Myths of the fountain of youth span the globe, from the ancient world to contemporary literary and pop-culture examples. Nick Cutter draws on these tropes (and directly references Oscar Wilde’s THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GRAY) as he takes readers on a wild ride of aging, ethics and monsters in his latest horror novel, THE DORIANS, a book that is as gory as it is thoughtful.

Frank Doyle is about to die by medically assisted suicide. But at just about the last minute, he gets a phone call offering him a different option. He soon finds himself, heart disease and all, on an isolated Canadian island along with four other elderly and dying people. Teddy Bassiano’s Parkinson’s disease makes just walking up the steps to the Spindrift lab building almost impossible. Once Teddy and Frank are finally inside, they find a massive complex led by a brilliant and strange 19-year-old, along with the other subjects for her secretive experiment.

"The book is fun, propulsive and frightening in a profound rather than in an afraid-of-the-dark kind of way. It’s an entertaining, timely, gruesome and well-crafted tale about mortality, the human condition and the human spirit."

Dr. Astrid Marsh has an IQ in the 300s and seemingly has been given carte blanche to find a scientific fountain of youth. Bankrolled by some anonymous and distant figures, she creates a fusion of jellyfish, coral and mushroom cells that results in a regenerating substance --- or being --- that she calls her Hydra. And the next phase of her work involves implanting that Hydra into Frank, Teddy and the others. 

At first, Frank and Teddy, along with Maddy Dodds, Claire Blessings and Hugo Udall, begin to feel just slightly better. The symptoms of Maddy’s Lyme disease fade a bit. But soon they all feel not just better but younger. In fact, their ages, according to the lab’s epigenetic clock, are rolling back. While this seems welcome and miraculous, it is just the start of a nightmare. Even as the subjects are feeling the effects of the Hydra, they are coming to accept the notion that they may never leave the island. 

When a sixth subject is revealed, everyone is now seeing Marsh in a new light. Dr. Veronica Strauss, the bioethicist observing the experiment, begins to grow increasingly concerned. John Salters and Moses Squires, the only other people on the island who have been hired to help with various work, discover that there is something very wrong with one of the captive wolves on the island, an animal with which Marsh is also experimenting. The terror snowballs quickly from there. 

The Hydra is changing not only their bodies but their minds as well. Each subject is excited by the possibilities and feelings, but then scared of the implications and the directions in which the experiment is going. Will anyone survive the Hydra? If so, what does this survival really mean?

THE DORIANS channels Mary Shelley and H. G. Wells as Nick Cutter explores the ethics of science, the responsibility of creators, and the desire to live forever. The book is fun, propulsive and frightening in a profound rather than in an afraid-of-the-dark kind of way. It’s an entertaining, timely, gruesome and well-crafted tale about mortality, the human condition and the human spirit.