that can be diagnosed in a fetus and certainly not in an egg.

I'd recommend this book -- as long as the reader can overlook 1 lack of background and 1 obvious gaff.