Unforgotten by Jessica Brody

Unforgotten picks up Sera and Zen's story after they have transessed to the year 1609 in England to escape her pursuers from Diotech, the organization that is determined to re-capture her. They have found refuge with John and Elizabeth Pattinson and their family, who run a farm. Mrs. Pattinson and the farm animals do not like her, sensing that there is something different about Sera. Her violet eyes are disturbing to Elizabeth and when she sees the black line tattoo on Sera's wrist, she is certain it is the mark of Satan.

Their cover in 1609 is blown when Sera and Zen take the apple harvest to town and Zen falls deathly ill. He is hit by a wagon and horse in town and Sera uses her special physical abilities of superior strength and speed to save him from being crushed. When the villagers witness this display, they capture Sera, imprison and try her for witchcraft and burn her at the stake. However, as she is being burned to death, Sera is rescued.

When she awakens, Sera discovers that her legs have healed from the burns and that she is being held captive. She meets Kaelen, a genetically designed person just like her, who tells her that he has been sent by Diotech to retrieve the information that they need. Kaelen tells Sera that the information is stored in her unaccessed memories known as TDRs or time-delayed recalls. These are memories that were installed in Sera's brain and programmed to activate by a specific trigger.

Not realizing that Kaelen is genetically superior, Sera attempts to escape but it unable to physically overcome Kaelen. Kaelen reveals to Sera that his one purpose is to serve Dr. Jans Alixter and to protect the interests of Diotech. Kaelen has Sera's locket which means she cannot transesse back to 1069 to get Zen. She learns that Kaelen knows what is wrong with Zen and how to save him. Sera agrees to help Kaelen find the information he needs through her memories if he goes back to retrieve Zen. Kaelen does this and brings a desperately ill Zen back to the house where she is being kept.

Kaelen tells Sera that she is now in New York city in the year 2032. Kaelen brought her to this year because this is what her memory dictated. As she and Kaelen experience her first memory, a second memory happens leading them to the next clue. However, Sera is horrified to discover that Kaelen can access her memories with his touch. She manages to conceal the third memory from Kaelen and disables him with the Modifier. Returning to the house, Sera takes Zen and travels to the GenZone Research Laboratory where she meets up with Cody Carlson - the boy she met in 2013. Cody, in 2032, is now a thirty-two year old research scientist, married with a child named Reese.

Using a special technology, Sera allows Cody to learn about how she was created and about the transession gene. Cody discovers that the transession gene is what is making Zen sick. His body is treating it as a virus and attacking it. The gene cannot be removed by any living scientist, but Sera knows who CAN remove it - Dr. Rylan Maxxer who is alive eighty-three years into the future. Cody further deduces that Maxxer is also on the run from Diotech. Sera believes that Maxxer is the one who implanted a memory of her secret location in Sera's brain and that this location is what Diotech is seeking. Cody suspects the reason Diotech is searching for Dr. Maxxer is because someone else is also ill from the transession gene. When Kaelen reappears, having tracked Sera to Cody's lab, she confronts him with the real reason for his mission - to locate and bring the antidote to the transession gene to Dr. Alixter. Can Sera find Dr. Maxxer in time to save Zen, while outwitting Diotech's Kaelen who is determined to bring the antidote to Alixter?

Discussion

Unforgotten is a much more interesting novel than its predecessor, Unremembered. Brody does several things in this novel; she furthers our understanding of the web of intrigue that Sera and Zen are caught in, she continues to develop her characters and she creates a bridge into the final novel of the series.

Brody builds the science in her world from 2013 onwards. This is filled in by the character of Dr. Maxxer who has to explain to Seraphina why she had fled her time and how she has transessed through various time periods to determine exactly what is going on. It turns out that a mysterious group of influential people known as the Providence has been in control of global politics and economics for decades. Genetic manipulation begun in the early 21st century will continue until people rise up against it. In 2032, an outbreak of white fever will be released by Providence. It is a dangerous virus capable of wiping out humanity, but the Providence will not allow that. Instead, they will provide a vaccine which will cure white fever but genetically modify everyone, making them susceptible to other less serious ailments. This will enable the pharmaceutical companies to sell more drugs and vaccines. However, when people begin rebelling against the pharmaceutical companies, the Providence will decide on a different tactic. They invest in an unknown start-up biotech company known as Diotech. Diotech is moved to a remote location and the Genesis Project is developed to create perfect human beings such as Sera and Kaelen. This technology will be marketed to people as a way to be smarter, younger, more beautiful, but it will come with an unknown effect. Nanotechnology will be used to control people, programming them to respond in certain ways and allowing a group of people to control all of humanity.

This is an interesting concept that takes in the current debate about vaccines, biotechnology, nanotechnology and genetic manipulation. How far should scientists go when it comes to genetic engineering? Can vaccines be used to fundamentally change the human body? Just because we can do certain things in the field of medicine, does this mean we ought to? Brody plays to our deepest fears and suspicions about modern science - that it might be used not for good but as a weapon against humanity.

Another dominant theme is that of identity as Sera struggles to come to terms with the fact that she was created as a selling point for new biotechnology. This new technology has the potential to do great evil. Sera is angry that she never had a choice in how she was created or how she is able to live her life. Instead, every aspect of her life seems to be predetermined by genetic manipulation including who she is attracted to. This makes Sera convinced that she must destroy Diotech before they can implement their plan.

Overall, Unforgotten is a good read, well paced with a strong, linear storyline. Brody builds her future world enough to move the plot along and create a crisis that extends into the final novel. Fans of Scott Westerfeld's, Uglies, and Mary Pearson's, Adoration of Jenna Fox, will enjoy this series. There is a love triangle in the novel, which serves as a distraction to the overall theme and issues Brody wants her readers to consider. The third book in the Unremembered series will be published in 2015.

Book Details:
Unforgotten by Jessica Brody
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux    2014
399 pp.

Vitro by Jessica Khoury

After receiving a mysterious email from her mother telling her that there is an emergency, seventeen-year-old Sophie Crue arrives in Guam searching for someone to take her to Skin Island. None of the local pilots are interested, warning her away from travelling to the strange isolated island, except for one pilot, Jim Julien. Sophie recognizes Jim immediately but he doesn't remember her until she tells him that she needs to get out to Skin Island.

Sophie used to live on Guam with her parents who both worked at the Skin Island research facility. However, when her parent's marriage broke up, she moved to Boston with her father while her mother stayed on at Skin Island full time. Jim's parents broke up three years ago when he was fifteen, and his mother left Guam. His father once a pilot for tourists now drinks himself into a stupor daily.

Jim agrees to fly Sophie out to Skin Island in his Cessna Caravan. As expected, things go wrong almost immediately. When they land on the island's airstrip, all four tires on the Cessna are blown. A young boy named Nicholas comes to greet them and while he takes Sophie across the island to meet her mother, Jim stays with his airplane to see if he can repair it.

As Sophie is led across the island by Nicholas, he begins acting very strangely, telling her to be quiet when they approach the facility. When she questions him on the type of research being done on Skin Island he only smiles enigmatically.  Once inside the facility, Sophie manages to escape from him. When Sophie is forced to hide in a room, she discovers it holds a young woman asleep on a gurney who looks remarkably like herself. Suddenly, Sophie is knocked out from behind.

When Sophie awakes she finds herself in a lab with her mother, Moira, and several doctors as well as a middle aged man. Unable to speak, Sophie learns that this man, Mr. Andreyev is here to see her and that they think that she is the twin, Lux, she saw in the room. Sophie decides to play along, mute and unable to walk, to learn more about what is happening. As it turns out her mother is not researching cures for Alzheimer's. Instead, this facility is doing research on frozen left-over embryos from in-vitro procedures. These embryos have a computer chip that has a special code called the Imprima Code implanted in their brains at just the right time so brain grows around it. At nine months gestation, they transfer data to the chip. Sophie's mother, Moira developed the imprint technology which isolated the imprinting instinct and amplifies it so that when the young person is awoken after years of sleep they imprint on the first person they see. The imprint creates a deep psychological need in the person and the desire to do the will of the person they imprint on. The doctors explain that Lux has no will of her own and no sense of self. Sophie also learns that Lux is a Class Three Bodyguard meaning she is prepared to defend the person she has imprinted on.

Meanwhile Jim, unable to repair the tires on his plane, manages to roll the Cessna down to the beach and secure it in the water. He waits for a time to see if Sophie returns and when she doesn't he makes his way across the island to the research facility. There he too discovers the room holding Sophie's twin. But Jim, thinking this is Sophie who has been drugged, snatches her and makes his way out of the facility and back to his plane. Unfortunately, what Jim doesn't know is that he is carrying Sophie's twin, Lux, who was being awakened today for a potential buyer. Things begin to go badly for Jim when he runs into three young people from the island, Mary, Jay and Wyatt who behave in a hostile manner and chase him. Jim escapes from them but during the chase, Lux awakens, seeing Jim first and imprinting on him. Gradually Jim comes to realize that this is not Sophie and that he needs to go for help.

Moira eventually realizes that Sophie is playing the part of Lux. She isolates Sophie to try to protect her from Dr. Strauss and sets out to try to find Lux. Nicholas finally manages to meet up with Sophie again and he tells her that he was the first Vitro and that he wants Sophie to help him escape by stealing Corpus' helicopter. However, with Lux and Jim missing, and Sophie refusing to leave unless Jim is with her, Nicholas' plans are unravelling. As more information is revealed about the dark nature of the experiments going on on Skin Island, Sophie has to come to terms with her connection to the island and try to save her mother and Jim before all is lost.

Discussion

Vitro is the second novel by author Jessica Khoury that involves young teens dealing with the ethics of scientific experimentation - in this case, cloning.

The story in Vitro is told by three narrators, Sophie, her clone Lux and Jim. The novel could have done without the short narration by Lux - her perspective did not really add significantly to the story.  There are numerous twists to the storyline which at times feels convoluted and slow. Some situations stretched credibility enormously. For example, would a seventeen-year-old girl who receives a mysterious email from her mother whom she rarely sees, decide to leave home on her own to investigate, without telling her father? It would seem that she would be declared missing fairly quickly. 

In a situation eerily similar to the Nazi death camps, we learn that the research facility has showers that serve as gas chambers. As well, the entire compound has numerous cannisters of hydrogen cyanide gas underneath it. Dr. Strauss at one point decides to kill all the Vitros by exposing them to hydrogen cyanide gas. This scene was not written realistically in any way,  since Jim and Lux would have had to have been treated with a cyanide antidote which did not happen in the novel. They would have been in no shape to participate in the events that followed having suffered from extreme cyanide poisoning.

Although this is science fiction, Vitro is more an action-adventure story. What the character Jim endures stretches the reader's belief and reads more like a Hollywood action film; a crash landing, rolling his plane by himself into the sea, numerous chases, a fall off a cliff into a lagoon, an explosion in his plane when he tries to leave the island, a swim back to Skin Island,  poisoning by hydrogen cyanide and an explosion that throws him into the sea. All this makes Vitro overly dramatic and unbelievable.

Because the story was more action based, character development was focused on Sophie and her mother. Jim who was a main character in the novel was mostly a one dimensional hero whose function is primarily to provide Sophie with a means of travelling to and escaping from the island.

Vitro has an appealing cover but the story is not comparable to Khoury's first novel, Origins.

Book Details:
New York: Razorbill a Division of Penguin Young Readers Group
357 pp.

Altered by Jennifer Rush

It seems these days that almost anything goes today in the world of young adult fiction. All you need is an extraordinary plot, a few cute guys, some sinister element, and off you go. Altered is one such book.

Anna Mason lives in a farmhouse with her father who is a researcher. Located below the farmhouse is some kind of genetics laboratory which contains four young men. These young fellows, Cas, Nick, Trev, and Sam were brought to the lab when Anna was thirteen. They have been genetically altered so that they do not age very much and their memories have been "wiped" so they do not remember their past. All they know is Anna and her father, Arthur, as well as the people who run the program which is run by an organization known as "The Branch". Anna who does not attend school, works with her father in the lab, taking blood samples after gassing each to sleep for 4 minutes (how strange is that?). In her spare time she bakes cookies for her experimental subjects and crushes on Sam, whom she sneaks down to visit at nighttime.

Things rapidly change however, when Anna's father, Arthur, informs her that Connor, who is head of this unidentified, classifed program is coming to visit the lab. Connor arrives with Riley and seven other agents, heavily armed to take Sam, Nick, Cas, and Trev away. But things don't go as planned and the four young men manage to escape, taking Anna with them.

Before they flee, Arthur tells Sam to head for a safe house in Pennsylvania. At this location they find a mysterious note that directs them to look at Sam's tattoo of birch trees on his back. From this point on, one clue leads to another as Anna and the "boys" (as she calls them) try to unravel the mystery of what happened to Sam and how he came to be in the lab. In the process Anna learns her connection to Sam is more than just a passing interest, and that he is part of something more sinister and larger than she could ever have imagined. The sinister program run by The Branch, is designed to create special warriors using genetic manipulation and a mind-changing drug called Altered. In addition, it appears these special warriors are sent on numerous missions, with their memories being wiped afterwards. But Sam was determined to leave clues for himself - clues that would help him learn what has been happening to him. Can he and Anna figure it all out, before it's too late?

Although the underlying premise is not unique and even somewhat strange ( a young girl has four men locked in her father's basement, which just happens to be a government lab?), most readers will soon move past the strange opening and onto enjoying this novel with its fast-paced mixture of  science fiction,action-adventure, mystery, and yes,  even a touch of romance. There are unexpected plot twists which connect together well, although some of discoveries of clues seem contrived. What Anna and the guys eventually learn about themselves, and the government program they are a part of begs questions about how far military experimentation should go when it comes to humans.

Rush does a great job of developing the characters as they begin to unravel Sam's past. Each character is very different; Sam is the intense, thoughtful love interest and leader, Cas is the funny man who is more concerned about filling his stomach, Trev is Anna's best friend who is always throwing out a quote, and Nick is the brooding bad-ass who wants to ditch Anna and isn't much interested in finding out about anything, including the past. Rush mostly succeeds in developing their relationship with Anna, possibly with the exception of Nick. Anna herself is a strong female character who can look after herself but is also struggling with the truths she uncovers and her place in all of this. Still Rush leaves some questions unanswered.

Altered is Jennifer Rush's debut novel and I believe part of a trilogy. Her website can be found here.

Book Details:
Altered by Jennifer Rush
New York: Little, Brown, and Company                 2013
323 pp.

Origin by Jessica Khoury

Sixteen year old Pia is the most perfect human being ever created. She is perfect and she is immortal. She has a perfect memory, acute senses, excellent reflexes, impenetrable skin and she cannot drown nor suffocate. She is the culmination of a five generation breeding program, Immortis, designed to make an immortal human being.

Pia lives in Little Cam, a research compound in the middle of the rainforest, with her mother and a group of other scientists whom she addresses as Uncle and Aunt. The head scientist is Dr. Paolo Alvez whom Pia calls Uncle Paolo. There are many other researchers present as well, all of whom Pia calls aunt or uncle. There is Uncle Antonio - her favourite, and also the one who is responsible for her education, Uncle Will a quiet, gentle man who is Pia's father, and Uncle Timothy who deals with supplies. Her mother, Sylvia, also a research scientist, lives with Pia in a little house on the western side of Little Cam. Pia's bedroom is unusual in that it has three walls and a ceiling made of glass. The newest member, Dr. Harriet Fielding whom Pia at first dislikes, becomes an ally.

At this point all Pia knows is that Immortis scientists used the elysia flower and some unknown catalyst to make her immortal. But she doesn't yet know what that catalyst is and she's desperate to find out. 

In 1902, scientists searching for new medicinal plants from the rainforest heard about a plant that could extend the human life span. Dr. Heinrich Falk who was in charge of the expedition located the plant; Epidendrum elysia, which cannot be grown or replanted. The plants living in the Falk's Glen now are the same ones he discovered years ago. Falk's successor Wickham established Little Cambridge Research Station and developed the Wickham tests to assess new scientists joining the project. The group experimented on rats first. Pia has been told that the nectar from elysia was combined with that of another flower to make it safe to inject into animals. It is this other flower that Pia believes is the catalyst for Immortis. When scientists injected rats with Immortis, nothing happened until the 5th generation. The immortality gene in the elysia was assimilated into the rat's genetic code making one rat named Roosevelt immortal. Dr. Falk then began experiments on humans, bringing thirty-two humans to Little Cam and injecting them with Immortis. Each generation had children and Pia is the product of that breeding program.

In order to become part of the Immortis research team, Pia is being rigorously trained and must undergo a series of tests, named Wickham tests. These tests are designed to increasingly test her ability to function rationally and without emotion in stressful and disturbing situations. Pia is beginning to become unnerved by the tests however, as they seem to be requiring increasing cruelty and emotional detachment.

Despite Pia's intensive scientific education, she knows little about the outside world. For thirty years no books, magazines or movies from the outside world have been allowed into Little Cam. Her textbooks are redacted. Only instrumental music is allowed. This is all because of some mysterious  "Accident" which occurred thirty years ago. When recently arrived Aunt Harriet mentions the city of Manaus, Pia's curiosity gets the better of her. She tries asking Uncle Paolo but he refuses to tell her anything. Later on Harriet mentions San Francisco and Pia becomes aware of how little she knows about the outside world. On the night she turns seventeen, Pia is secretly given a map of the world by Aunt Harriet. From this map Pia learns where she lives (Brazil and the Amazon rain forest) and begins to understand just how big the outside world is.

Coincidentally, that night she also discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds Little Cam. Pia decides to take advantage of this to sneak out into the jungle. On her first trip outside the compound, Pia meets Eio, a member of the Ai'oa tribe that lives in the Amazon jungle. Attracted to one another, Eio and Pia become friends and try to understand the different worlds they live in. Pia learns that Eio knows about elysia which his people call yresa. She also discovers that Eio's "Papi" is someone from Little Cam and that the Ai'oans believe that Little Cam is a place of evil. At first Pia thinks that this is because they do not understand the important work that the scientists are doing at the research station.

Pia wants to return to the jungle to see Eio, but she feels intense conflict. For one thing, her feelings for Eio are unscientific and make her feel wild and out of control. They are unlike anything she has ever felt but she likes the way she feels when she is with Eio. This is the opposite of the way she has been raised which is to use reason and to approach everything in a rational way, without much feeling. She also struggles with issues of loyalty. She is forbidden to leave Little Cam by Uncle Paolo, the man who created her, yet she wants to see Eio and she wants to learn more about the world at large. At first the choice seems easy, to follow Uncle Paolo, but soon Pia discovers that much at Little Cam is not as it seems, that she has been lied to and deliberately manipulated.

The situation at Little Cam slowly begins to unravel. Harriet and Pia discover that part of the compound which is suppose to have burned down, was in fact a torture chamber, leading to more questions about what really happened thirty years ago. When it is discovered that Pia has been outside the jungle her home becomes a prison, just as Eio tried to tell her.  Eventually Pia learns how she was made immortal, her connection to the Ai'oan tribe and the great evil being done at Little Cami. She must now make a choice, continuing making more immortal people like herself and perpetuating the evil of Little Cami or refuse to participate and end it. Her choices make for a suspenseful but open ended conclusion to the novel.

Discussion

Origin is the story of a genetically enhanced girl named Pia, who has been created via a special breeding program. The story is told by Pia as she learns about herself and struggles to make sense of her world and her existence. 

Jessica Khoury has crafted unique characters, who are realistic and develop as the story moves along. Pia is naïve and tends to think well of others but her curiosity and intelligence allow her to quickly learn what is happening and to see that those she thought were concerned about her have very different goals in mind. Despite being taught to consider the world around her with cold rationale, her humanity is very evident.  Eio is faithful to her and helps Pia understand what she is a part of. He warns Pia, whom he refers to as his "Pia bird", not to return to her cage as Dr. Paola Alvez is a megalomaniac, bent on seeing his project to its daring ending.

The main focus of the novel is the development of the internal conflict Pia experiences as she learns more about the Ai'oan people and the experiments which led to her creation. She is horrified that her creation came about through the innocent death of so many people. Pia wants to live on her terms and questions whether the price of immortality is worth it. For "Uncle" Paola, immortality is all that matters. For Pia, some things are simply wrong and the end does not justify the means.

There are many interesting questions that Origin raises, especially in an era when scientists have the ability to genetically manipulate crops and animals. Many scientists continue to work towards the goal of cloning and also to lengthening human life span, with the belief and assurance that these are noble goals benefiting mankind.  But this research is not without controversy. What is the cost to human beings on a personal level and what is the cost to society of such manipulation? Is how we view the human body important to these questions? And what are the effects on the ecological systems of our planet as we manipulate life without understanding the full effect of what we are doing?

Origin, the first novel in a series, offers young readers the opportunity to consider such questions while enjoying a well-written science fiction novel.

Book Details:
Origin by Jessica Khoury
Toronto: RazorBill an imprint of Penquin Group Inc. (USA)
394 pp.