FICTION
244 Pages, 5 x 8
Trade Paper, $16.95 (CA $18.95) (US $16.95)
Publication Date: January 2013
ISBN 9781905583409
Rights: US & CA
Comma Press (Jan 2013)
A collaborative work between scientists and ethicists working at the forefronts of their respective fields and short story writers, this collection attempts to predict some of the potential ethical side-effects of the groundbreaking biomedical research currently being developed. Exploring the increasingly gray area between the fantastical and that which is already within our reach—including programmable memories, nano-tech implants, fatherless reproduction, and interspecies reproduction—this unique volume fuses fact with fiction and speculates on the future of scientific progress. With an appeal to both science fiction fans and academics, the contributors include authors Jane Rogers, Justina Robson, Sara Maitland, Sean O’Brien, and Simon Van Booy as well as scientists and ethicists Dr. Ainsley Newson, Professor Bruce Whitelaw, Dr. Jane Calvert, Professor Martyn Amos, and Dr. Nihal Engin Vrana, among talented others.
"A delight from the first page to the last." —Observer on Jane Rogers' Mr Wroe's Virgins
"Toby Litt has taken us back into the secret and brutal lair of childhood . . . wickedly, wittily scary." —Observer on Toby Litt's Deadkidsongs
"A Book of Silence grapples with ideas at the very heart of what it is to be human, and Sara Maitland is a joyous champion of the countercultural notion that silence is more than simply an absence of noise." —Times on Sara Maitland's A Book of Silence