Since I signed to publish Wake the Dead, I’ve heard these questions over and over.
The first question: “What’s your book about?”
“The world’s first transhuman,” I say. Blank stares follow. An educated, well-read person complimented me on making up such a clever word. Only a couple of questioners were familiar with the term. Even then, they didn’t really know what I was talking about. More questions follow:
“So, it’s a Christian book?” (Most people know I write from a Christian worldview.)
“Well, it’s not an Amish romance novel,” I say.
“So then, it’s science fiction?”
“I like to call it speculative fiction.”
Then my favorite question: “Why do you want to write about that?”
For a couple of years I studied transhumanism. (Google it.) I don’t know why I meandered through this weird topic so long, but it held my interest and fueled my imagination. I wondered what the world would be like if it happened. And what the church would do with it. It’s the ultimate Tower of Babel and the foundation of the tower is already set. Many wonderful things will be built on the bedrock. But, of course, we will take it too far. We will want too much. We will put our faith in it.
And it will not save us.
I didn’t know I was on the path that leads to the tower until I realized I can’t go an hour without a firm grip on my iPhone. I’m connected to the cyber world’s building blocks, and one day they will crawl from my device and up my arm and into my brain.
Not really. I know what happened to the first tower. So why do I write this stuff? It’s a subtle, quiet process—this coming of age of the transhumanist. I don’t want anyone to be surprised by it. Oh, and I like speculative fiction with a Christian worldview. And I write what I like.
