Tag Archives: science

Read this book: Cain’s Blood

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Sympathy for a devil? Sci-fi meets serial killers in an intriguing and fast-paced thriller.

There’s nothing good to say about Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered, ate, and attempted to zombify 17 men from 1978-1991, except that he’s dead.

So imagine a novel where the reader identifies with the clone of this monster in the form of a “normal” 15-year-old boy. It’s here. It’s called Cain’s Blood, by Geoffrey Girard. And it works.

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The plot: a secret government-related outfit has been cloning the nation’s most notorious serial killers in order to determine their genetic underpinnings, and then create a biopharma weapon. Some of the teenage closes escape, along with their creator, and former Army Captain Shawn Castillo is called in to track down the renegades. He stumbles upon Jeff Jacobson, a teenage clone of Dahmer, and together they travel the country searching for the clones.

First, what I didn’t like. Too much gore. I’m not a fan. But how can you escape gore in a book about serial killers?

Also, the protagonist, Castillo, is a stock thriller hero: nearly superhuman, endlessly brave, though haunted by a dark past. I tend to avoid books featuring a CIA/FBI agent, police detectives, forensics, etc. I like people who seem more relatable. Just my own preference.

The character who is relatable turns out to be the young Dahmer clone. And that’s what I liked most about this book. Jeff Jacobson thinks he’s a normal kid, and for the most part, he is. How does he react when he finds out the truth? Can he rise above his genetic heritage?

Girard hooks the reader in 3 ways:

–A great premise: while clones have been used in movies (The Boys from Brazil, The Island) and in fiction (JA Konrath’s The List, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go), Girard takes the concept in a dark and entertaining direction.

–Fast-paced storytelling skills. I burned through this book in a few days.

–Focusing on the plight of a normal kid in Jeff Jacobson, who must grapple with the whole nature/nurture issue.

About the science: this book takes on the nature/nurture debate. Is younger Jeff destined to become a serial killer, or would he be positively influenced by his upbringing? Girard hedges his bets here – some clones are murderous, others don’t seem to be.

But the reality is more complex. Technically, identical twins are clones of each other, yet they often do not turn out the same way. Some twins use different hands. Some twins are gay/gay, while others are gay/straight.

We know precious little about how genes work. For example, scientists are only beginning to learn about so-called junk DNA, the huge sections of our genetic code that seemingly have no function.

And then there’s epigenetics. Can life experiences actually affect the genetic code, not just for the self but for future offspring, several generations on? Scientists used to laugh this off. Now they’re not so sure.

Killer clones aside, truth is a lot more complex than fiction.

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The chimera in the mirror

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Mashed-up mutants aren’t only the stuff of legend and fiction.

Imagine a creature that’s part lion, part eagle and part snake, a creature that breathes fire, a bad-ass scourge. One that looks like this:

 

Chimera_by_josh_buchanan

It’s called a Chimera, and it exists only in ancient Greek mythology. It’s not the only hybrid creature in literature and pop culture.

There’s also the Griffin, also Greek, a lion/eagle mix.

Griffin

These creatures, imaginary as they are, are genetic abnormalities. They are not supposed to exist in nature, mythological metaphors to serve some higher literary purpose. In Left Among the Mutants I wrote about mutating animals (and humans) as a way to convey change, loss and grief.

But it turns out that, to some degree, many of us are freaks of nature. We may all be a little monstrous.

The New York Times published an article that suggests that many humans harbor cells with completely different genetic codes. Theoretically each one of our cells should have the same genetic codes. Not so.

For example:

–A British woman donated blood, and the cells were a mix of Type O and Type A. People are supposed to be only one blood type. Scientists concluded she absorbed cells from her twin brother

–Another woman gave birth to children who were not genetically hers. Doctors say that she originated from 2 separate genomes; some of the other genome gave rise to the eggs of 2 of her 3 children

–In one study, more than half of women had cells with the Y chromosome in their breast tissue. Women aren’t supposed to carry the Y chromosome at all – the Y is men only

Note that this is called chimerism, courtesy of that lion/eagle/snake creature.

How does all this happen? Scientists are just beginning to explore this question. What we do know-at this very early stage-is that we may not be who we think we are. We may be others as well.

Aside from the scientific implications, what could this mean for literature? Movies? TV?

Come on, writers, there’s a whole mountain of possibilities waiting to be mined.

Holy autopsies, or, nuns with knives

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Take a look at this photo:

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No, he’s not the victim of some slashing monster. He’s been autopsied by a bunch of nuns way back in the Dark Ages.

Fiction aside, science is one of my other fascinations, and I came across this article on medical science in the Dark Ages in Scientific American. It turns out a lot of what we know about these centuries is dead wrong. For instance:

–Most people did NOT believe that the world was flat. Then knew it was round

–The Catholic church was a leader in scientific study, not a suppressor

The Catholic church was believed to be against autopsies. Again, not so. In fact, the church often performed “holy autopsies,” in which a corpse was dissected in an attempt to uncover a relic. In 1308, nuns performed an autopsy on an abbess and reported to have found a tiny crucifix embedded in her heart (How did that get there?).

File this under truth is stranger than fiction.