Hammers [Paperback]

Ron Dakron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2008

A young woman geneticist perfects a medical serum made form both human and shark DNA. In her hurry and ambition she skips biotech protocol and tries the serum on herself. But a mistake has been made - instead of shooting up a fraction of shark DNA, she's popped the entire hammerhead genetic code. Oops. Hammers is a comic novel about people turning into sharks. Set in a modern biotech city, it follows five characters as they mutate and fight for dominance, sex and a reliable source of fresh squid. Hammers is a classic transformation tale in the genre of Kafka's Metamorphosis and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Ne plus ultra bizarre, man! With cartilaginous prose, soft as fishbone, sense-bending and scattershot as a Robin Williams shtick where lost meanings blast by, Dakron's third follows the comet trails of Infra and Newt (neither reviewed) with a morphological plot out of Ovid by way of Kafka--but doesn't quite win the blue ribbon. Nico, a 33-year-old geneticist for Zylogen, a med tech firm, is extracting material from hammerhead shark fetuses in order to create a serum against shock in humans: Sharks are shockproof and, if disemboweled, will eat their own guts. The serum seems to work on mice, and, rather than wait for FDA approval for tests on humans, Nobel-hungry Nico administers Serum H to herself. Alas, poor Nico! There's too much shark DNA grafted onto the virus she's popping, and Nico herself morphs into a hammerhead shark. To grasp even this much story, however, one must extract plot serum from the self-reflexive and cursive swish of Dakron's eye-bobbling wordflow (``Move your fin to the left, my leetle cabbage, yes? Mmmm, ce qua belle-pardon? . . . Ha ha, you never tire . . . hush. Let me whisper it then, shhh, let me whisper about the squid in drag. . . ``). When Nico visits her brother Zave (Xavier), who sells fish in Seattle's Pike Place Market, Zave notices that she has nictitating membranes protecting her eyes. Then shark teeth push out Nico's choppers. Her senses mutate into shark senses--she gains an nth sense or radar that's a blend of seeing and hearing and touching, she hears with her whole skin, sees wisps of voltage everywhere. Then Zave, his ex-girlfriend Tina, and two junkies also take Serum H and turn hammerhead. As the women swim off, later to be attacked by the junkies, Zave lies slowly growing gills and scales in his bathtub, avoiding SWAT teams while he writes this account on his laptop and waits to swim after the girls. As storytelling, Steve Alten's thriller Meg (p. 568), about a 60-foot Jurassic shark, leaves Hammers too literary by half and gasping on the shore. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"...readers of [Hammers]...will discover a writer with a fine ear and plenty of gusto..." -- Publishers Weekly

"Obviously Dakron knows what he is doing..." -- The American Book Review

"Readers are best advised to get the hang of Dakron's predatory prose before it gets the hang of them..." --Reflex Magazine

"With cartilaginous prose, soft as fishbone, sense-bending and scattershot as a Robin Williams shtick where lost meanings blast by, [Hammers] follows...a morphological plot out of Ovid by way of Kafka..." --Kirkus Reviews

"Readers of [[Hammers]...will discover a writer with a fine ear and plenty of gusto..." --Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 251 pages
• Publisher: Black Heron Press (October 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 093077387X
• ISBN-13: 978-0930773878
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,728,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Scientist injects shark DNA!, May 13, 2000

By 

Chris McKinley "[e-mail]" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hammers (Hardcover)

Unusual novel about a woman scientist who injects herself with hammerhead shark DNA. Told from the perspective of the woman's foster brother, the book uses language in a unique way - creating a kaleidoscope of his impressions as he watches the metamorphosis of his foster sister into an interesting species.