Book Review: Vaxxine by Andrew Stanway

A male contraceptive vaccine is stolen from the Russians by the American's and given to a major pharmaceutical company to develop, as an added bonus it also provides a vaccine to HIV/AIDS, but as tests develop serious side effects are discovered. It is still released for human use and the side effects hit a large part of the male population, making many of them uncontrollably violent, others much more feminine.

The story is rather stop-and-go and I almost gave up twice. Some of the characters, especially a special forces commander, are very wooden, and the sex scenes are pretty turgid (according to the cover Stanway is a 'psycho-sexual therapist.') The heroine, Jill Peters, is an academic and seems far too easily fooled by the government and pharmaceutical companies. The last quarter is quite good, but overall the story is too long and the characters, apart from the heroine, are not particularly well developed, and she starts as too much of a stereotype.

Title: Vaxxine
Author: Andrew Stanway
Publisher: Smith Gryphon
ISBN: 1856851338
Published Date: 1996
Pages: 375

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Review by Paul Silver, 2004