What do you think?
Rate this book
Archaea
Secluded deep in the heart of rural Texas, a team of scientists is testing the ultimate solution to abortion: an archaea, a virtually indestructible but otherwise benign microbe engineered in Chinese laboratories to cause female infertility. The ability to conceive will come at a price. Late in the testing the Reverend Alan Redden uncovers a side effect that will kill a quarter-million women worldwide. Worse still, he finds that he alone among the conspirators believes these deaths are unacceptable.
239 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
2 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 16, 2013
What happens when you mix deadly microbes with religious zealots with animal rights activists? You get an extremely entertaining and well written mystery thriller by debut novelist Sam Hawksworth.
The book opens with a man being transferred against his will from a deep maximum security prison – “a clean version of hell” – and we quickly learn about the book’s title. An archaea is a single celled microorganism that by itself is safe and not pathogenic. But what happens if it is combined with a pathogenic component? As archaea are easily transmitted we suddenly have a mechanism for a worldwide epidemic of the attached pathogen. This one causes infertility, something that the secret organization manufacturing it sees as a plus. Unfortunately, it has the inconvenient side effect of being fatal to about a quarter of a million women worldwide.
That’s the starting point for a wild ride that intertwines the lives of an Ivy League professor, an FBI team out of Boston, a trio of animal rights activists concerned about a secret, paramilitary-protected compound in Texas, a few anti-abortion fanatics, and a smattering of white supremacists, all with their own reasons for supporting, or fighting, the cause.
Hawksworth deftly communicates the intricacies of biological agents while giving us insights into the motives and rationales of each character and group. Questions of morality and societal responsibility are raised as the book skates along the difficult issues of overpopulation and disease. His plot twists keep the story moving, and not always in the direction you think it is going. I found myself racing through the pages, eager to find out what happens next.
The book is available as an ebook through Amazon’s digital services and for a price so low that it was an easy decision to take a chance on an unknown author. I’m glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
The book opens with a man being transferred against his will from a deep maximum security prison – “a clean version of hell” – and we quickly learn about the book’s title. An archaea is a single celled microorganism that by itself is safe and not pathogenic. But what happens if it is combined with a pathogenic component? As archaea are easily transmitted we suddenly have a mechanism for a worldwide epidemic of the attached pathogen. This one causes infertility, something that the secret organization manufacturing it sees as a plus. Unfortunately, it has the inconvenient side effect of being fatal to about a quarter of a million women worldwide.
That’s the starting point for a wild ride that intertwines the lives of an Ivy League professor, an FBI team out of Boston, a trio of animal rights activists concerned about a secret, paramilitary-protected compound in Texas, a few anti-abortion fanatics, and a smattering of white supremacists, all with their own reasons for supporting, or fighting, the cause.
Hawksworth deftly communicates the intricacies of biological agents while giving us insights into the motives and rationales of each character and group. Questions of morality and societal responsibility are raised as the book skates along the difficult issues of overpopulation and disease. His plot twists keep the story moving, and not always in the direction you think it is going. I found myself racing through the pages, eager to find out what happens next.
The book is available as an ebook through Amazon’s digital services and for a price so low that it was an easy decision to take a chance on an unknown author. I’m glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review