religion tagged posts

There has probably always been tension, if not outright conflict, between science—or what was considered science at the time—and religion. Each offered people some degree of explanation of how the world worked and some feeling of control, or at least influence, over the events in their lives. And there was, of course, a third source of conflict: government, at least when organized religion and organized government were separate entities.

Religion and government have always sought to control the behaviors of individuals and groups, whereas science generally has not, at least not directly. Governments have sometimes tried to use “scientific” explanations or rationales for certain behaviors or policies, such as eugenics under the Nazis in the early to middle 20^th century...

Ever had one of those story ideas that just wouldn’t leave you alone? Or woke you up in the middle of the night? Great, isn’t it? Writers love those ideas.

That’s how my debut novel, The Eternity Plague, got its start.

Sometime in the fall of 2003 (October, maybe?) I woke up early in the morning, thinking about what would happen if people suddenly became immortal, without having done anything to earn or deserve it. Finding the secret to immortality, only to discover there’s a high price to be paid for it, paying it, and then being left to wonder—for the rest of eternity—whether it was worth it or not is an old idea. Robert Silverberg told it in The Book of Skulls.

What kept me awake until I got up and wrote it down, however, was the twist of immortality just happening...