Customer Reviews

Specimen Tank

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Specimen Tank is a potboiler in the grandest tradition: reading it is a curiously ambiguous act of masochism. We relish the debasement, and yearn for more. It is a potboiler written with a keen sense of the limitations of the genre, and breaks free of the bonds of popular fiction to become a meditation on the vicissitudes of human existence. The author, by petulantly throwing the ladder away after we have scaled to the heights, leaves us stripped at the pinnacle, wondering if this novel has clarified our vision of ourselves or clouded it? For Specimen Tank, like a punch-drunk fighter who unwisely decides not to throw a prearranged 'fix', has the bad manners to remind us that human existence is a game to be played, win or lose

As a former drug researcher, all I can say is Buzz Callaway hit the nail on the head with this one. This dystopian gonzo novel explores the gradual descent of two protagonists from teaching, through sex performance, into being subjects for biomedical experiments. There's more truth in this book than anyone in the biotech industries would care to admit. Plus, it's funny as hell. If you don't like it, hand-deliver it to my house, and I'll buy it back from you.