The Caress - Greg Egan

Novelette

Number of words : 10100
Percent of complex words : 12.5
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 17.7

READABILITY INDICES

Fog : 12.0
Flesch : 56.4
Flesch-Kincaid : 9.8



PEOPLE

Detective Dan Segel

An enhanced police officer.

Freda Ann Mecklenburg

A dead scientist. Creator of Catherine.

Dr Muriel Beatty

A casualty department doctor at St Dominic's

Dr Henry Feingold

One of Macklenburg's old co-authors.

Marion

Dan's wife.

John Aldrich

Art dealer and amateur art historian.

Andreas Lindquist

Strange, deceased artist.

Steve Burbeck

A police worker.

Gustave Lindquist

Andreas' son.

Catherine

A human-leopard chimera.

Neil Armstrong

First man on the moon.



MEDIA

The New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Embryology

Science journals.

The Caress

Painted in 1896 by the Belgian Symbolist artist Fernand Khnopff.


PLACES

St Dominic's

An hospital with a casualty department.

Early Human Development Laboratory

At St Andrew’s Hospital.


CONCEPTS

Chimera

A melding of human and animal.

Lindhquistism

Followers of Andreas Lindquist.

Primed

For police: A mixture of drugs heightens various physiological and emotional responses, and suppresses others.

Deprimed

Reversing primed process.


ORGANISATIONS

Applied Veterinary Research

Used as a supplier of drugs by Macklenburg.


TECHNOLOGY

Berserker

Physical enhancement drug.

Timewarp

Physical enhancement drug.

ARIA

Automated Remote Informant Analysis.


WEAPONS

Fan laser

A spinning mirror sweeps the beam across a wide arc.


PLOT

An investigation into the murder of a scientist leads to the discovery of her chimera creation Catherine, part leopard, part human.

As Segel looks into it more he finds out about Andreas Lindquist, a strange artist. An attempt is also made on Catherine's life, but he stops the assassin.

However, deprimed at home he and his wife are drugged and taken into captivity, where Dan is operated on to fit Lindquist's notion of art, to match Catherine, a la a painting. Lindquist apparently bred his son so that he could use brain manipulation and genetic techniques to make him similar in memory and attitude. So it is not sure which Lindquist actually took the pair.

After several months they are again drugged, and returned home, where they attempt to rebuild their normal lives. Somewhat literally in Dan's case.


4 out of 5