Trans-human Genetics Comes to Tampa

Authors

  • Michael L. Shuman University of South Florida Author

Keywords:

Donald L. Kaufmann, genetic engineering, science fiction, satire, motherhood, Tampa

Abstract

Michael L. Shuman reviews O Brave New Eve: A Genetic Fantasy (Lulu), the last novel by Donald L. Kaufmann, a pioneering Mailer scholar who died in October 2015. Shuman sketches the plot, in which a Tampa scientist, Doctor Victor, seeks to engineer human birth so that mothers remain unaware of their pregnancies, using a street orphan and an aging aristocrat as his subjects, and he notes a satirical subplot of anthropomorphized automobiles. Calling the novel too strange and imaginative for any review to capture, Shuman likens it to sixties new-wave science fiction and hip pulp eroticism, finds it funny and insightful about a fractured culture, and recommends it as a fitting last bow.

Author Biography

  • Michael L. Shuman, University of South Florida

    Michael L. Shuman had long careers in both newspaper management and software development before earning his Ph.D and joining the Department of English at University of South Florida, where he teaches writing for the technical professions and coordinates the department’s internship program. Dr. Shuman is Deputy Editor of The Mailer Review.

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Published

2016-09-28

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 1 (2016): 10th Anniversary Issue

Section

Book Reviews

How to Cite

Shuman, Michael L. “Trans-Human Genetics Comes to Tampa”. The Mailer Review, vol. 10, no. 1, Sept. 2016, pp. 447–450, https://mailerreview.org/journal/article/view/589.