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Second Nature
"Canter once again demonstrates his first-rate ear for dialogue, as well as a knack for nonstop pacing and a thoroughly convincing scientific grounding... the book’s large amount of exposition—on everything from nanotechnology to cetacean biology—is smoothly integrated into the fast-paced narrative. Confidently told sci-fi sure to reel in adventure fans." Kirkus Reviews
When the heart sees more keenly than the eye, beauty is unexpectedly found.
Gen is a teen-age woman. She is also a bio-warfare research project, designed by Col. Jack Eberhard. Born at Redstone Military Laboratories inside a quarantine unit rated Biohazard Level Four, Gen’s body harbors billions of microscopic organisms that have mutated from her genetically altered cells. The tiny entities in Gen’s tissues control life at the molecular level and Eberhard weekly tests their ability to heal the simulated combat wounds he inflicts on her.
When a deadly threat forces Gen to escape the lab, she discovers that her marvelous power to reconstruct living tissue, from proteins to cells to whole organs, enables her to transform herself bodily into any animal whose DNA she collects through a simple touch.
While in the form of a dolphin, Gen saves dolphin researcher Cade Seaborne from drowning. Her heartfelt attraction to him compels her to spontaneously shape-shift back into human form; but the morphing is incomplete and Cade encounters Gen as a woman with her head and face hideously deformed.
As Gen struggles with her dilemma of falling in love with a kind-hearted man who nonetheless regards her as pitifully ugly, the evolving microscopic life-forms inside her compel her to complete a frightening journey to fulfill their mysterious mission. Meanwhile, Eberhard has tracked down Gen and he’s sending in Special Forces to carry out a priority-one Executive capture and destroy his dangerous experiment. When Cade at last recognizes beauty behind the mask of a beast, he’ll give his life to protect the strange woman he cherishes. And he learns that love has its own transformative power.
Michael Crichton meets Hans Christian Anderson in this romantic thriller with the brains of science fiction and the heart of a fairy tale.
When the heart sees more keenly than the eye, beauty is unexpectedly found.
Gen is a teen-age woman. She is also a bio-warfare research project, designed by Col. Jack Eberhard. Born at Redstone Military Laboratories inside a quarantine unit rated Biohazard Level Four, Gen’s body harbors billions of microscopic organisms that have mutated from her genetically altered cells. The tiny entities in Gen’s tissues control life at the molecular level and Eberhard weekly tests their ability to heal the simulated combat wounds he inflicts on her.
When a deadly threat forces Gen to escape the lab, she discovers that her marvelous power to reconstruct living tissue, from proteins to cells to whole organs, enables her to transform herself bodily into any animal whose DNA she collects through a simple touch.
While in the form of a dolphin, Gen saves dolphin researcher Cade Seaborne from drowning. Her heartfelt attraction to him compels her to spontaneously shape-shift back into human form; but the morphing is incomplete and Cade encounters Gen as a woman with her head and face hideously deformed.
As Gen struggles with her dilemma of falling in love with a kind-hearted man who nonetheless regards her as pitifully ugly, the evolving microscopic life-forms inside her compel her to complete a frightening journey to fulfill their mysterious mission. Meanwhile, Eberhard has tracked down Gen and he’s sending in Special Forces to carry out a priority-one Executive capture and destroy his dangerous experiment. When Cade at last recognizes beauty behind the mask of a beast, he’ll give his life to protect the strange woman he cherishes. And he learns that love has its own transformative power.
Michael Crichton meets Hans Christian Anderson in this romantic thriller with the brains of science fiction and the heart of a fairy tale.
435 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
14 people want to read
About the author
Mark Canter
14 books16 followersI was raised in Kentucky hill country in a metropolis of 400 tobacco and hog farmers, where I belonged to the only Jewish family in the universe.
In my dharma-bum youth, I hitchhiked and jumped trains across the Western States and Canada and went through jobs from pizza chef to surgical orderly, massage therapist to rock-show stagehand.
After getting a journalism degree, I wrote for a few Florida newspapers before becoming senior editor of Men’s Health magazine. My short stories have been published nationally and my debut novel, Ember From the Sun, was published in 10 foreign languages.
I hold a master’s degree in the Humanities (“With Highest Distinction”) and for seven years I taught World Religions at Florida State University, where I specialized in “subverting the dominant paradigm.”
In my dharma-bum youth, I hitchhiked and jumped trains across the Western States and Canada and went through jobs from pizza chef to surgical orderly, massage therapist to rock-show stagehand.
After getting a journalism degree, I wrote for a few Florida newspapers before becoming senior editor of Men’s Health magazine. My short stories have been published nationally and my debut novel, Ember From the Sun, was published in 10 foreign languages.
I hold a master’s degree in the Humanities (“With Highest Distinction”) and for seven years I taught World Religions at Florida State University, where I specialized in “subverting the dominant paradigm.”
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March 2, 2020
This book is mesmerizing. The story is simple and the writing is weaved so well that he is painting a picture as he goes. Apart from the knowledgeable writing, it is spiritual and philosophical without being too high-end or dry. It is real and raw. There were very few typos and slips here and there that I could not help but notice and the book kind of dragged at the end. It must have seen very difficult to find an ending for this book that is both good and positive. In the end, love wins and with it everything that is good. In that sense, the book is easy but in all the other senses, it is exciting and alive. I think I appreciated the book more and a bit differently than other people because I knew a lot of the places that the writer mentioned and where the setting took place and that put me inside the book. At the same time, it rendered more truth to a work of fiction (if that makes sense). This book is definitely worth the read and very enjoyable. Why is not it more popular?
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