Arguably my top two Sci-fi books are Ebola in the Garden of Eden and Green.
I actually had the idea for this book in the 1980s. Back then the logging companies were starting to build roads into the interior of the jungles in order to devastate the wondrous trees growing there. Previously unreachable areas were being opened up. Communities of animals were coming into contact with humans for the first time.
Right behind the morally corrupt loggers the even worse hunters moved in. They suddenly had access to the creatures and were killing everything that moved. When I visited Africa it was horrifying. All the lorries that passed had corpses of animals – chimps, gorillas included. They were being transported to market in the cities. Bush meat fetched a high price. Alongside the highway hunters flagged down lorries to sell their booty. The wild-life was being slaughtered.
Because these creatures had previously been isolated from human contact they carried diseases that we had no immunity against. The chimps and gorillas they were butchering were almost human – they had 99% the same DNA as us. Hence they carried viruses that could cross species barriers.
Within a short while we were harvesting the fruit. HIV/AIDS and Ebola were just two of the diseases our viciousness unleashed upon us. They came from these isolated animals.
When I was looking around for a suitable virus I settled on the then extremely rare Ebola virus. It was deadly and nasty. I wanted a programme set up by government for selectively eradicating surplus population. What could be better.
As I was in Senior Management in school at the time I did not have a lot of time for writing so I mapped the whole book out chapter by chapter and set it by. When I retired I wrote it. By then Ebola had become front page news. I was a little concerned that it could be seen as jumping on the wagon and almost changed the virus. But then I thought that it was still highly appropriate and decided against.
Ebola in the Garden of Eden was born.
If you wish to purchase any of my books they are all available on Amazon.
In the UK this is my page:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1463907891&sr=1-2-ent
Ebola in the Garden of Eden:
- Kindle Edition £0.00
Subscribers read for £0.00 £2.56 to buy - 1 Used from £6.69 5 New from £4.34
In the USA this is my page:
http://www.amazon.com/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1463908088&sr=1-2-ent
Ebola in the Garden of Eden:
http://www.amazon.com/Ebola-Garden-Eden-Opher-Goodwin/dp/1514878216/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
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Elspin is born without a nervous system; a brain with no connection to the world. She is locked within her dreams in an infinite universe of inner space and should have withered into nothing but instead she grew. She explored a rich uncharted cosmology of thoughts while attached to a machine that she could never know existed. What were her dreams?
So what is reality?
Meanwhile outside, in the ‘real’ world, the environmental crisis has worsened. The ‘Greens’ have splintered into warring factions, ‘Big Business’ remains complacent and the government arbitrates. Technology continues to progress and consumerism creates growth and economic stability as well as making people rich.
There are those environmentalists who believe that reasoning will win public opinion across and put pressure on the government to act, while others resort to the bomb. A radical group has the solution. They have liberated a virus that will remove humans from the equation and return the planet to nature so that it can heal.
The book is set in the near future in a world not too different to our own. The technology is more advanced. The people are the same. The characters play their part in small affairs and large as passions flare, global issues are addressed and philosophies are explored.
Is humanity doomed from virus, poisons or themselves? Is there a universe within? And what is the reality of a dream?
If you would like to purchase this novel (or any of my other books) you can get it from Amazon.
In the UK:
Kindle Edition £0.00 Subscribers read for £0.00 £1.99 to buy
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1463647050&sr=1-2-ent
In the USA:
- Read with Our Free App
- 1 Used from $13.60 7 New from $11.49
I have a range of other Science Fiction books and others if you would like to peruse my lists.
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
These are currently my two most popular.