From Publishers Weekly
Segal stretches himself in this wisest, most mature of his novels, a long, richly researched work about scientific genius that offers substantial rewards. Many will feel giddy when entering the mind of child prodigy Isabel da Costa, a physicist who creates a formula for the Unified Field Theory that baffled Einstein for the last 20 years of his life. Also on hand and headed toward likely Nobel Prizes are Sandy Raven, a geneticist who reverses the aging process in cells, and tragic Adam Coopersmith, who creates MR-Alpha, a drug that overcomes the antivirus that keeps many women from becoming pregnant. The childhoods, family dramas and love affairs of these three geniuses generate steady interest, as do their battles to be accepted, but the real kicker comes when two of the three find themselves facing fatal illnesses. Some of Segal's pages are less than inspired, mainly those about Sandy's obsession with an actress who becomes head of 20th Century-Fox, but few will care as Isabel, Adam and Sandy hack into undiscovered country and Nobels hover ever closer in what could be Segal's biggest hit since Love Story. 250,000 first printing; major ad/promo; Literary Guild main selection; Doubleday Book Club selection; Reader's Digest Condensed Book.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
Segal, author of earlier commercial successes like Love Story (1970) and Doctors (Bantam, 1988), has written another novel that appears headed along a similar path. Prizes tells the story of three internationally acclaimed scientists who are in the running for the coveted Nobel Prize. Segal's writing style tends to be dry and lifeless when dealing with the emotional events surrounding each character's maturation from infancy to adulthood. Yet the sections dealing with scientific research and the explanation of scientific theories-such as the Unified Field Theory and those of genetic engineering-are clearly explained and fascinating to read. Public libraries with strong current fiction collections would do well to include this title.
--Erna Chamberlain, Binghamton Univ., N.Y.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
