New Orbit Magazine Online: Issue 03, June 2018

And isn’t that a form of faith? Seeing the
beauty of the (current) mystery without
necessarily needing to unravel it right away?
This is what keeps me sympathetic to those
who harbour spiritual leanings even while
having rejected the dogma, the narrative, or
the controlling oppressiveness of organised
religions. Cerebral contemplation points me
toward the rational but in certain peak (or
abysmal) moments my heart still yearns for
the sacred. My fiction has become a way for
me to bridge those worlds.
I am reliably informed that Descartes
described ‘wonderment’ as the first passion.*
Nevertheless, I do ask you to imagine.
Einstein believed “imagination is more
important than knowledge… it embraces the
entire world, stimulating progress and giving
birth to evolution.” +
While a clear grasp of philosophy and
theoretical physics may not be available to all
of us, imagination and wonder surely can be.
It is these two qualities, combined with
curiosity and endurance, which seem
instrumental in enabling humanity not only
to survive but to thrive. Wonder is good for
the ‘soul’ – whatever form that may take.
More than this, neuroscience has established
how a sense of awe can positively affect the
brain, stimulating the kind of wave activity
that brings a variety of benefits.
It is through the experience of such
emotions or states of being, and by asking
that simple yet enormous question “what if?”
that many of my ideas for fiction are born,
from the short story Human Error, featured in
this issue (more on which later) to my
upcoming novel, Dear Mr Darwin. Published
in September 2018 by Unbound – an
innovative platform that allows less obviously
commercial work to come to life – Dear Mr
Darwin was not my first foray into writing a
full novel, but it will be the first to emerge
blinking into the light of day.
Dear Mr. Darwin is the story of two women
separated by millennia but bound by the web
of life. A tale of the eternal search for love and
knowledge, it is a voyage through science and
spirituality, nature and nurture, curiosity and
courage. Alternating between prehistory and
the present day, the story unfolds through the
trials of a young woman on a marathon
journey of migration and survival, and
through the personal and professional quest
of Dr Eloise Kluft, a geneticist living a
comfortable yet troubled existence in
contemporary London.
While working on the book, I often asked
myself why I had taken on such mammoth
subjects. Partly I was the victim of my own
curiosity, my own complex dance with
dichotomy, but also I felt this was the book
that I had to write before I could explore
other subjects. Ah, but it seems I am far from
done with those themes! The very next
project was to be Human Error, kindly
commissioned by New Orbit and published
in this edition.
Human Error takes a peek into one possible
future and also tackles the big questions of
ongoing human evolution, of where our tech
and medical advances may take us, and how
ethics may struggle to keep pace. If our basest
tendencies have pursued us throughout
history will they not also describe the
trajectory of our future? Especially if
emboldened and equipped by technological
mastery and unchecked wealth or power.
Human Error also takes a sharp look at
sexual politics, at the ‘battle of the ages’ as
* Please do not imagine that I have read anything other than excerpts from his philosophy, to which I
have kindly been pointed by those far more intelligent and better read than I.
+ Previous reference to Descartes also applies here.