The
Killer App
John
Writher
I
knew immediately upon reading The Killer App's
back cover that the book could equally be an unexpected gem or an
unpolished rock. Alas; with the exception of its excellent premise
and related hints of promise, it is much more the latter than the
former. Set in a near-future England where geneticists have developed
an experimental procedure to transfer a grown human's consciousness
into a newborn's body, the plot offers plenty of potential
opportunities for serious meditation. Yet while Writher seems to
acknowledge many of the conundrums he poses, he rarely pays them
adequate attention. When he does focus more narrowly on the
considerable ethical dilemmas inherent in his premise and posited by
the plot's subsequent course, he often engages them not only far too
late but also by means of a character's convenient change of heart
that is too ill-defined and sudden to be at all convincing. Even the
book's genuinely surprising twists, and their significant emotional
fallout, fail to resonate or to provoke the type of philosophical
inquiry that the premise deserves. Readers and characters alike
suffer from clumsy prose and flat characters who don't quite act as
though they are anything more but vessels for the author's narrative
whims.
Two-dimensional
characters may occasionally prove sufficient in the type of thriller
that this book aspires to be, but The Killer App
lacks the kind of consistent pacing that maintains readers'
engagement. The book often feels fitful, with unexpected perspective
shifts that sometimes see minor supporting characters' thoughts
displayed with as much prominence as the protagonists', without a
segway to allow readers to make sense of the switch. Twists both
routine and unexpected (including not one, but two
utterly unnecessary and woefully unconvincing romantic arcs) do keep
the plot moving along, but the entire book is marred by an
out-of-nowhere ending that is equally problematic because of its
suddenness and its failure to follow up, or even acknowledge, the
fate of several minor characters whose treatment drives much of one
protagonist's moralistic deliberations (which are, at any rate, far
too little and far too late for the book to fulfill its evident
aspirations). To ignore these implications of the plot, especially
after deliberately drawing such attention to them in the name of
character development, is to effectively dissipate the novel's unique
ideas and waste its corresponding potential.
Added
to an endless parade of extraneous commas and a clear lack of
competent copy editing, the book's listlessness can make for a
frustrating reading experience, particularly when coupled with
Writher's excellent ideas. The result is a premise that seems
half-baked at best, with valuable literary real estate devoted to
unconvincing emotional asides and insufficient character development
where they could have explored the fascinating implications of the
technology that Writher so brilliantly conceives. Yet despite its
many flaws, the book nonetheless displays a fair bit of promise, with
a compelling premise that allows readers to speculate even when it
fails to capitalize on its conceptual strengths. The science fiction
at the book's core is first-rate and its basic premise is more than
worthy of further exploration, and I would love to see Writher or
another writer take another stab at it. Hampered, however, by
haphazard character development and a plot that ignores its more
interesting implications for a seemingly neat, but wholly
unsatisfying, conclusion, The Killer App
fails to deliver on its considerable potential.
Grade:
C
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