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Dangerous Notes
by Gillian Bradshaw
(Severn House, £19/US$27, 283 pages, hardback; published August
2001; ISBN: 0727857576.)
Rating: "A-" -- a very nice near-future SF medical/musical(!) thriller.
"They arrested me on the train to France..." Meet Valeria Thornham,
pretty music student, promising young composer -- and threat to public
safety?
Valeria, brain-damaged as an infant, was successfully treated with
Cicnip-C -- "cerebral implantation of cloned neural progenitor
cells." Now, in 2032, a Cicnip-C patient has turned mass-murderer,
the media are in a frenzy about "cloned-brain psychos", and
the Ministry of Health is in a panic....
Val is hustled to the posh Laurel Hill Centre for Cognitive Research,
where the odious Professor Bernet plans to use her for brain research
-- with a threat of lobotomy if she doesn't cooperate. But Val is a
fighter, and with the help of sympathetic staff, she reaches an accommodation
of sorts with the Evil Genius. There are clever twists en route, a new
love won and lost, and some very nice passages on music: its performance,
composition and place in human culture. It wouldn't be fair to reveal
the ending, but it's fast and furious. Here's a clue: music really does
soothe the savage breast...
This is Bradshaw's second SF outing, following her less-successful
The Wrong Reflection (2000). Bradshaw is better-known as a historical
and fantasy novelist, but I predict she'll be well received by Nancy
Kress and LE Modesitt SF fans. Bradshaw may be new to SF, but she's
an experienced, smooth, economical storyteller. I'll be looking for
her next book -- and I should go back and read some of her historicals.
Links:
Review by Peter
D Tillman; More of Peter D Tillman's reviews can be found at:
SF Site and Amazon.com. Google "Peter D. Tillman" +review for many more!
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