Line #0 Literature/TheMoreauFactor


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5	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/9780575103238.jpg]]
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7	->''"When the matter of the flying werewolf first surfaced in UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC, I never once thought of the dinosaurs."''
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9	When Jack Valone, a hard-drinking, down-on-his-luck science journalist well past his Pulitzer Prize days, gets a phone call from a geneticist promising the "scoop of the century", he's curious but more than a little skeptical. But when he goes to do the interview, he arrives in the middle of perhaps the weirdest crime scene investigation of all time. His subject is missing, the room is covered in his blood, and the perpetrator appears to be... a flying werewolf? Soon Valone is pursuing a shadowy group of geneticists working far, far beyond the bleeding edge of genetics and technology. It's the story of a lifetime... IF he can survive long enough to publish.
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11	A re-envisioning of the underlying concepts --if not the actual plot--of Creator/HGWells' ''Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau'' in the light of the dawning age of genetic engineering, ''The Moreau Factor'' is the last non-serial novel of noted 20th-century speculative fiction writer Creator/JackChalker. The book represents something of return to form for Chalker, with a tighter plot and harder science than some of his lengthier efforts. Well worth the read, if you can find a copy.
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13	!!This book provides examples of:
14	%%* AuthorAppeal: Chalker, remember? But it is never gratuitous and never gets in the way of the story.
15	%%* BodyHorror: Averted despite the setup.
16	%%* EvilutionaryBiologist
17	%%* GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke
18	* GenderBender: Not so prominent as in some Chalker books but addressed to the extent that it is implicit in the subject matter.[[note]]Valone is the rare Chalker hero who escapes with his balls intact.[[/note]] The only explicitly gender bent characters are all turned into hermaphrodites.
19	%%* HalfHumanHybrid: Artificially crafted ones, at that.
20	* HappinessInSlavery: The "Puff Girls", an entire species of genetically engineered hermaphroditic lab assistants with a very odd semi-inorganic metabolism that gives them near-total immunity to virtually all toxic substances and biohazards. They're perfectly happy as long as you give them something to do and let them have babies.
21	* {{Hermaphrodite}}: Several species of them, largely by accident due to pleiotropy.
22	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The scientists were forced to become their own creations.
23	* HumansAreBastards: Played with. [[TheManBehindTheMan The shadowy conspiracy behind Project Moreau]] are all bastards, and their victims are worried that the rest of humanity will align themselves with the bastards out of fear if news of their existence leaks.
24	* InnocentFanserviceGirl: The Puff Girls again. Clothing would get contaminated and wouldn't provide more protection than their skin. Innocent in that humans hold no attraction for them.
25	* KarmicTransformation: The {{Evilutionary Biologist}}s claim they were forced to become their own creations by their shadowy employers, ostensibly as a way to keep them under control.
26	* LegoGenetics: Specifically averted within the story itself, with a thorough explanation of how pleiotropy makes it impossible.
27	* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: Including species of FishPeople, humanoid dolphins, and hermaphroditic frog women.
28	%%* PhlebotinumRebel and Phlebotinum counterrevolutionaries as well
29	* SecondLawOfGenderBending: More of a case of the second law of transformation: The organization specifically recruits people who would be intrigued by the prospect and uses mind control to enforce the rest.
30	* SlowTransformation: Transformation via actual biological processes takes months to accomplish.
31	* TranshumanTreachery: Many of the Transformed have turned their backs on humanity but some have not, through their internal conflict isn't about saving humanity so much as which approach offers the best survival strategy for their own species.
32	* TheUnfettered: Dr. Foo will allow nothing to interfere with her experiments on humans.
33	%%* WhatMeasureIsANonSuper / WhatMeasureIsANonhuman: Debated within the story itself.
34	* WhatMeasureIsANonCute: Some of the hybrids are... less attractive... than others. It is explicitly noted that may have implications for their future survival.

Context Literature / TheMoreauFactor