Review: Eve-0

Danielle Gomes, Eve-0 (ANJO One Eleven Press 2021)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57819046-eve-0?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=hxQ20ob0Vj&rank=1

In the past decade, 3 million have died from flu, and another five million from viruses. Civilisation has between 3 and 5 years before everyone is wiped out.
Gabrielle is called away from her U Penn hospital by her fiancé Trent, a geneticist, to be the surgeon on a critical mission into the Amazon jungle. Trent’s employers, AmCorps, have identified an ‘evolution gene’—Eve-0—in hopes of programming the human body to be resistant to disease. Since 1987 Eve-0 has been ‘dormant’, corresponding to a hyper-evolution of viruses and bacteria. The mission is to seek some individuals, without contact from the outside world, untouched by vaccinations and antibiotics, whose Eve-0 gene is not dormant.
On the boat are also are military man Chris, the captain Paulo, and Kukua, the chief, and three members of the Sapanahua tribe, who will escort them. But someone is leaking info to opposition organisations. First, they fight off gunmen, the it’s sharks in the water, and Gabby soon gets used to the adrenaline rushes. They face a coming storm, and decide to anchor the boat in a lagoon. In the fury of the storm, a tribe member Jim is injured with a punctured lung, and Gabby has to operate against the listing and crashing of the boat. The boat is too damaged, and they have to take off in small Zodiac boats, and they lower Jim into the water to die.
Back at HQ, word is that it’s Interfaith for Peace who are tracking the Amazon team, and their billionaire backer. They identify Paulo, their pilot, as the mole, and there’s a mole at home, where martial law is in force. Through forest-fire-scorched forest, they guide their boats, chased by these unknown trackers. Plus, there’s danger from the shores, the indigenous Matsés tribe, whom they want to contact for their DNA, but they also want to avoid antagonising. As they hike into the jungle, they’re bombarded by insects. Gabby begins to understand that the ‘terrorists’ following them are instead environmentalists.
From then, it’s a series of non-stop adrenaline rushes. Finally, a local tribe takes them in and they take ayahuasca. In her trance, Gabby’s mother tells her, ‘When Eve bit the apple it wasn’t knowledge she sought, but control.’ The tribe have fully active Eve-0 DNA. As the roundup of the specimens begins, things heat up, and it’s hard to know who’s on whose side, and HQ tries to take control, without knowing the situation on the ground. That everyone is talking untranslated Portuguese only adds to the confusion. There’s a climax a bit like the end of Hamlet, but the good guys triumph.
The pandemic-driven post-apocalyptic theme is perhaps not new, but the proposal of a genetically engineered solution is innovative, and the plot is great. The whole jungle experience sounds absolutely hellish. It seems like every disaster you can imagine happening in the jungle happened to these guys. I was picturing the blockbuster film the whole time I was reading it.
The main character Gabby is fairly interesting; I was so glad she didn’t end up with Trent. The science is really cool, and sounds quite plausible. I would have liked even more of it. And Trent’s high-tech surveillance equipment sounds interesting, too—I would have liked a bit more description there, as well. It’s well written, and well edited, although I must note that inanimate things like ‘life’, ‘strategy’ and ‘damage’ cannot be quantified by the word ‘amount’.