FALL 2028. Mickey Cooper, an elderly homeless man, receives an incredible proposition from a rogue pharmaceutical “Be our secret guinea pig for our new drug and we’ll pay you life-changing money, which you’ll be able to enjoy because if (cough) when the treatment works, two months from now your body will be youthened to twenty-three years old.”
When his treatment proves more difficult than expected and corporate espionage turns deadly, Mickey finds himself flanked by internal corruption and powerful external enemies, including Chinese operatives desperate to reverse their country’s aging demographics and amoral U.S. government officials who fear the new technology will upend civilization.
A nihilist at heart with a dwindling number of friends, Mickey yearns to fade into the woodwork to live in peace, struggling to remember what matters in life. An analog old-timer has no chance to win in the digital age anyway, right?
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Jed Henson
22 August 2024
Sci-Fi | Technothriller
247 Pages
My Rating ~ 5 bites
This technothriller starts out at a moderate amble as we meet Mickey, learn about the long life he has led, and his decision to be the human guinea pig in a medical trial that is mind blowing. Reverse aging?! Come on! You’re yanking my chain, right? But no. By the time Mickey makes it backward to 23, the inevitable problems surrounding this procedure start to become clear. This kind of technology is worth billions and there are people who will stop at nothing to have it all to themselves. And this is where the pace ramps up.
What a ride! This is a chase that is worth reading. Honestly? I’d love to see this as a movie. It wouldn’t even need to be on the big screen. Tell Netflix to make it one of their Originals and I’ll watch it with popcorn in hand. The action is succinct and not drawn out. Told with minimal detail to keep the story flowing it doesn’t get bogged down in a lot of extraneous stuff. It stays on target. Gold Five would be proud. I’ve been thinking about this story ever since I finished it. Our world is already a cess pool of greed and calamity. What would happen if this tech were actually real? Would I want to go through the process? What about the ramifications? Is it ethical? How the hell would this industry be regulated? I mean, technically, assuming multiple age reversals are safe, a person could live forever. Well, if they don’t die first. Can’t bring someone back from the dead in this story, so no risky behavior like jumping without a parachute. I go around and around in my head about it and my conclusion is this: I don’t have a fucking clue.
Jed Henson writes thrillers. Fast, lean, near-future thrillers, with hard science baked in. He published his first novel, a technothriller titled All In, in 2022, and his second, another techno-thriller titled The Yamanaka Factors, in 2024. Both are available on Amazon.
He also is a longtime magazine editor and website publisher, and got his professional start back in the day as a newspaper reporter. Jed currently lives in North Carolina with his family, including humans and hounds.
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