"Halfskin" Tony Bertauski

My Rating 4 stars

Synopsis:

Biomites are artificial stem cells that can replace any cell in your body. No more kidney failure, no severed spines or blood disease. No cancer. Pharmaceuticals become obsolete. With each dose of biomites, we become stronger, we become smarter and prettier.

We become better.

At what point are we no longer human?

Nix Richards nearly died in a car accident when he was young. Biomites saved his life. Ten years later, he’s not so lucky. The Halfskin Laws decree a human composed of 50% biomites is no longer human. Halfskins have no legal rights and will have their biomites shutdown. It’s not called murder, merely deactivation.

Cali Richards has been Nix’s legal guardian since their parents died. She has lost far too many people in her life to let the government take Nix. She is a nanobiometric engineer and will discover how to hide him. But even brilliance can succumb to the pressure of suffering. And technology can’t cure insanity.

Cali and Nix keep a slippery grip on reality as they elude a maniacal federal agent dedicated to saving humanity from what he calls 'The Biomite Plague

My Thoughts:

I found this book to be a little bit confusing. It was told from a bunch of different point of views, the story line on the other hand was really good.

Biomites are artificial stem cells, which can help keep a person alive who would other wise die. They are also used by selfish people for looks and everything else, if you had cancer or were in an accident then they would give you Biomites to get rid of that cancer or to repair the damage done by an accident. Everything was good and Biomites were what everyone wanted. Then they became against the law, once you had too many Biomites they would just shut them down. You can’t be more then 40 percent before they detain you, and they shut you down when you hit 50 percent.

Nix was just a boy who was in an accident that killed his parents in order to stay alive he needed Biomites, they never knew that nix might get taken and detained because of it. His sister Cali has lost to many family members to let anything happen to nix. She will do what ever it takes to keep her brother alive. Marcus is a politician/government agent who is hell bent on getting rid of the Biomites, he believes he needs to save humanity and that the Biomites are destroying society.

A long as there are Biomites there is someone watching your every move, and having to many Biomites can cause you a lot of trouble.

This book was short and enjoyable, I found Marcus’ character to be a little over the top. He hates people who use Biomites to save lives, he believes that they will turn into computers and humanity will be at stake. What he doesn’t know is that he is fighting a war that he cannot win and it will make him a little crazy. I enjoyed the story line of everyone is being watched, which they are, but technology is technology and people will do what it takes to make themselves look better and feel younger and anything else they can, even feed illusions. The book had really good writing and I would have finished it in one sitting if everyone didn’t quite bugging me. I like the concept of no matter how far technology advances there will always be someone there to make it illegal. Which is really how the world works today. If you like this sort of sci-fi I would definitely read this one as I have said before I’m not really a sci-fi reader but this book was enjoyable. 



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