Readers have learned to expect the unexpected from Peter F. Hamilton. Now the master of space opera focuses on near-future Earth and one most unusual family. The result is a coming-of-age tale like no other. By turns comic, erotic, and tragic, Misspent Youth is a profound and timely exploration of all that divides and unites fathers and sons, men and women, the young and the old.2040. After decades of concentrated research and experimentation in the field of genetic engineering, scientists of the European Union believe they have at last conquered humankind's most pernicious foe: old age. For the first time, technology holds out the promise of not merely slowing the aging process but actually reversing it. The ancient dream of the Fountain of Youth seems at hand.The first subject for treatment is seventy-eight-year-old philanthropist Jeff Baker. After eighteen months in a rejuvenation tank, Jeff emerges looking like a twenty-year-old. And …
Readers have learned to expect the unexpected from Peter F. Hamilton. Now the master of space opera focuses on near-future Earth and one most unusual family. The result is a coming-of-age tale like no other. By turns comic, erotic, and tragic, Misspent Youth is a profound and timely exploration of all that divides and unites fathers and sons, men and women, the young and the old.2040. After decades of concentrated research and experimentation in the field of genetic engineering, scientists of the European Union believe they have at last conquered humankind's most pernicious foe: old age. For the first time, technology holds out the promise of not merely slowing the aging process but actually reversing it. The ancient dream of the Fountain of Youth seems at hand.The first subject for treatment is seventy-eight-year-old philanthropist Jeff Baker. After eighteen months in a rejuvenation tank, Jeff emerges looking like a twenty-year-old. And the change is more than skin deep. From his hair cells down to his DNA, Jeff is twenty--with a breadth of life experience. But while possessing the wisdom of a septuagenarian at age twenty is one thing, raging testosterone is another, as Jeff discovers when he attempts to pick up his life where he left off. Suddenly his oldest friends seem, well, old. Jeff's trophy wife looks better than she ever did. His teenage son, Tim, is more like a younger brother. And Tim's nubile girlfriend is a conquest too tempting to resist.Jeff's rejuvenated libido wreaks havoc on the lives of his friends and family, straining his relationship with Tim to the breaking point. It's as if youth is a drug and Jeff is wasted on it. But if so, it's an addiction he has no interest in kicking.As Jeff's personal life spirals out of control, the European Union undergoes a parallel meltdown, attacked by shadowy separatist groups whose violent actions earn both condemnation and applause. Now, in one terrifying instant, the personal and the political will intersect, and neither Jeff nor Tim--or the Union itself--will ever be the same again.From the Hardcover edition.
This was slow for me to get into, but built well. as an introduction to the author I can't say it's put me off exploring more, but neither has it caused me to think the writing is something so intriguing as to bump the title up my list. I do have the reality Disfunction, but I started Misspent Youth after the synopsis caught my eye without even being aware of it until then. In short? enjoyed it , interesting enough, but without a wow factor.
A commonplace of recent "hard" SF is the idea of very long lifespans and rejuvenation of the body. Hamilton has used it himself in his space-opera series. Here he decides to make it the focus of a stand-alone novel, examining the impact on the very first recipient and his family.
My usual complaint about Hamilton is that his stories have no subtext at all but that cannot be said of this novel of loose morals and really bad behaviour. Unfortunately the message seems rather underwhelming; if you behaved badly when you were twenty and you suddenly go from being 70 to being twenty again - you'll behave badly again. The type of behaviour is not unrealistic in that similar disasters do occur in step-families.
The characters spend so much time having sex that it gets tedious but there are some other things going on; one is a theme of a …
A commonplace of recent "hard" SF is the idea of very long lifespans and rejuvenation of the body. Hamilton has used it himself in his space-opera series. Here he decides to make it the focus of a stand-alone novel, examining the impact on the very first recipient and his family.
My usual complaint about Hamilton is that his stories have no subtext at all but that cannot be said of this novel of loose morals and really bad behaviour. Unfortunately the message seems rather underwhelming; if you behaved badly when you were twenty and you suddenly go from being 70 to being twenty again - you'll behave badly again. The type of behaviour is not unrealistic in that similar disasters do occur in step-families.
The characters spend so much time having sex that it gets tedious but there are some other things going on; one is a theme of a Federal Europe that has become a target of multiple terrorist seperatist groups from various formerly independent states. The society is shown as repressive and only nominally democratic. This could be merely a projection of current European trends for the sake of background and plot but it feels more like a Dystopian Warning.
These days when an SF novel focuses centrally on a Major Medical Breakthrough I expect that near the end it will unravel, either killing the recipient or leaving him exactly where he started. These seem like just a Deus Ex Machina that allows the author to quit once bored and the predictability is greatly detrimental to the overall impact of the book. This one is not an exception.
