Eve & Adam

Seventeen-year-old Evening Spiker has just suffered a horrific accident that left her close to death. Miraculously -- and mysteriously -- she heals in just a few days. Still under observation, Eve is bored, so her mother, Terra Spiker, head of the giant Spiker Biopharmaceuticals company, puts her to work in the lab: "I want you, Evening, to design the perfect boy." Eve's task is to manipulate a strand of DNA, which pulses on a twenty-foot-tall computer monitor, and observe the effects on her "person" -- in short, to engage in "guided evolution" or "playing God" (both terms employed by her mother). This is just a simulation, right? "Of course it's not real," Terra says. "That would be illegal." But it is real, and Eve creates Adam, a perfect eighteen-year-old male specimen. The story alternates between Eve's perspective and that of Solo, an enigmatic teen working in the lab with ties to the Spiker family. The text is rife with apt allusions to Frankenstein, the book of Genesis, Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, and even Pygmalion; the love triangle element -- and the question: what qualities make the perfect mate? -- will keep readers engaged on a level beyond the scientific details and speculation. Throughout the book, Grant and Applegate portray a chilling brave new world of genetic technology, presenting fascinating speculative possibilities that are weighed against their moral implications. dean schneider