Review of Aftermath

Levar Burton, best known1 as Chief Engineer Geordie LaForge of Star Trek: The Next Generation, makes an impressive literary debut in this 1997 novel. Set in the near future of 2019, the science fiction tale postulates the Neural Enhancer: a revolutionary medical device that, by activating unused brain & nervous system functions, enables the body to cure itself of most diseases. But Dr Rene Reynolds, inventor of the device, struggles for funds in a shoestring operation on the outskirts of Atlanta, in a country ravaged by a three-year civil war. Her presentations bring the device to the attention of those who will stop at nothing to either possess or destroy it. Soon Dr Reynolds is struggling for her life against brutal factions which the police of the impoverished city lack the resources to combat. Fortunately, the Neural Enhancer has some capabilities she has left out of her notes and presentations...

Hints & Kinks

Burton has his NASA space station rising in the east (i.e. in a retrograde orbit.) Trust me; this is just wrong.
A Scientific American article by Leon Cane, the other main character, shuts NASA down much too easily.
When we first see the Neural Enhancer, it is amid a welter of oscilloscopes and other equipment on which Dr. Reynolds makes finicky adjustments during her presentation. Yet, when she recovers it in the field, we find it is self-powered and operates very well indeed without all that auxiliary gear.
The climax struck me as gratuitously violent, with the hidden powers of the Enhancer just a little too much like a deux ex machina.2

The novel starts a bit slowly. Some of the setup seems naive (see the box above.) However, the characters are vividly drawn and affecting (if a bit stereotyped), the dialogue is good, and the action soon picks up to a blistering pace.

The novel is divided into four parts, each introduced by a quotation — like this one:

The book includes a timeline of events that precede the beginning of the story. Among these are two that struck me as eerily prescient: A black Democrat from Ohio announces his candidacy for president in 2010 and wins the seat in 2012. Considering that Levar Burton lives in California, his prediction was only two states and four years too far out. To sum up, I enjoyed this novel, read it in one sitting. I was very tempted to give it full marks. I only pulled it down one notch because of the continuity errors at the end. I look forward to another novel from this author.

1 Or perhaps he's best known for his role as Kunta Kinte in the path-breaking television minseries Roots.

2 I won't spoil the plot by explaining further. Suffice it to say that this climactic scene owes something to the Charles Bronson - Toshiro Mifune film Red Sun and to Raymond F. Jones's novel This Island Earth.

AFTERMATH Levar Burton New York: Warner Books, 1997				Rating: 4.5 High
ISBN-13 978-0-446-51993-9
ISBN-10 0-446-51993-6	274p.	HC	$22.00

AFTERMATH

Reviewed 4/26/2010

Hints & Kinks