AncestorScott Sigler
Crown, June 2010
ISBN: 978-0307406330
"Relentless and suspenseful...a timely tale of science run amok that compels reading until the finale page."
-Publishers Weekly
Ancestor is the terrifying new thriller by New York Times bestselling author Scott Sigler. Drawing on the premise of isolating stem cells as a means of generating cures for all sorts of diseases. Ancestor tells the story of a corporation driven to the edges of the earth to push on with their experiments. Sigler takes a simple science fiction tale of the dangers of technology outstripping ethics, and weaves it into a web of betrayal, deceit, murder, and revenge.
A group of scientists at Genada, a biotech company, manage to recreate the genome of the ancestor of all mammals. They use this genome to impregnate cows to give birth to these ancestors. Their purpose? Xenotransplantation, the science of transplanting animal organs into humans. By using the ancestor, they hope to overcome the usual organ rejection as well as the possible jumping of a virus from one species to another (Bird Flu or H1N1). Fortunately, they successfully implant the ancestor blastocysts into the cows. Unfortunately, the ancestor isn’t quite what they hope it will be. As the story unfolds, the terror elevates to intense levels, dragging you helplessly towards the climatic conclusion.
The writing in Ancestor is tight and suspenseful, Sigler slowly draws in the reader, foreshadowing the ending subtly. Sigler establishes suspense early on and keeps the pace boiling with his flowing, easy-to-read prose. His choice of frozen setting creates a claustrophobic mood, and his characters are flawed and sometimes menacing. Sigler provides just enough depth to them to make us care about their fates, but doesn't bog the novel down in back-story. Sigler knows the DNA of a good thriller, his novels are sleek entertainment machines.
SCOTT SIGLER's fiction podcasts have drawn a huge and devoted following. His serialized stories have held the number one position in all the podcast indexes, including iTunes. Scott’s first hardcover release, Infected, was translated into a dozen languages and is being adapted for film by Random House Films/Rogue Pictures. Scott lives in San Francisco with his wife and their dog.
