Sims (novel)

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The fictional novel Sims (ISBN 0-7653-0551-8) by F. Paul Wilson explores a near-future event where Humanzees are created as a de facto slave race. Humanzees (a cross between a female chimpanzee and a male human) mythological creatures, are created by the human race as slaves.^[1]

It is the near future, and there have been amazing advances in genetics research. Through gene therapy, many deadly diseases (cancer, etc.) have been cured through these tests. The SimGen Corporation has created a transgenic species called SIMS, part chimpanzee and part human (Humanzee) and they are treated as slaves. Suddenly a group of sims working as caddies at a golf club want to unionize. They hire lawyer Patrick Sullivan to represent them, and he begins to ponder whether sims are entitled to human rights or not because they're part animal.

Patrick meets activist Romy Cadman and a mysterious man called Zero, who are on a crusade to destroy SimGen and stop the creation of sims. While the three of them try to protect the sims, they come close to uncovering a sinister secret in SimGen and the company will stop at nothing to stop the secret from getting out.

The story touches on the fascinating peek into a possible future for genetics research, including the idea of hybrids with human DNA, using primates and asks the impossible question: Where would humanzees stand in humans society and would they be considered animals- or humans?

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