Brother to Dragons (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Charles Sheffield
- First Published: 1992
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—extrapolatory
- Time of Work: December 31, 1999, to late February, 2018
- Setting: Washington, D.C., and Nevada
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction
- Subjects: North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Twenty-first century, West, U.S., Washington, D.C., Southwest, Orphans or orphanages, 1990’s, Bioengineering or biotechnology, Nevada, Viruses, Hazardous wastes
- Locales: Washington, D.C., Nevada
The Plot
The novel tells the story of Job Napoleon Salk’s life, from his birth on the eve of the twenty-first century to his death less than nineteen years later. The first half is set in various places in Washington, D.C., where Salk is born and where he grows up. The second half is set in Xanadu, the country’s oldest, largest, and most dangerous “Tandy” (Toxic and Nuclear Disposal Installation), somewhere in Nevada.
Salk’s life starts out badly and gets worse. His mother is a drug addict, and Salk is born facially malformed, undersized, and underweight. He...
[The entire page is 992 words long]
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