Customer Reviews

Keeper's Child

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It's the near future: the land is dying, the poor are sick, and a doctor has spent thirty years of his life trying to protect and rebuild a protected city and its technology. Jesse's been a hero for his efforts - but he journeys away from his beloved city to experience firsthand the dying world, and possibly its only salvation in a girl who was born with a genetic trap in her blood, struggling for her life. An engrossing story of the future will satisfy any avid science fiction reader.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Set in the near future, this takes place on a continent whose population and climate have been ravaged by disease and genetic mutation.

It all began innocently enough. Many years before, a cargo ship full of genetic material sank off the coast. Over 600 migrants were hired to clean up the mess. It took years for their offspring to develop what became known as Bruster's Syndrome, but once they did, the government panicked. The diseased and their relatives were kept in quarantined camps. Those frightened citizens who could leave the continent have certainly done so. Houses for the diseased, who are called desgastas, are set up. In a way, Bruster's is like AIDS, in that a person can live a normal life with the disease. But, once it takes hold, the end is slow, painful, disgusting and assured.

Jesse is a celebrity in Carpenteria, one of the last safe cities on the continent, but the scientific mistakes in his past have caught up with him. His latest experiment has failed, dashing any hope of a future for his people. Beckoned by Harold, his brother and the last Keeper of the sick, Jesse travels to the shore, and sees the ruined climate for himself.

Harold's last ward is a young girl named Robin, who may be the savior of humanity. She is born desgastas, and has spent her whole life in exile. Jesse takes her to the city, to give her something of a normal life. Robin volunteers in a makeshift hospital, helping those dying of Bruster's. Eventually, she contracts full-blown Bruster's (for lack of a better term), and, amazingly, she survives. She has long since run away from the city, and returned to the house at the shore, where Jesse takes several samples of her blood, and returns to the city to turn them into a serum. Meantime, the desgastas squatting outside the city have entered the city and taken over. Now, they are dying faster than anyone can keep up with them.

This is a rather "slow" novel, but a really good novel. Stick with it, for the story is very much worth reading.

This story reminds us of how delicate we need to live in tune with nature and technology. It is a great book with well develped characters. I loved the detailed discriptions of the setting of the book. I began to feel part of the story and couldn't put it down. This is a page turner and I can't wait to see what happens next.

The author weaves a tale that pulls you in and out of believing there is hope for humankind. There is no reliance on sex or violence to keep the reader moving forward. The plot is extraordinary and the dialogue thoughtful. This book is almost impossible to put down once you start reading it. I cannot wait for the next one.

Keeper's Child Keeper's Child was originally written and published a number of years ago yet it paints an all-too-real picture of a society struggling after a biotechnology related ecological disaster. The biological methods we have developed since the initial publication of this book make it a very timely and cautionary tale. Hopefully we will have the wisdom to use these new tools that we have developed to help our world and not unleash ecological disaster like that in Keeper's Child. The protagonist of the book, Jesse, is a Geneticist who has won fame and fortune through helping people in the aftermath of the disaster. He has secrets of his own though and close connections with people less fortunate than the wealthy survivors he serves, cloistered in their gated city. His reluctant ward, the keeper's child, holds a key, but what does that key open? Nothing is simple in this world.

The scenes and characters are often very vividly drawn, I felt like I could smell the tang of the tainted ocean and feel the grit of the sand under my feet. It is often very immediate, at least one scene made me gasp out loud. It is a complex world and there are many underlying themes; issues of class, short-sightedness, our tendency to hide and hide from what we don't want to acknowledge, as well as uncontrollable biological change and adaptation. The narrative flows unevenly but it never stagnates, rather it jumps forward disorientingly, perhaps in keeping with its themes. Overall, this book is of that rare and precious variety that is likely to leave you thinking long after you have finished it. I recommend it!