Name: The Genome
ISBN: 9781497643963

Sergei Lukyanenko

After surviving a horrific accident, master pilot Alex Romanov finds himself ferrying two representatives of the Zzygou on a tour of the human worlds, raising the tension aboard ship with their dark pasts, deadly secrets, and stolen goods.

A Novel

The Genome

Fraser Simons

In a future where humanity has many colonies and, if you've got the cash, your genetic structure is altered and optimized--making you a spesh. People are created with singular purposes in mind and made to enjoy whatever that is, from cleaning the streets to being a "master pilot." We follow Alex, one such master pilot, who saves a young girl named Kim when she undergoes a metamorphosis of her own, becoming a spesh herself. 

The setup was great in this book, unfortunately after this promising start the book devolves rapidly. I've read it's supposed to be a parody or subversion of cyberpunk and space operas; if that's true... it's even worse than I thought. Alex does kind of "call out" sexist and tropey shit sometimes in his thoughts but then... he participates in it anyways. There's a lot mishandled in this respect, from polyamorous relationships, forms of racism, prejudices in general but the most predominate by far is sexism. It is rampant in this book and it if this is supposed to be a parody, well then it's simply mishandled and doesn't come across as such. Especially from the start of the book, which you know, sets the tone. Oh yeah, Kim's 14 and reads very much like she is written by a dude who has a lolita fetish. 

The concepts themselves are interesting too, so it's a shame the rest of the book is a pop corn novel that is pretty meh, including the who-dunnit story at the end (with a clone of Sherlock Holmes solving the case, I shit you not). I liked everything about the exploration of a "superior" caste of humanity that is also essentially a specialized workforce made to love what they do while perceiving themselves as superior. Tech on the ship was cool, the interfacing with the computer was awesome. The rest I could leave, luckily it was a quick read.

The Genome A Novel