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The Plasma Cell Report

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“Whatever Can Go Forward Can Go Backward.”

In May 1987, a scientific discovery that threatened to destroy society became a dire crisis. The Presidential Commission on the Plasma Cell Project examined the circumstances surrounding this matter and presents its findings to the American people in this fascinating novel.

When a woman who appears to be in her late twenties yet claims to be sixty-three years old is admitted to a Cincinnati hospital, Dr. Philip Insbrook is convinced she is suffering from some form of mental illness. However, as he spends more time with the mysterious and beautiful patient—with whom he eventually falls in love and becomes intimate—and investigates her background, he is forced to accept that Katie Shepard is inexplicably reverse aging. But Insbrook, a brilliant physician, has ideas as to the cause of Katie’s condition and races to find a solution.

Katie and Insbrook attract the attention of several powerful government agencies, most notably the White House and the National Security Agency (NSA), that begin considering the potential ramifications of exploiting Katie’s condition to induce reverse aging at a population level, a top-secret program the White House designates the Plasma Cell Project. While ethical and practical questions about the global impact of a population that never ages are examined, the paranoid and politically faltering President becomes drawn to the possibilities, but unbeknownst to him, the NSA has different ideas.

The Plasma Cell Report is a fast-paced, thought-provoking novel about a not-so-distant scientific breakthrough that could forever change life as we know it.

325 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 15, 2024

12 people are currently reading
3419 people want to read

About the author

Joel Geiderman

2 books12 followers

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5 stars
18 (36%)
4 stars
8 (16%)
3 stars
11 (22%)
2 stars
10 (20%)
1 star
2 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
Profile Image for Terry.
450 reviews144 followers
June 22, 2024
Interesting, well researched and well written medical/time travelling thriller. Have to pay attention but a decent read overall.

<-- The Fine Print -->
*This book was won in a contest.
All opinions stated here are my own and I didn't receive any compensation for my stated opinions. Thank you to the author, the publisher and Goodreads for this contest.*
Profile Image for Aristotle.
735 reviews75 followers
January 29, 2024
Congrats — You are a Giveaways Winner!

'Whatever Can Go Forward Can Go Backward'

This is a book about time travel I'm always up for that.

20% and I'm thinking what is this?
So I reread the blurb and realized this is about reverse aging.
What?
The global impact of a population that never ages.
Oh, man!
Moral of my rant is to read the blurb carefully.

The review

The global impact of a population that never ages? I'm going to go out on a limb a say the impact will be disastrous.

The wisdom of a 63 year old in the body of a 28 year old.
That's the story that needed to be told.

Plus why 1987?
Set it in 2087.

The USA bombing Muammar Gadaffi in 1986. What does that have to do with anything? So why spend time on it? How the NSA was formed. Who cares!

This didn't work.
Profile Image for Carla Black.
345 reviews87 followers
July 3, 2024
I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. This is a very sophisticated story. You have to pay close attention to the details so you don't get lost and off track. It is very well written and very well researched. It's a thriller about time travel and defying space and time and all odds. There is a lot of politically areas of the book which is not my thing at all. I can't stand politics so it was a turn off for me. That's just my personal fault not the writers. The politically areas did attach to the storyline very well however. It was a good book. Just not my favorite. You may like it, Give it a try and form your own opinion.
Profile Image for Isabella V.
7 reviews
July 15, 2024
The back of the book made this book seem very exciting, but I did not find it thrilling at all. This was mostly due to how the book was written. I felt that it was too erratic in content between chapters, the writing was like a history textbook, and the explanations were directly stated. The reasoning was very in depth, which was nice. If you like politically based books this probably would be the book for you!
I received this book as part of a giveaway.
Profile Image for Camille Rechler.
3 reviews1 follower
February 6, 2024
A compelling thriller that defies the odds of space and time! The political backdrop only intensifies the plot and keeps you hooked! A great page turner that will keep you wanting more.
Profile Image for Tiffany W.
95 reviews3 followers
dnf
April 30, 2024
could not get into this book, DNF
Profile Image for Read Ng.
1,366 reviews26 followers
May 23, 2024
This was a GoodReads giveaway win of a Kindle ebook.

I gave it only 2 stars, but for my taste, it was more like one and one half.

The first half of the story jumped between the mystery behind patient zero's medical phenomena and the history (mystery) of the NSA. Set in the mid 1980's, it was as far as I could tell a well researched and well detailed background on the NSA. I liked that, but for me it did not make for very exciting nor engaging storytelling. More focus on the medical mystery might have worked better. The romance portion just struck me as creepy.

As for the last half, I only found it to be so-so. The ending was a bit of a surprise as it seemed a bit too conspiracy focused and clean of an ending.

Now go find your next GoodReads.
1 review
February 5, 2024
A political thriller in which the White House
and the NSA clash over an earthshaking discovery .
Worth the read .
Profile Image for Kerri.
563 reviews20 followers
July 7, 2024
I received this book through a Goodreads Giveaway. I gave it 2 stars because writing a book is hard work and I think that alone deserves one star. For the story itself, I give it one star. It read more like a non-fiction history book through much of it with huge data dumps. The dialogue when it does come along is stilted, weird, and sometimes borders on creepy. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend.
1 review
April 20, 2024
A great first book which reminded me of Michael Crichton. Solidly researched with great details set the scenes. As a physician I was especially pleased at the solid medical science and thought processes of the medical people involved. At multiple times I stopped to think of the implications of what was happening since there are multiple decision points for the characters. Good fun and entertaining. Looking forward to next
4 reviews
Read
January 19, 2026
This was a fantastic story, really interesting characters, and a plot that keeps you hooked. The twists were engrossing and I couldn’t put it down. There were a lot of great details on a unique subject matter. Loved the book!
Profile Image for Brittany T.
37 reviews
June 5, 2024
Won this in a giveaway🥰

What happened to Katie Shepherd? That's basically how the the book starts, having you wonder what happened. Katie Shepherd is 63-years old, but looks to be in her late 20s, and attractive. So when she's admitted to the hospital after a car accident, Insbrook, a doctor, falls for her. And that is where the question of ethics start coming in. Other than that, we get a full background of NSA, which I don't think was necessary, and threat levels they have, which made me wondering what a reverse aging woman has anything to do with. As for the impact of the population on the land, yeah, I see something there, especially when people stop or reverse their aging and they don't see the need to breed. Then there's a point where the NSA does come in when Katie's condition was reported as something that could spread, I guess, but they hardly know anything about it. Now the NSA is suspicious. And I think this medical situation was reported prematurely, because Insbrook is still trying to find out what the flying fudge is going on at this point, and he doesn't know if this medical condition would spread. But there is something going on with Katie, as some tried to kill her as he was taking Katie to the psych ward. After she gets transferred to Atlanta, Insbrook and Katie, well, do the deed, because they just had to fall in love. But why? The only possible reason I could think of is reverse aging is seductive and whatnot. Maybe Katie needs comfort after finding out she has some kind of cancer that causes her to be attractive to doctors. Damn the ethics.

The further I read, the more I think the author should have focused on the NSA, considering the massive info dumps. Okay, the NSA is shady, and it might make sense that they're worried about what would happen if the population stops aging? But it gets dragging when there are details that have nothing to do with the main point.

The implications of reverse aging or anti-anging, if he focused more on that, got me interested. Maybe it's effects on politics in general is why there was so much wording about unrelated things, as boring as that was. And the possible effects on the population, like if people just lived a really long time and didn't feel the need to be lawful citizens.

The book wasn't too bad. I think the author could have chose either the NSA or the medical situation, or at least cut a bunch out and left the relevant information.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Priscila Vera Schmidt.
409 reviews7 followers
April 12, 2024
This would have been a 5 star book for me... but all the emphasis on how the NSA operates and some of their operations, made me finally settle for 3 stars.

I think all of those explanations weren't necessary or it could be given in a chapter not in several of them. I didn't need to know the biography of their more proficient members, only their names to have some context during meetings. Maybe, they could share some of their experience or made us understand where they reasoning come from with their thoughts.

Other thing I never got was that this was supposed to be a report... but I never felt like I was reading such report, nor like I was being in the room where this report was being discussed. It's more like someone made a timeline of facts (considering the end of most of the people involved, the veracity of the timeline can be tested too). I was expecting the discussion to be on the epilogue but it wasn't, so there was not any kind of resolution to this report.

Even like that, I enjoyed reading this book. It was very well written and it was a pleasure to read about the Plasma Cell Project and all the consequences of it's implementation. The ending was surprising and I never saw it coming. I hope to read more of your books. I really like your writing style and the fact that you make me like books like this, so out of my comfort zone.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for DP.
199 reviews2 followers
July 12, 2024
I won a copy of this from Goodreads.

This sounded like it would be a pretty interesting book. A woman is basically reverse aging, the doctors try to figure out what's going on, the government gets involved, etc. However, a lot of this book was the author dumping facts that really had nothing to do with the book (history of the NSA, history of previous bombings, history of dealing with other countries, etc.). It felt like I was reading a textbook and I basically skimmed over all those parts. There were also a lot of characters introduced and I really had no idea who belonged with what group. A good idea for a book but not well executed IMO.

574 reviews28 followers
August 24, 2024
A young woman appears in an emergency room after a minor traffic accident insisting she is in her sixties. This small event unlocks a potential secret, and every part of the government wants to do something about it.

The book is set in 1987. I am not sure why, although there are some scientific, military and historical references that may fit. Those details did not sink in to me so I considered them extraneous to the plot.

The book is sometimes written like an official government report. This style made the flow of the book stagnant for my reading.

There are some racy scenes, again, somewhat out of the norm for the plot. There were too many characters to keep track of for my liking, and too many superfluous details for most of the characters.
An interesting ending though.
Profile Image for Kenneth Iserson.
Author 21 books10 followers
May 19, 2024
Amazingly detailed thriller involving the highly secretive U.S. National Security Agency. The premise is that a physician discovers a possible way to reverse aging. Everyone isn't thrilled.
Both topics are timely, although reversing aging is still science fiction. The NSA is real--and involved in lots of nefarious stuff around the world. Worth a look.
Profile Image for Shannon.
81 reviews35 followers
June 16, 2024
The Plasma Cell Report is supposed to read like a government report and at parts it does but thankfully much of it is more interesting than that. I often felt my mind wandering as I pondered how much of this novel was actual truth versus fiction but it's an intriguing subject and definitely left me questioning how this would really play out in today's society.
Profile Image for Christin Trickett.
157 reviews1 follower
July 29, 2024
I received a Kindle copy of this book from a Goodreads Giveaway. The premise was interesting to me. The romance seemed to be an afterthought and was not well-developed. Would’ve been better without the romantic aspects. There was too much setup and too little action for me. The descriptions of the NSA and their actions were my favorite part.
1 review
January 26, 2024
an incredible and surprising book where the action is at its peak where the reader is drawn into each chapter. diving into a universe where mystery, thrill and incredible outcome mix, the author offers readers a pure moment of literary magic .
Profile Image for Tisha.
1,313 reviews2 followers
August 8, 2024
This is a political/medical thriller that was actually pretty interesting. I thought the romance they tried to throw in didn't quite fit and seemed really forced and unrealistic. Otherwise it was entertaining and does give you things to think about.

* I won this is a Goodreads giveaway.
Profile Image for Bram Paul.
1 review1 follower
January 23, 2024
Memorable characters and a thrilling and stimulating story that ties them all together. An absolute page turner!!
Profile Image for Melody Godfred.
Author 14 books129 followers
February 2, 2024
The book hooks you right away and keeps you engaged all the through. Can’t wait to read more from this author.
1 review
February 3, 2024
Great read. Fascinating characters and story. Sort of a medical fiction with global implications. A page turner from the start.
1 review
March 11, 2024
Excellent writing. Interesting science. Good character development and a plot that is a page turner. Outstanding book!
Profile Image for Bre3924.
84 reviews2 followers
September 2, 2024
I won this in the Goodreads giveaway awhile ago. I tried before to read it but couldn't get into it. This last time, I was successful in reading the entire book, but was not really excited about it. It was a well written book however, I did find it to be too heavy in the explanation of the science behind the 'aging' issue. Definitely had to pay close attention to keep up with the twists, turns and different agencies/organizations involved. Overall a 3 star for me.
1 review
February 7, 2024
Potential blockbuster movie. The Plasma Cell Report weaves credible AND incredible science into a political-ethical and unique take on Immortality. Full of surprises, and a brilliant first book.
Profile Image for AMAO.
1,936 reviews45 followers
May 19, 2024
🔥MUST READ 🔥
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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