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The Experiment
In an isolated laboratory, a test subject discovers a human corpse with its heart removed...In New York City, a journalist investigates a homicide victim with its face and fingerprints removed...
Drawn together by medicine and murder, these two men are about to make a discovery that will change everything they think about science, nature, and themselves...
They share the same face.
Drawn together by medicine and murder, these two men are about to make a discovery that will change everything they think about science, nature, and themselves...
They share the same face.
421 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
22 people are currently reading
674 people want to read
About the author
John Darnton
15 books56 followersJohn Darnton has worked for The New York Times for forty years as a reporter, editor, and foreign correspondent. He is the recipient of two George Polk Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. He is also the author of five novels, including The Darwin Conspiracy and the best seller Neanderthal. He lives in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
January 4, 2019
A medio camino entre el thriller y la ciencia ficción, disfruté con esta novela que aborda el tema de la clonación humana desde una hipótesis futurista que ahora parece descabellada, pero que quién sabe si dentro de unas décadas podría llegar a ser cierta en caso de caer la tecnología en manos de personas sin escrúpulos.
July 28, 2015
I picked this book up originally because it sounded interesting. A secluded island with a bunch of people in their mid 20's who discover one of their friends dead in the basement of the main building. On the main land a reporter is looking into a story about a body that was found that was missing the face, finger tips and some of the internal organs. I mean how can that not pull you in. It did, at least for the first 200 pages.
I felt that the middle section of this book was just way to freaking long. The group were basically wandering around and randomly running into info that they needed to find out what was going on. Also what was with Jude making a big point about this two hour detour that was totally worth it even though it would make him late for something else and it turns out it was just basically a reptile zoo. I mean what!? He pretty much went to stare at this one lizard and was like omg I totally remember them from my youth. Okay?
By the end I really didn't care about any of them and even some of the twists had me going 'meh'. Also for some reason I keep picturing the mysterious scientist that started it all as a half spider half human hybrid for some freaking reason. haha not sure why.
There also was a lot, and I mean a lot, of scientific talk about twins and embryos and eternal youth but it was written in such a way that it was still quite understandable.
I might have given it a higher rating if it hadn't been so long!
I felt that the middle section of this book was just way to freaking long. The group were basically wandering around and randomly running into info that they needed to find out what was going on. Also what was with Jude making a big point about this two hour detour that was totally worth it even though it would make him late for something else and it turns out it was just basically a reptile zoo. I mean what!? He pretty much went to stare at this one lizard and was like omg I totally remember them from my youth. Okay?
By the end I really didn't care about any of them and even some of the twists had me going 'meh'. Also for some reason I keep picturing the mysterious scientist that started it all as a half spider half human hybrid for some freaking reason. haha not sure why.
There also was a lot, and I mean a lot, of scientific talk about twins and embryos and eternal youth but it was written in such a way that it was still quite understandable.
I might have given it a higher rating if it hadn't been so long!
June 27, 2009
This is an adventure story and a horror book if the reader considers the consequences. Extremely rich people pay big bucks to have clones of themselves created and raised in case a transplant is needed, in which case there's no reason to hunt around the world for potential donors who might be compatible. This is a similar story to a movie named the Island.
July 12, 2007
Thrill....Suspense....Science. Rolled into one. This is definitely a page turner. Talks about DNA's and experiments that scares the hell out of me. It makes me wonder if all these things would eventually happen in the near future...hhmmm....the book is a page turner...go ahead and take a look at it...
February 6, 2017
Only made it half-way.Had to give up. Was tedious reading. I had no idea what the point of the story was, and could not see the connection between the two simultaneous storylines!
May 22, 2024
review of
John Darnton's The Experiment
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 20, 2024
I was in a rural area visiting used bkstores. It's fairly typical in such places to find many of the bks being "New York Times Bestsellers". I usually avoid such bks, expecting them to be not very good, but I bought this one & another by the same author b/c I wanted to support the bkstore & b/c this seemed to be a critique of the mad scientism of the medical industry.
I'm not sure how many 'thrillers' I've read. A security guard at the Andy Warhol Museum, where I worked, gave me a Dean Koontz, wch I read. A psychologist that I was friends w/ in Brazil told me she liked Harlan Cobin so I read something by him. They were both solidly what I think of as 'best-selling thrillers' & they were similarly formulaic. For all I know, Koontz, Cobin, & Darnton are all the same person or the same team of writers or the same AI or whatever. Still, I enjoyed it, it did its 'job', I was led by the nose, I 'cared' about imaginary people & their imaginary travails.
The scene is set:
"It was dusk, at least, which meant they would be hard to spot in the shadows of the old manor—but not that hard if someone walked around back.
"Skyler felt the fear as a tingling in his groin; from there it spread upward to his belly and reached his arms and legs.
"This is crazy, he thought.
"If they were caught—he couldn't even imagine the punishment. Nothing like this had ever happened at the Lab.
"They weren't sure what they were going to do. They had no plan, really, other than to break into the Records Room and search for clues to explain what had happened to Patrick." - p 1
So they break into the Lab, Skylar finally takes a piss in a convenient retort & after what seems like eons they find..
"Male genitals slumped to one side, swollen with fluid. Skyler tries to avoid looking at the chest, but found his eyes drawn inexorably to it. The chest was gone. In its place was a cavity, sliced open, neat as a gutted fish. Flaps of squared-off skin hung down on either side like shutters on a window, and the rib cage had collapsed inward around a dark hole that was ringed in dark red—dried blood.
"It was Patrick." - p 4
Skyler felt horribly guilty - but how was he supposed to know that Patrick was going to mistakenly inject Skyler's urine in his genitals? It wasn't Skyler's fault.
Oh.. oh.. where was I? Now you know I'm just fuckin' w/ you, having a little fun derailing ye olde formula train - but, really, I don't mean any disrespect, I cdn't write a novel like this - or haven't yet, at least.
"Outside the lecture hall, Raisin pulled Skylar aside.
""It's phony, you know—this whole thing."
""What is?"
""Writing papers, getting grades. They don't even read them."
""How do you know?"
""I tested them. After the first two paragraphs I made it up. I wrote complete gibberish."
"He showed his paper and the grade he had gotten, scrawled at the end: VERY GOOD." - pp 8-9
We skip from Skylar & friends at the Lab to Jude, the reporter in the city:
"Jude passed an honor box in the lobby—Tibbet was too cheap to give the paper away even to the people who produced it—and recoiled at the hype of the page-one headline: KILLER FLU STALKS CITY. Apparently, two people were in the hospital." - p 26
Yes, welcome to the 'real' world. Okay. How cd I NOT like this bk? Darnton has already targetted fake academia & the business-as-usual fake media - & the medical industry is going to get it too.
"The desk officer showing him typical respect, as he read a People magazine without lifting his eye from the page. Jude knew the article, and the author of the article, and he toyed briefly with the idea of informing the officer that about forty percent of it was true. Instead, he placed one hand on the desk, within the range of the man's peripheral vision. The cop acknowledged his presence with a grunt and finally looked up." - p 40
Jude goes to an autopsy.
"McNichol handed Jude a blue jar of Vaseline and told him to dab some on his nose. "Trick of the trade," he explained. "Overwhelms the olfactory sense. I don't require it. I lost my smell of death many years ago."" - p 43
Will I ever get a chance to use that trick? Probably not. I'm reminded, tho, of something I discovered on my own: You know how yr eyes tear when you're chopping onions? If you put a wet paper towel on yr forehead yr eyes won't water. I imagine that the fumes from the onion get absorbed above yr eyes in the wet towel & leave yr eyes alone.
So far, you don't know what's going on from my review & that's deliberate, right? Well, here's a clue:
""Check the sheet," McNichol told Jude. "How old did I say this guy was?"
""Twenty-two to twenty-six years."
"The examiner looked momentarily confused—the first time his self-assurance had slipped a notch.
""Too young. I can tell by looking at these organs—that's way too young. How could I have been so wrong?"" - p 48
Jude's researches take him to an interview w/ a scientist who's studying twins:
""Do you know why scientists are so passionate about identical twins? Every year we trek to their gathering in Twinsburg, Ohio, and set up booths and hound them unmercifully to get them to participate in all kinds of studies." - p 64
& there actually IS a Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg & 2 friends of mine who aren't twins used to go to it every yr. I'm tempted to do the same - maybe wearing a t-shirt I have that says something like "No, we're not twins" or another one that has an arrow on it pointed sideways that says "I'm with stupid".
& here's another clue that might not even seem like a clue:
""Years ago, many years ago, I was sick and I lost a kidney."
""A kidney—how?"
""I was given an antibiotic that didn't agree with me. Gentamycin, it's called—it's fairly common. You get it for a urinary infection, which is what I had. Anyway, in some very few cases, it causes nephrotoxicity. It wipes out the kidneys. So I got a new one."" - p 109
Does that "in some very few cases, it causes" seem familiar? It shd, it's been bandied about quite a bit during the absolutely-safe-except-for-some-thousands-of-instances-where-it's-not era of making excuses for serious illnesses & deaths caused by covid-19 vaccines. It's called iatrogenesis, harm caused by medicine & drs, & there's far more of it than is EVER admitted to by the medical industry. All those 'rare' immune deficiencies may seem 'rare' on a case-by-case basis but when one generalizes all the immune deficiencies together they become much more common.
The novel's copyrighted 1999, the place is mostly NYC. Let's check out what's 'cheap' rent at the time:
"Jude got up early, fixed himself a cup of strong coffee and checked the want ads for a cheap room. He found three or four and circled the ads, including one around Astor Place that sounded right. It read: 1 bdroom, partly furnished, short term, no pets/smokers, $800/mo." - p 160
Sad but true, $800 a mnth at that time in NYC wd've been 'cheap' - but still unaffordable to the likes of me.
""your chance of dying starts to decelerate around the age of 80."
""you mean accelerate."
""no, just the opposite. if you make it to 80, the odds improve ever so slightly that you'll make it to 81. the human mortality rate levels off sharply at 110. So if you make it that far you might just be like madame calment—you'll coast along until 122."" - pp 182-183
This is one of those novels where it seems obvious that the author did research to enable making things realistic. As such, I imagine the above was established upon what was current aging research of the time. I'm thinking of just getting my brain surgically transferred into a young sea turtle. Think that'll work? I always have liked swimming.
It's rare for these 'best-seller' thrillers to deviate from very straight-forward boring college-educated writing. Darnton stays close to the norms but he does stray ever-so-slightly from time-to-time:
"One day your double walks in the door and, bingo, your life cuts to another movie. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the whole thing would just go away?—if I were to wake up on this park bench and find that it all was some kind of celluloid fantasy that curled up and caught fire in the afternoon sun." - p 190
Ok, he's not exactly waxing Clark Coolidge here but I'll settle for it.
""So if the cells only had the enzyme, they'd live longer? That's the theory?"
""It's not theory. It is demonstrable fact. Scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have injected the core of the enzyme-producing gene into human cells. Incidentally, they were able to get the gene by studying our little pond protozoan, which happens to produce huge amounts of telomerase. After they injected it, the telomeres regained their youthful length and the cells kept on dividing happily way beyond their life span. The cells have been rejuvenated."" - p 196
The novel, of course, puts all this in context, I'm just giving you teasers.
""As J. Robert Oppenheimer said before making the atom bomb: 'When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it."" - p 206
I made a short movie called "Imagine Utopias" that addresses exactly that. The idea is that while it's the imaginative people who think up diabolical ways of torture & destruction it might be the less imaginative people who bring those things into being. Therefore, I encourage creative people to Imagine Utopias instead of the opposite in the hopes that more utopic conditions will be generated.
"Hartman provided a narrative of the photos, explaining step by step how the nucleus was removed from an unfertilized egg and another nucleus put in its place, then given a tiny shock—1.25 kilovolts for 80 microseconds—to complete the merger and kick-start the process of cell division.
""Electric shock to start it off. Ironic, isn't it, when you think of Frankenstein? Maybe Mary Shelley was right, after all."" - p 220
"["]ever since Christiaan Barnard put the heart from a tweny-four-year-old woman who died in a car crash into the chest of fifty-five-year-old Louis Washkansky and gave him an extra eighteen days of life."" - p 224
18 days? I wonder how good those last 18 days were. Barnard showed that he cd do it but I'm not impressed.
""Imagine, for example, the qualitative leap that would occur if we increase human intelligence by a factor of four. We know we only use a paltry part of our brain." - p 230
Around the same time that I was reading the above I had started watching a movie called "Lucy" that was concerned w/ the same possibility. Don't you just love that sort of coincidence?!
""At the risk of sounding pompous, let me state my view," he intoned. "All of nature is a struggle between the species and the individual. The species strives only for procreation of itself, while the individual yearns for immortality for itself. One involves change and mutation, the other immutability and stasis. The conflict is irreconcilable."" - p 231
"DESERT GRASSLANDS WHIPTAIL.
""Some peculiar characteristics," she replied.
""Like what?" he said. What's he do?
""She, actually."
""How can you tell? How do you know which one I'm talking about?"
""That's just it." Her smile had a triumphant edge to it. "They're parthenogenetic. That's the salient characteristic."" - pp 319-320
Parthenogenesis. It's funny how once every 10 yrs or so that biological possibility is mentioned in something I read. Self-replication w/o sex.
"Everything about him galled her: the pens lined up so neatly in his pocket, the way he took notes in a book that he locked inside a drawer, the unctuous tone he used in talking with his superiors when they ate together in the canteen. She half expected him to rub his hands together like Uriah Heap, and once actually caught him doing it." - p 381
In other words, an untertan.
Yes, there was plenty for me to like about this bk.. I just get so tired of these writers who use cookie-cutter English all the time. Still, of the 3 thrillers I've read this was probably my favorite.
John Darnton's The Experiment
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 20, 2024
I was in a rural area visiting used bkstores. It's fairly typical in such places to find many of the bks being "New York Times Bestsellers". I usually avoid such bks, expecting them to be not very good, but I bought this one & another by the same author b/c I wanted to support the bkstore & b/c this seemed to be a critique of the mad scientism of the medical industry.
I'm not sure how many 'thrillers' I've read. A security guard at the Andy Warhol Museum, where I worked, gave me a Dean Koontz, wch I read. A psychologist that I was friends w/ in Brazil told me she liked Harlan Cobin so I read something by him. They were both solidly what I think of as 'best-selling thrillers' & they were similarly formulaic. For all I know, Koontz, Cobin, & Darnton are all the same person or the same team of writers or the same AI or whatever. Still, I enjoyed it, it did its 'job', I was led by the nose, I 'cared' about imaginary people & their imaginary travails.
The scene is set:
"It was dusk, at least, which meant they would be hard to spot in the shadows of the old manor—but not that hard if someone walked around back.
"Skyler felt the fear as a tingling in his groin; from there it spread upward to his belly and reached his arms and legs.
"This is crazy, he thought.
"If they were caught—he couldn't even imagine the punishment. Nothing like this had ever happened at the Lab.
"They weren't sure what they were going to do. They had no plan, really, other than to break into the Records Room and search for clues to explain what had happened to Patrick." - p 1
So they break into the Lab, Skylar finally takes a piss in a convenient retort & after what seems like eons they find..
"Male genitals slumped to one side, swollen with fluid. Skyler tries to avoid looking at the chest, but found his eyes drawn inexorably to it. The chest was gone. In its place was a cavity, sliced open, neat as a gutted fish. Flaps of squared-off skin hung down on either side like shutters on a window, and the rib cage had collapsed inward around a dark hole that was ringed in dark red—dried blood.
"It was Patrick." - p 4
Skyler felt horribly guilty - but how was he supposed to know that Patrick was going to mistakenly inject Skyler's urine in his genitals? It wasn't Skyler's fault.
Oh.. oh.. where was I? Now you know I'm just fuckin' w/ you, having a little fun derailing ye olde formula train - but, really, I don't mean any disrespect, I cdn't write a novel like this - or haven't yet, at least.
"Outside the lecture hall, Raisin pulled Skylar aside.
""It's phony, you know—this whole thing."
""What is?"
""Writing papers, getting grades. They don't even read them."
""How do you know?"
""I tested them. After the first two paragraphs I made it up. I wrote complete gibberish."
"He showed his paper and the grade he had gotten, scrawled at the end: VERY GOOD." - pp 8-9
We skip from Skylar & friends at the Lab to Jude, the reporter in the city:
"Jude passed an honor box in the lobby—Tibbet was too cheap to give the paper away even to the people who produced it—and recoiled at the hype of the page-one headline: KILLER FLU STALKS CITY. Apparently, two people were in the hospital." - p 26
Yes, welcome to the 'real' world. Okay. How cd I NOT like this bk? Darnton has already targetted fake academia & the business-as-usual fake media - & the medical industry is going to get it too.
"The desk officer showing him typical respect, as he read a People magazine without lifting his eye from the page. Jude knew the article, and the author of the article, and he toyed briefly with the idea of informing the officer that about forty percent of it was true. Instead, he placed one hand on the desk, within the range of the man's peripheral vision. The cop acknowledged his presence with a grunt and finally looked up." - p 40
Jude goes to an autopsy.
"McNichol handed Jude a blue jar of Vaseline and told him to dab some on his nose. "Trick of the trade," he explained. "Overwhelms the olfactory sense. I don't require it. I lost my smell of death many years ago."" - p 43
Will I ever get a chance to use that trick? Probably not. I'm reminded, tho, of something I discovered on my own: You know how yr eyes tear when you're chopping onions? If you put a wet paper towel on yr forehead yr eyes won't water. I imagine that the fumes from the onion get absorbed above yr eyes in the wet towel & leave yr eyes alone.
So far, you don't know what's going on from my review & that's deliberate, right? Well, here's a clue:
""Check the sheet," McNichol told Jude. "How old did I say this guy was?"
""Twenty-two to twenty-six years."
"The examiner looked momentarily confused—the first time his self-assurance had slipped a notch.
""Too young. I can tell by looking at these organs—that's way too young. How could I have been so wrong?"" - p 48
Jude's researches take him to an interview w/ a scientist who's studying twins:
""Do you know why scientists are so passionate about identical twins? Every year we trek to their gathering in Twinsburg, Ohio, and set up booths and hound them unmercifully to get them to participate in all kinds of studies." - p 64
& there actually IS a Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg & 2 friends of mine who aren't twins used to go to it every yr. I'm tempted to do the same - maybe wearing a t-shirt I have that says something like "No, we're not twins" or another one that has an arrow on it pointed sideways that says "I'm with stupid".
& here's another clue that might not even seem like a clue:
""Years ago, many years ago, I was sick and I lost a kidney."
""A kidney—how?"
""I was given an antibiotic that didn't agree with me. Gentamycin, it's called—it's fairly common. You get it for a urinary infection, which is what I had. Anyway, in some very few cases, it causes nephrotoxicity. It wipes out the kidneys. So I got a new one."" - p 109
Does that "in some very few cases, it causes" seem familiar? It shd, it's been bandied about quite a bit during the absolutely-safe-except-for-some-thousands-of-instances-where-it's-not era of making excuses for serious illnesses & deaths caused by covid-19 vaccines. It's called iatrogenesis, harm caused by medicine & drs, & there's far more of it than is EVER admitted to by the medical industry. All those 'rare' immune deficiencies may seem 'rare' on a case-by-case basis but when one generalizes all the immune deficiencies together they become much more common.
The novel's copyrighted 1999, the place is mostly NYC. Let's check out what's 'cheap' rent at the time:
"Jude got up early, fixed himself a cup of strong coffee and checked the want ads for a cheap room. He found three or four and circled the ads, including one around Astor Place that sounded right. It read: 1 bdroom, partly furnished, short term, no pets/smokers, $800/mo." - p 160
Sad but true, $800 a mnth at that time in NYC wd've been 'cheap' - but still unaffordable to the likes of me.
""your chance of dying starts to decelerate around the age of 80."
""you mean accelerate."
""no, just the opposite. if you make it to 80, the odds improve ever so slightly that you'll make it to 81. the human mortality rate levels off sharply at 110. So if you make it that far you might just be like madame calment—you'll coast along until 122."" - pp 182-183
This is one of those novels where it seems obvious that the author did research to enable making things realistic. As such, I imagine the above was established upon what was current aging research of the time. I'm thinking of just getting my brain surgically transferred into a young sea turtle. Think that'll work? I always have liked swimming.
It's rare for these 'best-seller' thrillers to deviate from very straight-forward boring college-educated writing. Darnton stays close to the norms but he does stray ever-so-slightly from time-to-time:
"One day your double walks in the door and, bingo, your life cuts to another movie. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the whole thing would just go away?—if I were to wake up on this park bench and find that it all was some kind of celluloid fantasy that curled up and caught fire in the afternoon sun." - p 190
Ok, he's not exactly waxing Clark Coolidge here but I'll settle for it.
""So if the cells only had the enzyme, they'd live longer? That's the theory?"
""It's not theory. It is demonstrable fact. Scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have injected the core of the enzyme-producing gene into human cells. Incidentally, they were able to get the gene by studying our little pond protozoan, which happens to produce huge amounts of telomerase. After they injected it, the telomeres regained their youthful length and the cells kept on dividing happily way beyond their life span. The cells have been rejuvenated."" - p 196
The novel, of course, puts all this in context, I'm just giving you teasers.
""As J. Robert Oppenheimer said before making the atom bomb: 'When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it."" - p 206
I made a short movie called "Imagine Utopias" that addresses exactly that. The idea is that while it's the imaginative people who think up diabolical ways of torture & destruction it might be the less imaginative people who bring those things into being. Therefore, I encourage creative people to Imagine Utopias instead of the opposite in the hopes that more utopic conditions will be generated.
"Hartman provided a narrative of the photos, explaining step by step how the nucleus was removed from an unfertilized egg and another nucleus put in its place, then given a tiny shock—1.25 kilovolts for 80 microseconds—to complete the merger and kick-start the process of cell division.
""Electric shock to start it off. Ironic, isn't it, when you think of Frankenstein? Maybe Mary Shelley was right, after all."" - p 220
"["]ever since Christiaan Barnard put the heart from a tweny-four-year-old woman who died in a car crash into the chest of fifty-five-year-old Louis Washkansky and gave him an extra eighteen days of life."" - p 224
18 days? I wonder how good those last 18 days were. Barnard showed that he cd do it but I'm not impressed.
""Imagine, for example, the qualitative leap that would occur if we increase human intelligence by a factor of four. We know we only use a paltry part of our brain." - p 230
Around the same time that I was reading the above I had started watching a movie called "Lucy" that was concerned w/ the same possibility. Don't you just love that sort of coincidence?!
""At the risk of sounding pompous, let me state my view," he intoned. "All of nature is a struggle between the species and the individual. The species strives only for procreation of itself, while the individual yearns for immortality for itself. One involves change and mutation, the other immutability and stasis. The conflict is irreconcilable."" - p 231
"DESERT GRASSLANDS WHIPTAIL.
""Some peculiar characteristics," she replied.
""Like what?" he said. What's he do?
""She, actually."
""How can you tell? How do you know which one I'm talking about?"
""That's just it." Her smile had a triumphant edge to it. "They're parthenogenetic. That's the salient characteristic."" - pp 319-320
Parthenogenesis. It's funny how once every 10 yrs or so that biological possibility is mentioned in something I read. Self-replication w/o sex.
"Everything about him galled her: the pens lined up so neatly in his pocket, the way he took notes in a book that he locked inside a drawer, the unctuous tone he used in talking with his superiors when they ate together in the canteen. She half expected him to rub his hands together like Uriah Heap, and once actually caught him doing it." - p 381
In other words, an untertan.
Yes, there was plenty for me to like about this bk.. I just get so tired of these writers who use cookie-cutter English all the time. Still, of the 3 thrillers I've read this was probably my favorite.
July 10, 2010
I'm classing this rather uninterestingly titled piece as "Medical Sci Fi Mystery Thriller."
An interesting, if no longer quite novel, premise: moderately successful New York reporter unexpectedly meets his own clone and together they uncover a sinister conspiracy for life extension which implicates many of the rich and powerful.
There's a lot of hard science in the book, which the author presents in an interesting manner nicely comprehensible to a laymen. Clearly this is his forte. Unfortunately he falls down on the character development and dialog - there's a lot of "tell" rather than "show." Plotting is fairly weak in places too, and I don't mean in the science, for which we willingly suspend our disbelief. The characters' actions often feel irrational, there are a lot of narrow escapes that feel seriously strained, and the female lead's interaction with the "bad guys" just isn't believable. It also felt very slow and unnecessarily drawn out, although this may be in part attributed to the fact I listened to most of it on CD which inevitably dilates the time factor.
I don't resent the time I spent listening - audio books do so improve long drives! - and certainly "The Experiment" should appeal to fans of medical thrillers. But, it wasn't particularly impressive to me as a work of literature.
An interesting, if no longer quite novel, premise: moderately successful New York reporter unexpectedly meets his own clone and together they uncover a sinister conspiracy for life extension which implicates many of the rich and powerful.
There's a lot of hard science in the book, which the author presents in an interesting manner nicely comprehensible to a laymen. Clearly this is his forte. Unfortunately he falls down on the character development and dialog - there's a lot of "tell" rather than "show." Plotting is fairly weak in places too, and I don't mean in the science, for which we willingly suspend our disbelief. The characters' actions often feel irrational, there are a lot of narrow escapes that feel seriously strained, and the female lead's interaction with the "bad guys" just isn't believable. It also felt very slow and unnecessarily drawn out, although this may be in part attributed to the fact I listened to most of it on CD which inevitably dilates the time factor.
I don't resent the time I spent listening - audio books do so improve long drives! - and certainly "The Experiment" should appeal to fans of medical thrillers. But, it wasn't particularly impressive to me as a work of literature.
January 17, 2012
Pretty decent thriller. A bit too long. Well paced and with some twists and turns, particularly in the end. There is a lot of the whole "when does science cross the line from good to evil", "what things are we meant to control and what we're not" sort of action going on. The science writing was done pretty well and accessible to layman reader. Recommended for fans of thrillers with mad scientists.
CAUTION minor sort of SPOILERS ahead.
Reading this book, I couldn't help but think that this is basically what Never Let Me Go would be like if written as a thriller. Then I checked publication dates and as it turns out Never Let Me Go was released 5 years after The Experiment. I don't know if Kazuo Ishiguro is even aware of that fact that he totally ripped the plot of his book off and I don't know if it's considered plagiarism if one steals the plot but reworks in in a different genre (probably not), but I thought it was worth mentioning, particularly since for me it definitely spoiled some of the book's surprises and revelations.
CAUTION minor sort of SPOILERS ahead.
Reading this book, I couldn't help but think that this is basically what Never Let Me Go would be like if written as a thriller. Then I checked publication dates and as it turns out Never Let Me Go was released 5 years after The Experiment. I don't know if Kazuo Ishiguro is even aware of that fact that he totally ripped the plot of his book off and I don't know if it's considered plagiarism if one steals the plot but reworks in in a different genre (probably not), but I thought it was worth mentioning, particularly since for me it definitely spoiled some of the book's surprises and revelations.
July 10, 2008
ARGH. The entire thing was written in 3rd person. It had a few short spoken conversations, but not nearly enough to make up for the "3rd-personness".
Darnton did his research--all the science was legit, all the theories were plausible, the results were what's to be expected in cloning research.
I could barely make it through. Don't read it.
Darnton did his research--all the science was legit, all the theories were plausible, the results were what's to be expected in cloning research.
I could barely make it through. Don't read it.
February 17, 2012
I didn't finish this book. I got half way through and it bored me to the point that I kept putting it down. I was captivated in the beginning but lost interest in the long scientific dialogue throughout. There are long talks about genetics and twins and despite being one myself it just didn't interest me.
June 21, 2020
I enjoyed this book, though I felt it took a little while for the pieces to start connecting and also that there were an awful lot of coincidences in the plot. I suppose if you are a spiritual person (even though this wasn't a book that leaned on religious themes to carry it), I can see where the idea of destiny could explain it. The overall concept was interesting, though to go into too much detail would spoil it.
Published author Jude is promoting his first book when Skyler escapes from the island community where he has spent his entire life. Skyler's reasons for escape are pretty clear, he has seen his best friends disappear under mysterious circumstances or be murdered, and he doesn't wish to be next. Skyler is book-smart but not street-smart and while trying to make sense of what everyone else sees as 'normal society', he happens to see Jude's picture in a newspaper promoting his book and realizes they look very similar. Meanwhile, Jude is also working his day job at a New York gossip paper, and while he wishes to follow up on a headline story about a strange murder upstate, his editor insists he instead focus on a filler piece about identical twins and sets up an interview with Dr. Tierney, aka Tizzie, a leading researcher in the field. Jude's reluctance wanes after Skyler shows up at his apartment and their resemblance is uncanny, though Skyler is clearly a few years younger than Jude, who is an only child. With the help of Tizzie, who Jude feels immediately attracted to, he begins to unravel the mystery that is Skyler, especially once Skyler informs them that Tizzie is a dead ringer for his deceased girlfriend Julia.
All in all, an interesting book, one that seemed like it was going to wrap up a good 100 pages before it did, although those 100 pages did add to the meat of the story and I'm glad the book didn't end early. Rereading early parts of the book for this review, as I read it before bed over the course of a couple weeks and thus might have dozed off before committing certain details to memory, some of the coincidences weren't actually coincidences at all, but still seems to be too perfect a confluence of events.
Published author Jude is promoting his first book when Skyler escapes from the island community where he has spent his entire life. Skyler's reasons for escape are pretty clear, he has seen his best friends disappear under mysterious circumstances or be murdered, and he doesn't wish to be next. Skyler is book-smart but not street-smart and while trying to make sense of what everyone else sees as 'normal society', he happens to see Jude's picture in a newspaper promoting his book and realizes they look very similar. Meanwhile, Jude is also working his day job at a New York gossip paper, and while he wishes to follow up on a headline story about a strange murder upstate, his editor insists he instead focus on a filler piece about identical twins and sets up an interview with Dr. Tierney, aka Tizzie, a leading researcher in the field. Jude's reluctance wanes after Skyler shows up at his apartment and their resemblance is uncanny, though Skyler is clearly a few years younger than Jude, who is an only child. With the help of Tizzie, who Jude feels immediately attracted to, he begins to unravel the mystery that is Skyler, especially once Skyler informs them that Tizzie is a dead ringer for his deceased girlfriend Julia.
All in all, an interesting book, one that seemed like it was going to wrap up a good 100 pages before it did, although those 100 pages did add to the meat of the story and I'm glad the book didn't end early. Rereading early parts of the book for this review, as I read it before bed over the course of a couple weeks and thus might have dozed off before committing certain details to memory, some of the coincidences weren't actually coincidences at all, but still seems to be too perfect a confluence of events.
January 7, 2020
The basic premise was interesting but the writing was quite bad. Excruciating detail for things that were commonplace and warranted the barest glossing over but scenes and actions which required descriptive detail were rushed by. Clearly the author was unable to correctly prioritize focus.
The characters were very unevenly drawn. In a blatant effort to create suspense, the author would have the characters make lame decisions, arbitrarily decide to withhold information, or have hyper-convenient memories and, of course, ignore all sounds that might mean danger. This last happened many times and became an idiotically amusing trope.
When I see the writer is a reporter, I lower my expectations for anything but serviceable writing and hope the ideas in the book make it worthwhile. I’ve been surprised often enough by actual good writing that I know this is not a hard rule of thumb, though. In this case, my worst expectations were fulfilled. Frankly, I’m not sure that a different editor would have made a difference. There were a number of places where cuts were clearly made, but this was not an enjoyable read. And the ending did not justify my irritated slog to the finale!
The characters were very unevenly drawn. In a blatant effort to create suspense, the author would have the characters make lame decisions, arbitrarily decide to withhold information, or have hyper-convenient memories and, of course, ignore all sounds that might mean danger. This last happened many times and became an idiotically amusing trope.
When I see the writer is a reporter, I lower my expectations for anything but serviceable writing and hope the ideas in the book make it worthwhile. I’ve been surprised often enough by actual good writing that I know this is not a hard rule of thumb, though. In this case, my worst expectations were fulfilled. Frankly, I’m not sure that a different editor would have made a difference. There were a number of places where cuts were clearly made, but this was not an enjoyable read. And the ending did not justify my irritated slog to the finale!
February 16, 2019
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first picked this book up. While some of my expectations weren’t met, it was overall a good read. I really appreciated how Darnton infused scientific facts and experiments with realistic fiction, it really added to the creep factor! The only downsides I saw were a few small grammatical errors that threw me off, and how the book wrapped up. It felt very predictable and it would have been nice to end with more questions, but that’s just how I interpreted the theme of the book. I’d recommend this book to all my fellow science nerds who crave suspense and the realistic horror of what humans could do in the name of science.
October 20, 2019
I read this years ago, when I was in high school or college. It left an impression on me, though, as being plausible, if not necessarily realistic. That's the only way I like science fiction - as something that COULD theoretically happen, and therefore is much more thought-provoking.
I'm glad I stumbled around until I found the title of this, because it's one I'd like to recommend to people and couldn't because it had been so long since I'd read it that I'd forgotten the title and author! Definitely read it if you're into theoretical genetic experimentation themes.
I'm glad I stumbled around until I found the title of this, because it's one I'd like to recommend to people and couldn't because it had been so long since I'd read it that I'd forgotten the title and author! Definitely read it if you're into theoretical genetic experimentation themes.
July 28, 2020
I found this book exciting. The story begins on an island where children are brought up without parents. Then the story skips to New York, and the reader follows the life of a newspaper reporter for a while. Suddenly the lives of the main character from the island and the one in New York collide in strange ways. Readers who like science fiction will enjoy. A couple of delightful twists really surprised me in the end.
June 19, 2024
This fell in the "reading it for Don category." The author is also an NYT reporter but the characters weren't as well drawn. I never bought the "Us against the conspiracy" part of the story. Why not just take your story to the media and be done with it. All that said, I stayed up late two nights in a row to finish this. A fairly innocuous way for me to learn more science.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 19, 2020
A Michael Crichton likw science/medical thriller based on cloning and lengthening human lifespans. The book was alittle uneven and drawn out in laces. But the concept was good and the book enjoyable.
June 5, 2025
I loved this book. There was a wonderful mixture of science, mystery and thrills. I was completely immersed in it from start to finish…it was so hard to take a break from reading it, and then I was sad that I finished it so quickly.
August 28, 2017
Pretty good mystery sci-fi novel
January 21, 2018
Wow! Different. A SYFY , medical, mystery around cloning.
July 10, 2019
Engaging and exciting story for about 2/3 of the book. The latter part became tedious and exhausting.
June 15, 2021
Ciencia ficción un poco reciclada pero lo disfruté.
October 25, 2021
Read in 2000. Riveting medical thriller.
February 26, 2022
Long but very enjoyable read. Tough to put down. Darnton’s ability to combine mystery, intrigue and science together is an amazing talent.
September 18, 2023
Decent story line, decent writing. I think Danton has some pretty good books out there but this wasn't it
July 5, 2024
how do you come up with something like this ?? so impressive
i just didn't want to be in the book, i only wanted to know the ending
i just didn't want to be in the book, i only wanted to know the ending
May 27, 2016
Things I liked -- the writing was quite good, and the characters were compelling. The science was well described, and not boring or confusing. The tension was good, with plenty of action. I listened to the audiobook, and narrator George Guidall's voice is incomparable.
Things I didn't like -- it seemed like there were quite a few coincidences. I know the author tried to address that in the Author Interview on the last CD, but typically the rule of novel-writing is that you get one coincidence, and it must be near the beginning. The middle of the book seemed aimless, without direction or focus. In the author interview, Mr. Darnton explained that he outlines the beginning and end of his novels, but not the middle.
The other thing I didn't care for was the discussion of whether clones have souls. I guess there are people who still doubt they do, but since identical twins are natural clones, I can't imagine there are many folks so callous as to believe one twin has a soul and the other doesn't.
I found the secrecy of the island far-fetched. I have a hard time believing anyone could hide such an experiment.
Despite all the negatives, I recommend you read the book. If artificial human cloning becomes possible and legal, we'll all be facing the questions raised by this book.
Things I didn't like -- it seemed like there were quite a few coincidences. I know the author tried to address that in the Author Interview on the last CD, but typically the rule of novel-writing is that you get one coincidence, and it must be near the beginning. The middle of the book seemed aimless, without direction or focus. In the author interview, Mr. Darnton explained that he outlines the beginning and end of his novels, but not the middle.
The other thing I didn't care for was the discussion of whether clones have souls. I guess there are people who still doubt they do, but since identical twins are natural clones, I can't imagine there are many folks so callous as to believe one twin has a soul and the other doesn't.
I found the secrecy of the island far-fetched. I have a hard time believing anyone could hide such an experiment.
Despite all the negatives, I recommend you read the book. If artificial human cloning becomes possible and legal, we'll all be facing the questions raised by this book.
September 24, 2016
Listened on unabridged audio cassette to this one while driving. Science & suspense cross in this story. The drama starts on a remote island off the coast of GA/FL (which I liked, including references to our local area & Fort Stewart. Teenage Skyler begins to see his friends disappear only to find out they've been harvested for 'parts.' In upstate NY, journalist Jude Harley, sees a corpse who's missing his finger prints in order to conceal his identity. Skyler & Jude meet on the streets of NYC after Skyler escapes his nightmare & find they look like each other in too many ways to be coincidence. Jude is dating Dr. Elizabeth Tierney, a twins expert who he met while researching a story on identical twins. When Sklyler meets Tizzie he finds she looks like his murdered love Julia. Thus all three come together on the trail of a scientific experiment that brings them together over more than just the circumstances that threw them together. Through their investigations they find they are part of a bizarre cloning experiment, and now they're in a deadly match with scientists and politicians who want to keep the whole thing quiet. A good escape read - or listen to ;)
March 16, 2012
Just started this today. Seems to be the novel version of the movie The Island. Not 100% sure about that, though. If it's what I think it is, then I'm pretty sure I know what the 'experiment' on this island is all about, so it won't be a plot twist or anything for me.
OK - I finished it not long ago and it was pretty good. I'd never read anything from this author before. The plot is a bit similar to The Island movie, but there are so many differences, I now think that the movie wasn't based on the book. Or if it was, then it was very loosely based on the basic plot, but the similarities end there.
The story did feel a little plodding at times, and the climax was rather anti-climactic, actually. Maybe it could have ended a bit more dramatically, but that's just my initial impression. Despite these issues, I enjoyed the story. Recommended.
OK - I finished it not long ago and it was pretty good. I'd never read anything from this author before. The plot is a bit similar to The Island movie, but there are so many differences, I now think that the movie wasn't based on the book. Or if it was, then it was very loosely based on the basic plot, but the similarities end there.
The story did feel a little plodding at times, and the climax was rather anti-climactic, actually. Maybe it could have ended a bit more dramatically, but that's just my initial impression. Despite these issues, I enjoyed the story. Recommended.
September 14, 2012
Darnton writes another thrilling science-based novel completely different from the first. In this one, we examine the world of reproductive technology and its nuances. Without giving too much away, it will open your eyes to things you may have never knew existed and really leave you wondering, 'could they??'.
I was thoroughly impressed with the progress of the book, though there are sections that drag on and on, which is indicative of my three star rating. I did enjoy its progress and the science was watered down enough that I understood it, but still technical enough that I had to trust some of the names, terms, and experiments. Darnton is to be praised for the detailed research he did/had done.
Kudos Mr. Darnton. I cannot wait to get to the next book, as I enjoy learning so much while being entertained!
I was thoroughly impressed with the progress of the book, though there are sections that drag on and on, which is indicative of my three star rating. I did enjoy its progress and the science was watered down enough that I understood it, but still technical enough that I had to trust some of the names, terms, and experiments. Darnton is to be praised for the detailed research he did/had done.
Kudos Mr. Darnton. I cannot wait to get to the next book, as I enjoy learning so much while being entertained!
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