THE NEW BOOK OF GENESIS
GEOFFREY CARR
Journalist and occasional author
Greetings to all intelligent life forms. And, as Douglas Adams so eloquently put it, to the rest of you, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys…
GENESIS
Obviously, I pinched the title for this, my first attempt at a best-seller, from another another, rather older best-selling volume. Fortunately for my publisher's lawyers, that earlier work has been out of copyright for about two and a half thousand years*** and I don't think its author is going to sue me. Like its predecessor, the new book of Genesis is about an act of creation. Unlike the original, the creators have no idea what they have done.
Some reviews (not written by friends, I promise you – at least as far as I know):
"Genesis grabs you from its first intriguing page and drags you on a break-neck, at times confusing, journey from Silicon Valley to Beijing by way of the African bush.
This clever and compelling tale is a thriller in the tradition of Michael Crichton [Yes! more of this, please! GC]. It’s sprinkled liberally with references aficionados of the genre will enjoy. Set in a dystopian near future which looms alarmingly close, nothing and no one is quite what they seem. Secret agents compete with IT geeks to figure out who is behind a series of seemingly random murders. A billionaire entrepreneur secretly pursues his own agenda to colonise Mars. And unknown to any of them, there are other forces at work. Suffice to say that for me the undisputed star of this clever novel is a naïve computer-generated actor called Randy.
The author has a sharp pacey prose style. There’s no extraneous explanations for anyone who can’t keep up. Genesis is fast and filmic and great great fun.”
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“Fast-paced, well written, with a fresh take on artificial intelligence taking over the world -- a very enjoyable read overall.”
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“If you liked Michael Crichton’s technothriller novels, you’ll likely like this debut novel from Geoffrey Carr. As Science and Technology Editor for the The Economist, the breadth and depth of his knowledge shines through. Fast-paced with plenty of plot twists and quirky characters – real and virtual – it will have you engrossed and guessing until the end.”
The references to Michael Crichton, by the way, besides being immensely flattering, are also quite pertinent to the genesis of the book itself. For this is how it began…
Hello. I'm Geoff Carr, and the purpose of this website is to persuade you to buy a copy of my novel, "Genesis". I’ve long resisted having a website, since life is busy enough without one, what with my day job writing for the “The Economist” and everything. But my publisher definitely thinks it’s a good idea. And who am I to argue with him?
As you probably already know if you've arrived here, the book is about Artificial Intelligence, Spacefaring Billionaires, Colonising Mars and Disrupting Hollywood. When I started writing it, it was fiction. Now, bits of it seem scarily real. If you would like a copy please click here to take you through to the nice folks at Amazon, who will be delighted to relieve you of the purchase price (a mere £9.99 for the paperback or £2.99 ($3.99) for the electronic version).
If you need more convincing, read on…
When I started out as a journalist, one of my first jobs was writing about fossil DNA, which was then a new subject. I had conversations with several people working in the field, wrote a number of articles as a result and thought them pretty fine.
But someone else had been talking to these people, too. And he did something more creative with the idea than I had dreamed of. Instead of a few articles, he wrote a book. And then a screenplay. And then another. And then another. Thus was born the empire that is "Jurassic Park"... And I thought to myself, damn you, Crichton, I could have done that (maybe not as well, and maybe not the films, but you get the idea). After that, I kept an eye out for stuff I came across in the day job that I could have a go at fictionalising. And one Sunday afternoon, it hit me: Artificial Intelligence.
You can read the publisher’s blurb here. It will tell you all you need to know about whether “Genesis” is worth investing a few of your hard-earned pounds/dollars/euros/zloty in, without, I hope, giving away too much of the plot.
As to the rest, for those who want to know some non-Genesis-related stuff about me, click here. For those who would like to read a few things I have written for “The Economist”, click here, here, here, here and here. For those who would like to look at books I have contributed to (but not been sole author of), click here and here. And if you want to send me an email, click here: geoff@thenewbookofgenesis,com.
The pictures on this site, BTW, came from various peregrinations around the world. In order, they are, me with some mates in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda. A frog in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. The ice-bound peaks of the Drygalski mountains in Antarctica. A cayman in the Amazon, near Tefe, Brazil. And a lion, also from Botswana.
***There is doubt about when the Biblical book of Genesis arrived at something like its present form, but the smart money suggests the sixth century BC.
PS. Did I mention that here is where you click to buy a copy…
