Frameshift won Japan's Seiun Award and was a finalist for the Hugo Award.
Pierre Tardivel is a scientist working on the Human Genome Project with the Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Burian Klimus. A driven man, Pierre works with the awareness that he may not have long to live: he has a fifty-fifty chance of dying from Huntington's disease, an incurable hereditary disorder of the central nervous system. While he still has his health, Pierre and his wife decide to have a child, and they search for a sperm donor. When Pierre informs Dr. Klimus of their plan, Klimus makes an odd but generous offer: to be the sperm donor as well as to pay for the expensive in vitro fertilization. Shortly thereafter it transpires that Klimus might be hiding a grim past: he may be Ivan Marchenko, the notorious Treblinka death-camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible.
While digging into Klimus's past with the help of Nazi hunter Avi Meyer, Pierre and his wife discover that Pierre's insurance company has been illegally screening clients for genetic defects. The two lines of investigation begin to coverage in a sinister manner, while they worry about the possibility of bearing the child of an evil, sadistic killer . . .
This special Kobo edition includes the bonus Hugo Award-finalist short story The Hand You're Dealt and a reading group guide.
"Robert J. Sawyer is a writer of boundless confidence. His latest book is filled to bursting with ideas, characters, incident, and page after page of bold scientific extrapolation. Frameshift seems designed for the big screen." - The New York Times
"An exciting action-packed medical thriller that grips the audience from the moment readers meet Pierre and never slows down until the final twist. Readers will finish this thriller in one exciting sitting." - Alternative-Worlds.com
"An unputdownable thriller." - Booklist
"A finely crafted novel with a riveting plot and complex characters, deftly exploring issues of bio-ethics and moral philosophy. By using the metaphor of a murder investigation, told in parallel to the scientific activities of his main character, Sawyer succeeds in illuminating aspects of science as a human activity. Sawyer's is a rather hopeful vision. Perhaps this is his Canadian upbringing showing, a belief in the potential of civil society to overcome the narrow interests of profit and bigotry to create a better world. Sawyer sees the dark sides of technological change and globalization, yet remains hopeful that we, as a society, can overcome them. After reading Frameshift, so do I." - The Calgary Herald
ROBERT J. SAWYER has won the Hugo, Nebula, John W. Campbell Memorial, Seiun, and Aurora Awards, all for best science fiction novel of the year. His novels include Hominids, Rollback, Wake, and FlashForward (basis for the TV series).