“Never sell a cure when you can sell a treatment,” says one of the more unpleasant pharmaceutical executives at the center of Dan Wells’s new novel, Extreme Makeover. “A magical lotion that protects you from heart disease is great for you, but then what do we sell you in the next fiscal quarter?” This sort of cynical thinking is at the core of this very enjoyable novel, often operating in the classic social-satire mode of science fiction. A book about the destructive impact of short-sighted corporate greed is, of course, gunning for both a worthy and a slow-moving target, and if Extreme Makeover doesn’t say anything we don’t already know about the destructive power of unchecked capitalism, it provides an entertaining and clever scientific premise to justify its potshots. The story centers around the pharmaceutical and cosmetic company, NewYew, and its underachieving and underappreciated head scientist Lyle Fontanelle (who, if you doubt his nerd creds, wants to change his business cards to read “Chief Science Officer”). Fontanelle may be the perpetual office whipping-boy, and a socially-awkward older man who pathetically moons after his college-aged intern, but when it comes to science, he’s the real deal. He’s developed a new anti-aging skin cream that he believes…
