Syndrome

Why can't they manage to edit these downloaded books before anyone bothers trying to read them? I'm glad the eBook version was free, because like so many eBooks, it was a pain to read and make sense out of what you were reading. As an example, what is a rou6? That isn't a word, but there it was. There were other examples of non-words all throughout the book, as well as WRONG words, and in fact, late in the book, the word "the" was used in place of whatever was actually supposed to be used, and I never did figure out what word actually belonged there. This happened several times in the book. WHERE WAS THE GRAMMAR EDITOR?Then, there were all of the punctuation mistakes, especially all of the missing periods. The next "sentence" would start with the first letter of the first word capitalized, but there was no period between the sentences. What fun to try reading these so-called separate sentences!There were missing quotation marks all over the place. At one point, the WRONG words had punctuation marks around them, and those words weren't what were being spoken.I can't give any book more than one star when the lack of editing ruins it.

I enjoy Robin Cook's medical dramas a lot. I really wanted to like Thomas Hoover's Syndrome; but, there is just no comparison. In many cases, the language seems like it was written by somebody who did not have a good command of the English language. It could have been written in such a way that everybody who read this book would feel that it was quality work, even if it was to the standard set by Robin Cook.My Kindle showed me that I was at the 13% completion point when I came across a sentence that was nearly one paragraph long. That's when I wondered if the editor had even read the book. Here is that sentence if you care to try reading it:Stone Aimes had done a profile on her in the paper he worked for then, The New York Globe, and he'd found a transplant donor, a young girl on Long Island with terminal leukemia, who was able to the knowing she'd saved another person's life.As you can see, that sentence is poorly written. I'm not even sure I will try to read the rest of the book.

Dr. Karl van der Vliet is an undisputed genius who's medical research results in the ability to work miracles. He realizes a way to use adult stem cells that when injected into unhealthy organs, they can rebuild, regenerate and basically fix themselves. This process is the proverbial fountain of youth that can keep diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, heart disease, and cirrhosis at bay indefinitely. Enter Alexa, she suffered an illness as a child that resulted in scar tissue in her ventricle which has been getting worse over the years. Her mother has been diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer's and her brother Grant, the black sheep in the family, is pushing Alexa to join the clinical trials which could heal them both. While I enjoyed this book immensely, something really bothers me about it. Ally and her mother have disowned Ally's brother Grant after their father, Arthur, has an accident with a hunting rifle that was no accident. Arthur becomes depressed after his failure to meet the mortgage on the business and feels the only way to dig his family out of this financial hole is to take his own life in an accidental manner so they can receive his life insurance. Granted Arthur wouldn't have been in the situation if he hadn't have mortgaged the business to loan money to his son, we all need to take responsibility for our own actions. Arthur could have refused to help Grant, and the fact that Ally managed to turn the company around and save the business after the insurance company ruled her father's death a suicide and refused to pay up shows that Arthur didn't need to resort to such desperate measures. Yes, Grant is a fairly unsavory character but maybe he would have been a bit more caring towards his remaining family if they hadn't wrongly blamed him for his father's suicide. There is a dark and murky side to this tale and an age old moral dilemma. Just because the technology is possible to do something, does not necessarily mean that it should be done. The theory was raised in Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and Dr. Karl van der Vliet ponders basically the same thing. Unfortunately when humans can wield power that only God should have, they end up with a God complex and start believing that they can do anything that they desire, no matter the consequences to "the little people".

I'm a big fan of the suspenseful medical drama. When done right, there are thrills, some neat (if sometimes fantastical) science, and drama. But this book didn't meet expectations.This is a stem cell novel and it offers the somewhat stale premise "What if stem cells could prevent/reverse aging?", along with a passel of cliche characters -- the amoral billionaire, the greasily evil yuppie henchman, the blandly pleasant heroine, the rugged and hard-on-his-luck newsman, the stoic Japanese bodyguard, the vain celebrity. Every time you presume Hoover has mined his last cliche, another jumps out. Another miracle of stem cell technology?For a medical thriller, there is way too little technology in this novel. Too much of the story takes place from Ally and Stone's perspective and, since they know little for most of the story, we know too little for most of the story. There is the occasional flash to the lab, but there just isn't enough to keep the novel balanced. There is remarkably little peril, as the plot is driven by the implausible last minute developments and the dramatic development of bizarre powers. Even the romance is tepid, as Stone and Ally knew each other in college and the rekindling of their relationship feels more like a "why not?" than an honest reflowering of affection.Overall, this book has an uncharmingly workmanlike and predictable feel.