STAR SPLIT by Kathryn Lasky, Hyperion Books for Children, New York, 1999, 204 pages, hardcover, $15.99.

If one’s life has been mapped out before the moment of conception – if there is no unpredictability, no chance or risk to it – what is the value of being? This is the bittersweet question which Darci must grapple with in Kathryn Lasky’s “Star Split,” a futuristic young adult novel with profound implications for a world in which new biological technologies speed frustratingly ahead of humanity’s ability to grasp their ethical and moral dimensions.

Darci lives in what is considered the time of Grand Illumination. Even for the Originals, the have-nots in a two-tier society, medical technology has eliminated specters of fatal or crippling genetic diseases and illnesses. And for the fortunate Genhants the addition of a 48th chromosome has allowed for almost unlimited potential. Parents are able to combine the most treasured traits in their genetic profiles to create designer babies.

In Darci’s society the gene has replaced God. The Bio Union’s most solemn rite is the annual “umbellation” (what we call cloning) of its most revered laureates. And the most serious offense, unauthorized umbellation, is punishable by death for both creator and creation.

Darci is frustrated by the predictability of her life. She loves rock climbing because of the challenging randomness of nature-carved cliffs. Little does she suspect that at rock-climbing camp she will come face-to-face with her own unauthorized umbella, a being destined to doom both of them to death by her very existence.

In a phone chat from her Massachusetts winter home Lasky said that inspirations for “Star Split” began in her teen years with the horror evoked by Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” Subsequent events, such as the cloning of Dolly the sheep in which genetic engineering went from fiction to fact, convinced her of the need for well-thought-out restraints on the rapidly evolving technologies. In our search for individual perfection, are we losing sight of the essence of our own humanity? In our fear of randomness and need to control destiny, are we dangerously violating the laws of natural history and selection or of a creator?

In an afterward in “Star Split,” Lasky succinctly voiced her concerns after Dolly’s creation:

“It was no longer a question of when but how such genetic engineering procedures and science might be abused and what would be the consequences. We were now firmly treading in what had always been considered God’s territory.”

Lasky is undeniably one of the great writers of young adult historical fiction, bringing the past vividly to life by placing believable, empathy-arousing characters in riveting adventures. But with “Star Split” she has come even more fully into her own as a writer. Bereft of her usual anchors of charted times and places, she brings her readers on a breathtaking flight of exploration. Her language rises to the poetic as in this paragraph in which Darci meditates on her deepest yearnings, comparing herself to an astronomer:

“She, however, was not looking for starry skeletons of the past but remnants of ancient genes from another time, a time full of wonder, full of grace, when ova and sperm were not guided on their paths in tubes and glass dishes, when electrical impulses were not used to trigger a ‘fertilization event’ – a time of cripples and geniuses, a time of fools and saints, a time of chance and yes, truth – a time of grace and mystery when not all could be controlled and not all was known.”

“Star Split” is a must read for every child and adult who has ever contemplated what it means to be fully human.