2024 Reading Challenge

2024 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 1 book toward her goal of 285 books.
hide

2023 Reading Challenge

2023 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 5 books toward her goal of 265 books.
hide

Book Review: Rust by Glen Joshpe

Merciful heavens, Tuesdays come around quickly! Here we are, Book Review Tuesday yet again. Today’s feature is a science fiction-cum-actual science tale about the mysteries of aging and the politics of medicine. My review copy of Rust was provided by the author, Dr. Glen Joshpe.

“A tantalizing, scientifically based action novel.” That’s how the book is self-described. My interest was immediately peaked, especially when I saw that it was written by a gerontologist. Imagine, a book about aging written by a doctor focused on aging. Novel concept that, eh? I have a background in health care (for those who care, check out my bio – for the rest of you, in a nutshell I have worked with/for/on behalf of health insurers, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, government regulators, and patient advocacy organizations – so I know my way around this block better than your average reader) and have always enjoyed medical/scientific thrillers (think Robin CookRichard PrestonSPOILER ALERT – this review contains plot lines and details that may be considered spoilers, although for the most part I think they are more like extrapolations of the points made in the jacket blurb. Still, I wouldn’t want anyone to read on and then feel cheated, hence the ALERT.

I eagerly dug in when the book arrived. Unfortunately, I very quickly found myself in a hole that I never really climbed out of.

The premise of the book is a sound one, full of potential. Without going into the science involved (the author does that more than enough for the both of us), the short-hand version is that a quirky and extremely eccentric scientist discovers a way around the problem of free radicals and their attendant effects on the body (the eponymous “rust” – the cells/organs literally erode the way metal will through the effects of water, and this internal “rusting” is what causes the symptoms/side effects we know as aging). He applies his theories to a population in a remote village in Africa and literally stops them from aging. As you would imagine, governments and other organized entities are very interested in these developments, and a battle for control rapidly ensues.

Sounds exciting, right? Full of mayhem and chases and drama?

Well…

There is some of that, sure. But vast portions of the book read like scientific treatises on drug/device development and medical research. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se, but it’s not exactly the makings of an “action novel” to my mind. I also found them a little overly technical. Again, I have a decent health care/medical background – and I must admit that I found some of the science to be a little heavy-handed. (Caveat: I’m not a doctor and have never been trained as a practitioner. I did, however, manage a multi-million dollar policy advocacy project on Alzheimer’s disease drug development for a number of years, so I’m fairly well-read on the science and concepts of aging.) There is even a direct acknowledgement of a real research paper in one chapter. And from the way much of that text read, I’m guessing it was a paraphrasing. Please note that I am not implying any intellectual property shenanigans here AT ALL, just making the point that the chapter read like a CDC or AMA lecture rather than a novel by an author of fiction.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some exciting moments and a number of very intriguing plot elements. But there were also some far-fetched moments involving the Russian mob, a paranoid granddaughter, an Asperger’s recluse, and a CIA operative with heart. Exciting, sure, but also a little off-feeling when layered over a lecture on pharmacology and gerontology.

With more accurate billing, the book may have fared better in my hands. The writing style is generally engaging and, with a few notable exceptions in the exposition of scientific principles, fairly easy-going. And I’m never one to knock non-fiction or accurate science in science-fiction. But calling this one a “tantalizing, scientifically-based action novel” was a bit of a stretch. There was a lot more science than action in this one…

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>