Science Fiction
Date Published: 01-10-2023
Publisher: Story Plant
If we can alter the structure of reality, should we?
Caro Soames-Watkins, a talented neurosurgeon whose career has been upended by controversy, is jobless, broke, and the sole supporter of her sister, a single mother with a severely disabled child.
When she receives a strange job offer from Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sam Watkins, a great uncle she barely knows, desperation forces her to take it in spite of serious suspicions.
Watkins has built a mysterious medical facility in the Caribbean to conduct research into the nature of consciousness, reality, and life after death. Helped in his mission by his old friend, eminent physicist George Weigert, and young tech entrepreneur Julian Dey, Sam has gone far beyond curing the body to develop a technology that could solve the riddle of mortality.
Two obstacles stand in their way: someone on the inside is leaking intel and Watkins' failing body must last long enough for the technology to be ready.
As danger mounts, Caro finds more than she bargained for, including murder, love, and a deeper understanding into the nature of reality.
A mind-expanding journey to the very edges of science, Observer will thrill you, inspire you, and lead you to think about life and the power of the imagination in startling new ways.
Editorial Reviews
"Nancy Kress is one of the greatest living science fiction writers, and her particular talent for telling stories about people on the cutting edge of science tipping into something new and marvelous is perfectly suited to the ideas that have come to Robert Lanza in the course of his groundbreaking scientific research. Together they've written a startling, fascinating novel."
―Kim Stanley Robinson, New York Times bestselling author
"Robert Lanza has taken the gigantic step of incorporating his ideas into a science fiction novel with Nancy Kress. This brilliant book will take you deep into quantum physics, where these often-complex concepts are illuminated through a riveting and moving story."
―Rhonda Byrne, #1 New York Times bestselling author, The Secret
"Real science and limitless imagination combine in a thrilling story you won't soon forget."
―Robin Cook, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Nancy Kress is a master storyteller, and her trademark empathy is on every page. Even as we venture into the heady territory of quantum physics and the nature of reality that Robert Lanza is known for, we never lose track of Caro, the brilliant surgeon who'll do anything to save the people she loves. Observer is the best of science and fiction—an intellectual adventure with real heart."
―Daryl Gregory, award-winning author of Spoonbenders
"Observer is an impressive story! ... Lanza and Kress give us characters with science and spirit"
―David Brin, New York Times bestselling author, The Postman
1: Tell us a little about yourself and what got you in to writing?
I began writing out of desperation. I was the mother of a toddler, pregnant with
my second baby, living far out in the country with no car and no neighbours my
age. The internet hadn’t been invented
yet. Daytime TV was unwatchable. In order for my day to include words of more
than two syllables and not presented by Big Bird, I began writing while my
toddler napped. It was a few more years
before I took this hobby seriously.
2:
Do you have a favourite time and place where you write?
I write in the early morning. The very early morning, due to an inability
to sleep past 5:00 a.m. This makes me a
dud at parties, but it’s a good time for fiction. The world is hushed and dark. Not even the dog is awake, and my husband, a
night owl, will not rise for hours. I
drink my first cup of coffee while making my on-line chess moves, brew a second
cup, and settle down to work.
After that, the day is all downhill.
3:
Where do your ideas come from?
All
sorts of places. A science article in a
magazine can suggest a story (the basic question for this is “What can go
wrong?” since stories need conflict.) A
story or novel with a technique I haven’t used before, such as multiple-first-person
viewpoint, can start me thinking, “I’d like to try that.” Sometimes a character will just drift into my
mind and I think, “Well, what’s she up to?” Usually a character and a situation present
themselves together. My novel Beggars
in Spain, in which the protagonist was genetically engineered to not need
to sleep, was written out of jealousy. I
need eight hours of sleep, and I envy people who do just fine on less.
4:
Do you have a plan in your head of where the story is going before you start
writing or do you let it carry you along as you go?
For
short stories, I just write the first scene and see where that might lead. This doesn’t work for novels, at least not
for me. For novels, I need to have the
ending at least vaguely in mind, plus a few key incidents along the way. To call that an outline would be too
generous; the overall scheme fits on an index card.
5:
What genre are your books and what drew you to that genre?
I
write science fiction, and I don’t really know why. When I was young, I read a lot of science
fiction, but I also read a lot of everything else. However, I like writing science fiction
because it presents a very large canvas (the galaxy, the future) to address
some of the very large human questions (are we alone in the universe? What are we doing here? Why is humanity so violent? Etc.)
6:
What dream cast would you like to see playing the characters in your latest
book?
My
latest book is Observer, co-written with Dr. Robert Lanza. There are four or five major characters. For Caroline, the protagonist, my dream casting
would be Emma Stone. For Dr. Weigert— F.
Murray Abraham. For Julian, who is
supposed to possess spectacular good looks, Chris Hemsworth (even though
Julian, a software engineer, could not be more different from Thor.) I don’t know whom I’d cast for Ellen or
Trevor. Fortunately, if a movie is ever
made of Observer, nobody would listen to my choices anyway.
7:
Do you read much and if so who are your favorite authors?
I
read all the time, both fiction and non-fiction. In fiction, some of my favorite authors are
Jane Austen, Kate Atkinson, Ursula LeGuin, Michael Connolly, Anne Tyler. An eclectic crowd, I know.
8:
What book/s are you reading at present?
A
non-fiction book on fungi, Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. Fungi, the oldest living land organisms, are
fascinating. I’m also researching them
for a story.
9:
What is your favorite book and why?
Jane
Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
It speaks to my life. For decades
I was a Marianne when I should have been an Eleanor.
10:
What advice would you give for someone thinking about becoming a writer?
Ask
yourself why you want to write fiction.
If it’s because you love books and feel compelled to tell stories, that’s
great. If it’s because you want an audience
to applaud you, try acting. Writing is a
risky business (well, so is acting). Your
career will have ups and downs, sometimes way up or way down. Your income will not be steady. You will spend the majority of your time with
fictional people who don’t actually exist.
In the beginning, and maybe later on as well, there will probably be a
lot of rejection. But if you are
resilient, imaginative, and determined, and you feel compelled to write—then
do it!
11:
What are the best Social Media Sites for people to find out about you and your
work?
My website is www.nancykress.com. It is out of date, but I plan to work on
it. Soon. Any day now.
Or any month. Really. (I don’t actually like computers.)
I’m on Facebook, set
to Public viewing, and I post erratically.
About the Authors
Robert Lanza, M.D.
Named one of TIME magazine's "100 Most Influential People," Robert Lanza is a renowned scientist and author whose groundbreaking research spans many fields, from biology to theoretical physics. He has worked with some of the greatest minds of our time, including Jonas Salk and B.F. Skinner. A U.S. News and World Report cover story called him "the living embodiment of the character played by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting" and described him as a "genius," a "renegade thinker," and likened him to Einstein. He is the father of Biocentrism, the basis of Observer, his first novel. He has been pondering the larger existential questions since he was a young boy, when for play he took excursions deep into the forests of eastern Massachusetts observing nature (like Emerson and Thoreau, who grew up just a few miles from him). This fascination with the nature of life infused his entire career, leading him to the very frontiers of biology and science.
Nancy Kress
Hailed by bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson as "one of the greatest science fiction writers working today," Nancy Kress has won six Nebula and two Hugo Awards for her fiction. She often writes about developments in science, particularly genetic engineering, as in her bestselling novel, Beggars in Spain. Her work has been translated into over a dozen languages, including Klingon. She teaches writing and was "Fiction" columnist for Writer's Digest magazine for sixteen years. Nancy lives in Seattle with her husband, author Jack Skillingstead.
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