Review: Too much too soon?
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2014
Kansas born author B.C.Chase impressed at a very young age with his musical skills, but his imagination for writing came from his living in Turkey (his parents were missionaries) and his exposure there to the magic of computer science. Not only was he able to embrace the computer with his passion for music, orchestrating his own compositions, but his other thread of energy grew form that time frame - his fascination with the art of writing. His life continued to expand with a transfer to live in Germany for his education and there his curiosity about World War II thrived: his first symphony and his first book were born in that time period. Ever on the move he took up residence in Florida, married and continued to write, adding anthropology studies to his already full plate. He continues to compose music, write theatrical dramatizations of the birth of Christ and begin his spin on genetic engineering and technothrillers. All this before the age of 30!Chase's style is displayed in the very first page of his short novel: `Wesley Peterson jumped up to shattering glass. It came from the adjoining bathroom. His heart was pounding in his throat when he heard two steps and a thump. Someone was in their home, and she was gone. He jumped off the bed shouting "Sienna!" There was no reply. But he heard breathing. From two people, he thought. He imagined an intruder holding his wife in the darkness. The picture filled him with rage. His pulse was literally throbbing in his neck as he quietly drew his handgun from the nightstand drawer. He owned one for a moment just like this, but he had never been forced to use it before. A surge of adrenaline caused his hands to shake as he tried to load the gun, making an unpracticed task even more difficult. He couldn't get the magazine to slide into the well. He tried to force it until he realized a round was protruding out the top. He slipped it in with its brothers, then successfully jammed up the magazine. There was a loud click when he released the slide to chamber the round. He swiftly moved toward the partly open door of the bathroom. He felt something wet, sticky under his feet on the carpet. Someone had bled from the bed to the door. He dashed his fingers inside the door frame to flip on the light switch and then flung the door open, aiming inside. It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the blinding light, but what he saw made him stagger backwards. His young wife was alone, spread-eagled on the floor in a pool of blood. He moved down to help her, but she pointed behind him and let loose a nothing-held-back, bloodcurdling scream.' For openers BC Chase has us. We then proceed to learn that schoolteacher Wesley and his seductive wife desperately want to have children and try to achieve their goal only to discover they are infertile. The meet with a surly doctor who opens the discussion of in vitro fertilization and from there the story takes off on the strange concept of genetic engineering, a discourse on the scientific as well as the surreal aspects of the topic with diversions into the Antarctica and Mongolia (with very strange physician scientists and their experiments) and a rollercoaster ride through fantastical improbabilities that touch on anthropology, medical science an the unknown, such as `given obvious allele generational jumps, the DNA showed that the stillborn fetuses could not have been maternally grandfathered by the KV55 mummy, which the Ministry proposed was Akhenaton. (An allele was an alternative form-by mutation - of a gene located in a certain place on a certain chromosome.)'BC Chase has a fascinating imagination and hopefully in time his writing will assume the polish needed to bring the extent of his verbal meanderings into better focus. This is Book 1 of the series - subsequent books will likely tell us whether or not this much information can be contained in such a short novel (length 147 pages doesn't allow that kind of expansion. Watch this young mind - he shows promise. Grady Harp, July 14