Fountain Society

Craven's first novel, a cloning thriller, isn't quite a clone of John Darnton's recent cloning thriller (The Experiment, Forecasts, July 5), but the two could pass as siblings. Both are by Sunday novelists: Craven is the (in)famous director of such horror film classics as Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street; Darnton edits for the New York Times. Both feature top-secret experiments by mad doctors: here, it's an army-funded program by Dr. Frederick Wolfe that has tampered with nature by growing human duplicates. And in both novels it's the dawning awareness by the clones and their originals of the implications of their situations that generates the primary suspense. But there are differences. Craven is an emotional writer, unlike Darnton, but he lacks the latter's attention to journalistic detail. Craven also writes cinematically, with energetic crosscutting of scenes. His setup depicts the evolving affair of a pair of lovers, model Elizabeth and financier Hans, in Europe, as well as the clandestine superweapons experiments of ailing, aging physicist Peter Jance and his wife, both colleagues of Wolfe, in White Sands. Hans is kidnapped: Wolfe's people have snatched him, for Hans, it's revealed, is Peter's clone. On the Caribbean island of Vieques, Wolfe transplants Peter's brain into Hans's young body, ensuring that Peter's diabolical weapons research will continue. Much of the remainder of the narrative concerns Peter's grappling with his new body and its memories, including recollections of Elizabeth, who makes her way to Vieques, sparking in Peter a reassessment of his marriage and career. The two become lovers. Can they escape Wolfe's clutches? Surging melodrama and rich characters distinguish this novel; one wishes it boasted the clear prose and scientific analysis of the Darnton. Neither book works fully, but the two complement each other--not like mirror images but like two halves of one whole. Author tour. (Oct.)