Twenty-five years after Donovan's Brain -- now a classic of science fiction -- came a superb new novel from the pen of Curt Siodmak. Once again the author probed the horizons of scientific endeavour in an extraordinary story which blended science fiction with international intrigue. An once again he featured D. Patrick Cory, the biochemist who figures in Donovan's Brain.

Cory, the world's leading authority on RNA (ribonucleic aid) the brain substance in which memory is stored -- is approached by the CIA and asked to conduct a weird and dangerous experiment: to remove the RNA from Hauser, a dying German scientist who has defected from the Russians, and inject it into another man in the hope of releasing the German's secrets. At first, Cory is appalled. But Slaughter, the CIA man, has thought of everything -- even to providing a suitable 'subject' for the bizarre experiment.

The experiment succeeds -- but to an extent which neither Cory nor Slaughter could anticipate. For it is not only Hauser's memory that is transferred. With it go his obsessions, his dreams, his emotions, his character...gradually, insidiously. And there begins the bitter struggle as Hauser's memory tries to posses its new mind -- the mind of a man who is acutely aware of what is happening to him. The dead German's monomaniacal quest for vengeance -- that soon involves security elements from both East and West in a thrilling international chase -- and the final chilling confrontation between the man possessed by Hauser and the object of Hauser's search combine to make an enthralling, suspenseful and utterly credible science fiction novel which is a fitting successor to Donovan's Brain.

Curt Siodmak was a writer who was always ahead of his time. Today there are many writers who are comfortable in both print and film; there is also frequent overlap between science fiction and horror. But Siodmak was doing all this -- and doing it well -- before anyone else.

He helped bring real science fiction to the movies (The Magnetic Monster, Riders to the Stars) and television (with scripts for Men into Space and Science Fiction Theatre). But his greatest fame as a scriptwriter was in the field of horror, with his creation of the character forever linked with Lon Chaney, Jr., The Wolf Man.

How appropriate that his greatest novel should be the basis of three legitimate film versions and endless variations in other movies and television shows. Donovan's Brain is one of the most influential novels of our times.

Dr. Patrick Cory is a scientist who, unable to save the life of W.H. Donovan after a plane crash, keeps his brain alive through an illegal experiment.

The story provides an examination of human evil that is impossible to forget. W.H. Donovan is much more than one of the world's richest men. He is a megalomaniac even before Cory keeps his brain alive in the tank. Once freed of the distractions of the flesh, the will to power is all that drives the brain. It is able to communicate with Dr. Cory through telepathy, but that is only the beginning. Soon it begins to take over the scientist who keeps it alive. Possessed by the mind of Donovan, Cory finds himself helpless to fight the plans of the tycoon. Cory remains aware as he follows orders, becoming more and more like Donovan. His wife is helpless, his assistant is helpless, to stop Donovan's Brain!

A word of warning:Don't start reading this novel unless you have the time to finish it in one sitting! This is a true page turner.