Synopsis
"Kalstein's writing mirrors the world he creates: bold, textured, rife with dark secrets. Watching the ambitious boy genius and the angst-ridden thug piecing together the clues - about a conspiracy, about themselves - makes PRODIGY a wonderful coming-of-age story hidden inside a riveting mystery. If the characters from Less Than Zero and The Secret History woke up in a novel by Philip K. Dick, they'd get along famously with the precocious students of Stansbury."
-DUSTIN THOMASON, bestselling author of The Rule of Four
"Dave Kalstein's merciless, murderous, amped-up future is on a par with that of Richard Morgan's. His evolutionarily advanced schoolboy and schoolgirl protagonists are like the glowing-eyed cuckoos of Village of the Damned interbred with the cast of The O. C. and The Legion of Superheroes. If Jim Thompson had written Catcher in the Rye, we might have experienced a similar thrill-ride."
-Paul Di Filippo, author of The Emperor of Gondwanaland
"Speaking of the future, Dave Kalstein has a way with words and a big talent that will surely vault him into the ranks of well-known writers for years to come."
-Ethan Black, author of Dead for Life
Publishers Weekly
The Stansbury School's class of 2036-"flagship editions of youth"-are "bred... for top-of-the-line performance," poised to matriculate at the best colleges and destined to dominate the private and public sectors. After a 12-year regimen of chemical enhancement, conditioning and ideology inside Stansbury's high-rise virtual prison, in the megalopolis of San Angeles, these co-ed high school students, known as "specimens" in Kalstein's cautionary debut, emerge a master race of ninja-assassin geniuses: unnaturally tall, lethal and intelligent-at the cost of imagination and individualism. The story hinges on two students, both full-ride scholarship orphans, who form an unlikely partnership after six recent Stansbury graduates are murdered. Valedictorian Thomas Oliver Goldsmith has put his "blue collar work ethic and indomitable will" behind Stansbury's mission, while Winston Cooley, a rebellious malcontent, refuses to swallow the mandated drugs or the school's supposedly high-minded ideals. When Cooley unwittingly ends up at the scene of an alum's murder, the school's administration puts Goldsmith on the case. For Stansbury, the scandal could jeopardize the school's chances to receive a $1 trillion-a-year research grant from the government. For Cooley, his very freedom is at stake. Kalstein's action-packed comment on the price of "progress," the absurdity of hypercompetitive education and the myth of meritocracy hurtles to a satisfying if predictable conclusion. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.