In the science fiction novel CHILDREN OF THE MIRACLE by Daniel Weisbeck, a pandemic has struck Earth, killing billions. Experts from doctors to government officials attempted to stem the worldwide tide of destruction, but now a second, mutated wave of the virus threatens to eradicate the human beings, and perhaps all life forms, are left. When Dr. Mercy Perching of the Sanctuary of Europe is invited to travel to the Sanctuary of Americas, a location that has kept itself intentionally isolated for a century, she is startled to learn the source of the mutation. It has originated from the Chimera; a hybrid species this locale has already been fashioning from genetically modified genes of human mixed with animal DNA.

While the story is set in a future time where things like personal virtual assistants proliferate (Mercy’s had one named Gia since childhood that can do things like captain a ship), and the sun has become something everyone in the Sanctuary of Europe avoids unless they want days of radiation treatment, what’s happening in the Americas is enough to astonish Mercy. Their concept of ‘diversity’ is now tangibly by design, and what’s being created are beings that are, for instance, part-man combined with part-dog or part-bird, such as Dr. Chase, America’s head of Infectious Disease Research, who has paws. The idea of eugenics and customizing new and improve races has been falling in and out of favor with homo sapiens for quite awhile, but this novel takes the idea to a new intensely chilling level. The Sanctuary of Americas has ten hybrid classifications from C1 to C10, with anything above C9 theoretically sterilized at birth and anything troublesome gotten rid of. Is this humane? And once Dr. Mercy meets Dr. Chase with his thick, wavy hair and broad shoulders, her feelings of astonishment turn into something quite a bit…warmer.

There are a few minor flaws to this novel which could be easily corrected, such as adding in a user-friendly, hyperlinked Table of Contents for ease of navigation. On the whole, Weisbeck’s CHILDREN OF THE MIRACLE is a superb examination of the advantages and potential pitfalls of both technology and human nature in a world where everything and everyone wants to survive. When the cure to a virus is key to personal power along with holding the fate of a new species in its hands, who can be trusted? Maybe no one.

CHILDREN OF THE MIRACLE by Daniel Weisbeck is a thought-provoking, heart-palpitating dystopian adventure into the possible consequences of genetically modified human beings.

~C.S. Holmes for IndieReader