Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters
by Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis
Category: Horror tales

"A life-sized robot gone berserk in a Christmas toy display, a computerized traffic system hopelessly snarled, an Apollo capsule lost in space, a jet plane crashing in the middle of a crowded supermarket, a nuclear sub missing with all hands on board, the Underground exploding in an inferno of gas and flame, all plastic substances swiftly dissolving into rot, its consuming foam laying waste the entire center of London--what has gone wrong? Even as that question is answered in this brilliant and riveting novel, certain hair-raising doubts about our present bio-ecological attitudes are forever planted in our minds. At the same time we are drawn into the lives of some fellow human beings under stress: Luke Gerrard and Anne Kramer of the Kramer Consultancy, a group of expert research scientists organized to anticipate and produce solutions to problems in industry and science. Under the leadership of Arnold Kramer, an analytical genius with ferocious creative ability and overdeveloped commercial zeal, they have given the world a very profitable substance called Degron, used in widely hailed self-destructing plastic containers. As Luke and Anne flee disaster in the fiery subway tunnels and as Arnold Kramer takes the last flight out of London to New York, it becomes evident that the Degron may be a modern Trojan Horse, and the search for the cause of plastic dissolution becomes indeed a race against doom"--Jacket.