Robert Silverberg has the distinction of being nominated for the Best Novel Hugo nine times without winning once. This was his last shot at the silver spaceship, and out of the random chance of a used bookstore, a copy came into my possession.

Shadrach is a biotech and political thriller, centering around the personal doctor of Genghis II Mao IV, dictator of earth. The century-old supreme ruler survives only due to organ transplants, and seeks immortality through multiple routes. Meanwhile, the Earth is slowly dying: most of the people dead from the aftermath of the late 20th century Virus Wars, and the remaining 2 billion incubating the inevitably fatal 'organ rot' disease. Only Genghis II Mao IV and his cronies have an antidote, living a life of paranoid power and drug-induced debauchery while the rest of the world waits for a cure.

The main plot centers around Project Avatar, a plan to make Genghis II Mao IV effectively immortal by imprinting his brainwaves on a young body. When the original test subject commits suicide, Genghis II Mao IV's personal physician, Shadrach Mordechai (an African American with an MD from Harvard) becomes the proposed victim. Shadrach has to come to turns with being nothing more than a spare part in his master's biomachinery, and the callous evil of the whole regime he has worked for. In the end, he finds survival in a new balance of power.

In some ways this book is so 70s it hurts, with sex, drugs, paranoid religious fantasy, and all that. Silverberg has the gut of a pulp writer, and the basic core of the story always pokes through the stylish cruft. Maybe not the greatest book, but a fun one.