Longevity City
David Murphy
Five Star, August 2005, $25.95, 298 pages, ISBN: 1594143528
reviewed by Harriet Klausner

Due to widespread infertility, the drug women who can bear children take Geminizon. By the twentieth-second century, one twin is allowed to live a natural life while the fetus of the other is stored in a womb bank. When the living twin reaches a designated age, the other fetus is activated and allowed to reach the age of fifteen. At that time the longer living sibling is killed and the memories is placed within the younger twin.

The Association forms to fight against this state sponsored genocide. Meanwhile world dictator Ronald Carver, whose father invented Geminizon, is into his second lifetime more repressive than ever. When a cell of the Association is wiped out except for Lee, the fifteen-year-old twin becomes determined to destroy the world order. His twin Max, a gynecologist, knows nothing about him but questions his placed in society. His lover knows what a vile man Carver is but feels helpless to do anything about it. As the Association gains recruits, Max, Mandy and Lee prepare for the forthcoming war.

David Murphy paints a bleak foreboding twentieth second century landscape; a place where the first generation of adult twins don't care that they are killing a life so they can have a second one of their own. That premise seems improbable given the anti-abortion sentiment of today at least in America yet feasible with the state of health care. This is a thought-provoking novel that makes readers evaluate issues that they might deal with in the foreseeable future. The point of view rotates between the four main characters, giving readers n intimate look at the viewpoints and state of mind of the principals without slowing down the dark plot.