Prometheus Ascending Review

Prometheus Ascending Synopsis:  What do you do when a terrible accident shatters your body, all but takes your voice from you and removes most of your face, leaving you confined to a specially adapted room with what remains of your face hidden behind a mask? All this, and yet your excellent mental faculties fully intact? If you are William John Baltimore, founder of the information network called SOURCE, accepting your fate is not an option.

Enter Professor Sir James Robert Carvel, eminent Cryo Neurosurgeon, who has often voiced his opinion, privately, that the human brain can be transplanted. In the course of time, along with his equally eminent ‘Team’ of Professors; Richard Beckler, Anthony Morrow and Ernst Kraser, Carvel begins begin planning what came to be known as ‘The Carvel Experiment’; the transplanting of Baltimore’s brain into a healthy donor body. Dateline August, 1985.

Would this be the start of a successful process as in 1967, when Doctor Christiaan Barnard pioneered the first human heart transplant or lead to the creation of a modern day Frankenstein scenario? – Goodreads

–S&S–

Prometheus Ascending Review

I absolutely loved the concept of Prometheus Ascending. The synopsis set me all aquiver. I thought “Here’s a sci-fi book I’ll really be able to sink my teeth into.” Just look at that cover.  Isn’t it all sorts of creepy and hinting at disturbing things?  It makes you want to pick up the book immediately, and lose yourself in the pages. However, Prometheus Ascending never rose up (pardon the pun) to the bar set by that fantastic cover and awesome synopsis.  

There are two main problems. The pacing is irritating and the prose in inconsistent in style.  Part of this can be forgiven because of the style the book is written in. It is written in the form of a documentary of sorts from compiled notes. A chunk of the book is written from the notes of a journalist that hired to report on the happenings.  Part of it, but not all.

William Thomson occasionally took a turn for the whimsical when describing certain happenings – in particular, the surgery itself – and it just did not fit. Though the book was written in a fairly straight forward fashion, there would be occasional interjects of phrasing that didn’t work.  The whole first half of the book was devoted to the road leading up to the cryosurgery itself. It would have been much better if it was half that size. Then, afterwards, things feel strangely anticlimactic, and drug on too long.  I can’t really say more without spoiling it.

There were a few good quotes, though. One, in particular, still stands out to me.

“Quite often, euthanasia is not only the most merciful course to take, but in all conscience, the correct course of action to take. Only religion and the teaching of thousands of years still prevent the reason for this being shown to be so.” – William Thomson

As a firm believer in assisted suicide, and quality of life concerns, I am very happy to see this stated so plainly.

Overall, Prometheus Ascending was great in theory, but lacked in execution. There are also a few errors that slipped through proofreading. Still, the style might appeal to some of you, so I’m letting you know it is available on Amazon , if you wish to give it a read. 

Title: Prometheus Ascending | Author: William Thomson | Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers (site) | Pub. Date: 2015-11-30 | Pages: 247 | ISBN13: 9781785548055 | Genre: Science Fiction | Triggers: None | Rating: 3 out of 5 | Date Read: 2016-6-16 | Source: Received a copy from the publishers in exchange for an honest review.