Devil's Harvest

by Frank G. Slaughter

Dust jacket art by Charles McCurry. Story of the corrupted use of scientific research to Chinese communist goals.

Genres: Fiction

204 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Frank Gill Slaughter , pen-name Frank G. Slaughter, pseudonym C.V. Terry, was an American novelist and physician whose books sold more than 60 million copies. His novels drew on his own experience as a doctor and his interest in history and the Bible. Through his novels, he often introduced readers to new findings in medical research and new medical technologies.

Slaughter was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Stephen Lucious Slaughter and Sarah "Sallie" Nicholson Gill. When he was about five years old, his family moved to a farm near Berea, North Carolina, which is west of Oxford, North Carolina. He earned a bachelor's degree from Trinity College (now Duke University) at 17 and went to medical school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He began writing fiction in 1935 while a physician at Riverside Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida.

Books by Slaughter include The Purple Quest, Surgeon, U.S.A., Epidemic! , Tomorrow's Miracle and The Scarlet Cord. Slaughter died May 17, 2001 in Jacksonville, Florida.

Reviews

[Carlos Salas · Rating 1 out of 5]

La cosecha del diablo tiene una trama demasiado simple. La interacción entre los personajes es aburrida, y los continuos desafíos técnicos en el desarrollo de los experimentos se hacen repetitivos. La ausencia de un antagonista fuerte o de tramas secundarias hace que la lectura no enganche.

Por otra parte, no hay ningún elemento de sorpresa ni suspense por dos motivos: 1) el eventual éxito en el funcionamiento del laboratorio es muy predecible, y 2) el "arco de personaje" de Chan Thornton está destripado en la propia sinopsis. En el libro no pasa literalmente nada que no se supiera desde las primeras páginas leídas. ____________________________________________________________
The Devil's Harvest has an overly simple plot. The interaction between the characters is boring, and the constant technical challenges in developing the experiments become repetitive. The lack of a strong antagonist or subplots makes for a non-engaging read.

On the other hand, there is no element of surprise or suspense for two reasons: 1) the eventual success of the lab's operation is very predictable, and 2) Chan Thornton's "character arc" is spoiled in the synopsis itself. Literally nothing happens in the book that wasn't already known from the first pages.

[Arthur Zopellaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bom livro mas o desfecho foi muito corrido.