az- Wicker - by Kevin Guilfoile [UK title of Cast of Shadows. 1 cust rvw here under this title at az.com]
Justin Finn, at three, looks like any other child. But his face, one day, will be the exact match of the cold-blooded killer of whom he is a perfect genetic replica. And Justin Finn at fifteen has an unhealthy obsession with The Wicker Man, a notorious serial killer who prowls the streets of Chicago. The question is, are you born evil (or made) evil? not a qstn I usually likel but here was made int & was the suspense of the novel as a whole (beyond the pleasantly constantly resolving suspenses along the way). who will turn out to be okay. who will be a monster.

By Craig Clarke (New England) - See all my reviews
There is a medical and philosophical thread in addition to the suspense & tension created by the various scenarios y. constant suspenseful devlpmts w hint & then payoff within pages: I love that, kept finding it remarkable, how uncondescending the narrative was. a question is raised, reader suspects the answer, the answer is made part of the story. rather than drag out: dvlpmts come to a head quickly (eg Dr Moore is found out rather early on), then develop further.
And that's only the beginning -- the meat of Wicker concerns eighteen years of aftermath. exactly.
Which brings Guilfoile's skill at characterization to the fore. He must construct whole personalities that develop along with the different stages of life, and he must keep up with their possible choices (and the consequences) along the way. Fittingly, the most fully developed character is the one for whom Wicker encompasses his life from before its beginning: Justin Finn, Boy Clone. Showing his development (physical, mental, emotional) throughout his childhood could have been no easy task, but Guilfoile pulls it off with confidence, making Justin even more fascinating than the "villain" (and I always have a soft spot for those guys). Watching Justin's thoughts advance so quickly that he even becomes aware of how he should behave at a given age (?)-- and wondering which side the author is going to take on the nature/nurture debate -- was really what kept me enthralled throughout Wicker. and which side did he take?? I suppose, after twist twist --Sam's ok no he's bad but maybe I hope Justin will be ok, oh no he's not, but wait Sam was ok after all-- in expectations, came down on side of No, it's not nature. (though not analyzably nurture either, not so much nature v nurture as Does DNA determine you? and the answer is No. ~ thinking your DNA determines you determines you, though. )
In trying to find the morally and philosophically "correct" ending, Guilfoile comes up with one that is overcomplicated and less satisfying than the rest of the book deserves. well I tht its complexity was cool. (although ~ did feel ~unsatisfied at end. but I think any end might have left that. once it's over, left with a dark sad prose story. crime. gruesome, violent. dark sad without the resonance that makes a poem).


dlcs: books a-before
+ virtual = re Shadow World game, which Guilfoile imagined as Sims developed to an extreme. was writing in 2001, finished in 2003, which is the year Second Life opened to public.
so, *not* based on or conceived as analog to Second Life. while he was imagining Shadow World, someone was actually making a similarly played game. diff is, Second Life is a fantastical world, not (attempting to be) a copy of our world, with same cities, streets, buildings.
what interested me was the supposed starting-point for players of Shadow World, with facts ('education, job, family') of own actual life. how could that be mandated? is it *not* dependent on user data entry? but then this would be an awfully big-brother kind of world, right, which would have to show up in the narrative? at one point, the game 'consults Justin's schedule' & determines what class he'd be in: is that a schedule he created? or does the game actually have access to all sorts of real world data like class schedules?
I get that Guilfoile not esp int in working that out here; but how he can throw out this notion that every player of shadow world begins with real life, and not somehow acknowledge the difficulties and-or implications of that idea?