Trevelyan's Wager

This shallow and trite near-future philosophical treatise has a few interesting moments, but ultimately misses the mark on the genuinely interesting questions. William del Grappa, an ostensibly jaded war correspondent, meets Sophia Trevelyan, a genetically modified immortal living in a paradisiacal island called Elysium. He is taken into her world, where he conducts an interview meant to explore the luxurious life of the 200 super-wealthy humans who've been modified so they won't age and are immune to most disease. William stays focused on the "nymph" Sophia as she waxes on about coping mechanisms that mortals use to deal with death and casually establishes that the culture among the immortals has many unexamined problems, including male sexual entitlement and the indoctrination and enslavement of mortals. This setup could create a very interesting perspective on questions of mortality, meaning, and beauty, but Bassano never pursues those questions to any real conclusion. The final image is poignant, but the narrative device used to deliver it is clunky. Readers are advised to find other navels to gaze upon. (Oct.)