The Longevity Thesis [Paperback]

I don't normally read fantasy, but the premise of this book intrigued me: the tag line reads, "Apprenticed to the Graduate Supervisor from Hell"... Anyone who has been through university will enjoy this intriguing walk through the dark hallways of the Temlochti State University, not your ordinary university. And no ordinary walk for the protagonist, young Antronos, an outsider from the desert, who graduates with a degree in medicine and accepts a position as a graduate student in the laboratory of Sen Vernus, a mysterious, rather unsavory character with an arcane knowledge in longevity.

The concept of life and death, how we relate to it and what we are willing to sacrifice for it, is a major thread that is woven throughout the book. The Longevity Thesis tells the tale of a young boy from the desert whose destiny is shaped by the loss of his mother at an early age; the loss leads him into the underground city of the Temlochti State and into the field of medicine where he becomes fascinated with prolonging life. Rahn does an admirable job of world-building. The surface desert is as blisteringly real as the dank underground hallways of the Temlochti State.

While the characters were well-rounded and distinctive, I found myself faltering at times as to who to root for and who to condemn. This can be both a good and a bad thing in a novel. I think it worked for The Longevity Thesis, particularly once I settled down with a few trusted characters. Despite this, I found the main character, Antronos, a little weak as the main protagonist. I would have liked to see him develop more as a character. He was far too predictable and obvious most of the time, although, he shows incredible insight and depth at the end of the book. I found the character of Opalena more compelling for her faults and contradictions, and for her potential for development. Rahn's "villains" were by far the most interesting though, like the sinister Sen Vernus and his lover-sidekick, the slimy Meriamdan, and others. This partly owes to Rahn's turning of a good phrase too, particularly when she describes Vernus, who comes across like an insidious oil slick: Everything about his facial features was sharp: the black of his eyes, the hook of his nose, and the curve of his lips. And his mind--honed like a razor and frighteningly quick...Even though the old doctor never moved from his seat on the other side of the table, Antronos felt as if every hair on his head had been lifted and turned over. This also owes to Rahn's ambiguous portrayal of her villains. With the exception of perhaps Vernus, her "villains" possess not only faults but the potential for change and improvement, shifting in some cases from one to the other. In fact, several of the villains come across more like victims, which is a more realistic portrayal of a villain.

Rahn's story shines not so much in the story itself or the plot, but in how her characters weave their way through the maze she has created for them. In the end, it is young Antronos, the naïve medical graduate initially obsessed with the concept of prolonging life, to realize that although the body drowns, so long as the soul swims free, life will continue. This is true longevity.

The Longevity Thesis is a debut novel published by Dragon Moon Press, and despite its faults, manages to weave a rather intriguing, dark, and sinister story. Antronos is an outsider, a deformed man without a family having moved from the dangerous surface desert into an underground world of high culture and medicine. When he manages to get a degree at a University he decides to focus his interests into the concept of longevity. But his interests suddenly place him under the wing of a wicked old man, Vernus, whose arcane powers now control the High Prince Jait--who also possesses incredible psychic power, but is unable to use it--and who threatens to destroy Jait and anyone else that gets in the way.
This novel is rather dark, in a good way. The bad guys have no qualms about tearing people apart--literally--for their personal gains. The magic, or psychic power, that is presented to us is violent. When Vernus enters the mind of someone else it isn't a gentle nudge to get in, it's a violent tearing down of defenses and a complete invasion that causes damage not only to the person mentally, but physically too. Dragon Moon has this labeled as Science Fiction, but really it's sort of a mixture between Fantasy and SF. There's magic and relatively advanced medicine--probably something similar to medicine twenty years ago. There are creepy red skeletons wandering the deserts and a group of semi-hive-mind people called the Yrati.
Rahn's experience in the medical field (two degrees in pharmacology and one in medical sciences) lends her some very creative devices. Because of her experience, I think she is able to talk about medicine in this setting with a bit more credibility. Things sound real, rather than simply made up, and I imagine, through my limited experience in the medical field, that a lot of what she has brought into this story is, in fact, real. This is a strong point for her, especially since Antronos is studying medicine and a lot of what he has to do within the story involves this knowledge.
One thing I really liked, but also become somewhat of a flaw which will be mentioned later, is that some of the characters were so ambiguous that you never knew if they were going to be good or bad. Sometimes they'd be good, sometimes bad, and you were always left wondering "is he serious this time".
The novel itself is rather good, though it does have some faults. One problem is "too many POVs" syndrome. This doesn't become and issue until the last quarter of the novel when Rahn gives us insight into practically half the cast of main and secondary characters, which I think was a bit much. One of the other issues is that some events that are actually of importance happen 'off screen' and are simply told to us at the start of a new chapter. These moments sort of had me feeling cheated as so many other events are described, some of which probably didn't need to be. There is also a problem with establishing time. Towards the end of the novel we're told that a year has passed by, but it only felt like a couple weeks to me.
The last problem is in the structure itself. The beginning moves a little slow and the novel doesn't really begin to take off until around the middle of the book (about page 100). From there we're thrust into this fast paced jump between the good guys and the bad guys as each betrays, plots, and succeeds against one another, over and over. Now, this doesn't initially bother me and a lot of it was actually very good and I loved the twists because it kept me wondering who the heck was actually a good guy, but it seemed that sometimes the good guys shouldn't have bothered at all because the bad guys were just going to end up getting what they wanted anyway. This all sounds like the novel is bad, but I want to make it clear that the novel isn't bad, it just has flaws that I didn't like, and, well, there's no way for me to describe those flaws without a lot of words!
Overall the novel is decent enough, but it could definitely use further development, or at least further exploration into the world with new characters. I'm left with a lot of questions. What exactly happens in the end? How did this underground world develop? What are the red skeletons on the surface? Perhaps that is a good point of the novel, leaving you with wanting more, and I do hope that Rahn jumps into this world again.

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see both reviews  3.0 out of 5 stars