Pandemic novels…
[Note from Steve: The content below might seem unusual for the holidays, but I end this article with hope, as I usually do with all my novels. So Happy Holidays everyone…and my wishes for all of you to have a safe and prosperous 2021.]
From Crichton’s Andromeda Strain to my own More than Human: The Mensa Contagion and “The Last Humans” series (The Last Humans and The Last Humans: A New Dawn), apocalyptic pandemics have been part of sci-fi. Before COVID, real pandemics seemed to be things in the distant past—the bubonic plague is ancient history (although it and related diseases rear their ugly heads from time to time), memories of the Spanish flu were lost in the ashes of WWI, and Gabo showed love could be found in the cholera of Third World countries—so it has been up to sci-fi authors to remind the public of the potential perils, including the inability of health systems run by inept leaders to handle these plagues.
While COVID is deadly, my greatest fear has always been that recent advances in genetic engineering could also allow evil people to create a deadly virus that could be weaponized (of course, in the real world, there’s always that biolab near Wuhan!). In the Andromeda Strain and More than Human, the evil ones were ETs (they turned out to mean well in my novel, though). In “The Last Humans” Series, they’re US enemies, humans doing bad things to other humans. Of course, some COVID vaccines are genetically engineered too (based on mRNA, for example), so there can be a good flip side, but even the speedy and recent vaccine development would have a hard time keeping up with a new bioweapon.
Does anyone want to hear about fictional pandemics when a real one is going on? Depends. Certain sectors of human society are anti-science and would rather bury their heads in the sand, preferring to ignore real viruses and warnings related to fictional ones. Others are more open-minded and curious about the science. And still others, dedicated to having fun and not carrying about anyone but themselves, just ignore warnings and guidelines to continue their hedonistic lifestyles, endangering their fellow human beings.
Viruses have plagued human beings for eons—we all contain junk DNA corresponding to residuals from ancient viruses. The more we know about them, learned from scientific facts or via science fiction a lot more serious than space opera (e.g. Star Wars, which is really bad fantasy), will at least help the real world deal with their devastating effects.
Do I expect my new book, The Last Humans: A New Dawn to be popular? More so than The Last Humans, the first book in the series, which was a post-apocalyptic thriller focused on main character Penny Castro’s adventures after the apocalypse—what immediately followed the human-created pandemic. The sequel is a more standard thriller, a bit of a shootout at the OK Corral as Penny and hubby Alex are forcibly drafted by what remains of the US government to stop a second strike and get a bit of revenge. What happens might surprise you. (It surprised me…and I wrote it!)
Crichton’s intent in Andromeda Strain was to scare people. Mine in More than Human was to show that viruses could be beneficial in the long run. My intent in “The Last Humans’ Series was to show bad humans, following nightmarish programs of domination, conquest, or revenge, can turn viruses into lethal WMDs and attack others. And one can state that the deadly virus COVID-19 has shown us how incompetence and public resistance can make a virus even deadlier than it should be.
Perhaps we’ve had enough lessons for a while, so pandemic novels aren’t needed anymore? The answer might be surprising: Because too many people haven’t paid enough attention to learn the lessons, we have to continue to repeat them, trying to hammer them home into the most resistant minds. There will always be naysayers, so our best tactic is to bludgeon them continuously with these warnings!
On this Christmas day we can celebrate hope. Vaccines are on the way to end the COVID nightmare. We still need patience. The vaccine rollout is not a light switch we can just turn on and magically return to normality. But we can also expect that 2021 will be a lot better than 2020. That’s our reality now.
The fictional warnings must continue, though. It’s almost certain that new viruses will arise in China and other Third World countries, or anywhere reasonable health practices are ignored, and they will propagate around the world yet again. And let’s never forget that the genetic science used to prepare some of the COVID vaccines can also be used for evil to prepare a virus without any known antidote. We can utter our Christmas prayers that we will never have another pandemic like COVID, but we can’t bury our heads in the sand. We must be vigilant.
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Comments are always welcome.
The Last Humans: A New Dawn. In The Last Humans, Penny Castro survived the biowarfare apocalypse and created a family. In this new novel, her post-apocalyptic idyll on their citrus ranch is interrupted by the US government’s plan to stop another attack…and get some revenge. Penny and husband Alex, along with others, are drafted to carry out the plan—in their case, forced to do so by the government’s kidnapping of their young children. But the enemy has surprises awaiting them when a submarine delivers them to that foreign shore. Available wherever fine ebooks are sold.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
