Joe Vasicek, $2.99, ISBN 978-0463563755
Sci-fi, 2021

I like Joe Vasicek. No, I don’t know him personally, but I like that he’s deliberately going against the tide that is typical of the sci-fi clique, and the result is a much needed diversity of voice and point of view that is increasingly rare these days.

Having said that, A Fatal Rebirth isn’t what I’d call a story as much as it is a sermon, delivered from the pulpit with all the gravity and subtlety of an ax buried between my eyes.

The protagonist is a medical researcher that discovered a breakthrough: by grafting young tissue to an aging body, one can stave off the effects of age, and if this grafting is done perpetually, then one can be essentially immortal. Yay. The catch is that the tissues must have the same genetic component, which means the fresh young tissue must come from an identical twin or a clone.

This gives rise to wealthy people that can pay to produce clones after clones of themselves to serve as the working class while these wealthy folks spend their days lazing away, and the clones are then harvested for their tissues when their owner’s body needs fresh young tissues.

This short story sees the protagonist raging against this creation of a decadent, exploitative upper class, and that’s basically it. The whole thing reads like an aborted first draft of the script for that video game Detroit: Become Human, and before you ask, no, I don’t like anything by David Cage so far, so don’t ask me to review that thing.

Here’s the thing. I have no issues at all with this story, aside from the fact that $2.99 may be way too expensive from what is essentially a sermon. However, I am distracted by one thing: won’t it be cheaper and easier to just harvest one’s own stem cells, and then generate tissues from these cells in order to replenish any aging tissues in the body? Having so many clones running around can give rise to even more issues, such as overpopulation and related issues such as food supplies, housing, et cetera, whereas you just need a building with the appropriate storage system for stem cells.

I am torn between this one two or three oogies, because a part of me really recoils at the thought of giving this one three oogies when it really doesn’t feel like it’s worth the $2.99 cover price. However, I don’t really have any other complaints about it, other than perhaps the fundamental concepts of the story could have been thought out more. It made me think about the premise and the protagonist’s actions quite a bit, which in a way means that the story has gotten under my skin, and that’s a good thing.

Hence, three oogies.