BKCLNCHR.RVW   20030415

"Cloning Christ", Peter Senese/Robert Geis, 2002, 0-9710826-4-2,
U$25.95/C$37.95
%A   Peter Senese authors@cloningchrist.com
%A   Robert Geis authors@cloningchrist.com
%C   New York, NY
%D   2002
%G   0-9710826-4-2
%I   Orion Publishing and Media
%O   U$25.95/C$37.95 www.cloningchrist.com orionpub@optonline.net
%O  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0971082642/robsladesinterne
  http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0971082642/robsladesinte-21
%O   http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0971082642/robsladesin03-20
%P   335 p.
%T   "Cloning Christ"

Greg, you have *got* to read this book.

All your friends on the Christian Fandom sf mailing list
(www.christian-fandom.org) have got to read this book.

There are some books that are so appallingly bad that they become, in
a sense, exemplars of badness, and therefore, in a sense, good.

This book isn't quite that bad.

But the writing is so awful, that you keep reading out of a kind of
horrified fascination.  Surely the authors can't keep making such
errors.  Surely they can't keep making obvious grammatical errors. 
Surely they can't keep leaving glaring holes in sentences.  Surely
they can't keep leaving gaps in the story continuity.  (Yes, they can,
and stop calling me Shirley.)

Oddly, for all of the missing chunks of text and syntactical mistakes
that should have been caught by a copy editor, the book has been run
through a spelling checker.  This would explain why the Mobil
corporation is spelled "Mobile."  The lack of involvement by a human
with a knowledge of English would also indicate why shone is spelled
"shown" throughout, along with other similar faults.

Plot?  Hero gets chased around by a large number of well-equipped
people who are trying to kill him and manage to off everyone but. 
Characters?  They range from the odd to the vile, but are mostly
inexplicable.

And the science, to get it into my list?  None.  Not a sausage.  Does
anyone try to clone Christ?  Nobody even considers it.  Is there any
discussion of what's involved in cloning at all?  Nope.  Any
examination of the problems, the work (such as the birth of Dolly, for
some reason called Mildred in the book), the failures, the
technologies, or even a serious consideration of the ethics of
biotechnology?  Nada.  Zilch.  Zippo.

Heck, maybe I owe Crichton (cf. BKJURPRK.RVW) an apology.  At least he
tried.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 2003   BKCLNCHR.RVW   20030415