SCIENCE FICTION often paints a bleak future, and many alarm bells in our present state provide impetus for such warning and concern; but if our empathy can survive, hope becomes real, for it creates conditions for more than survival. Empathy creates the path to believe in one another. It is inclusive, not divisive.
Rob Williams' Sins of Variance poses one of these science fiction crossroads in a difficult future of dark choices for the human race. Williams' world is a future where many humans have been genetically tailored to avoid conflict, but in his story he also asks whether such a success, made through genetic neutralization of emotion, is a good thing.
With the next century promising the arrival of true artificial intelligence and a mankind that must evolve with our ability to manipulate man and machine, maybe some of the questions the author poses should be addressed today. If they aren't, quite possibly our species dies in the process as we eat away at hope in a world where only the powerful survive and prosper.
From the Author
SINS OF VARIANCE takes place 500 years into the future in Gloucestershire County, United Kingdom (near Wales). Mankind has changed through genetic engineering, almost to the point of being unrecognizable from what we know today. Advanced genetics has brought about a complete "optimal" set of genomes preferred by the society.
Though variation has been bred out of most humans, there are rare individuals with unique inner characteristics who have been deemed unacceptable by the society. They struggle because of these personal differences, and some find their world is not really what they have been led to believe.
I've experienced life both in poor crime-ridden neighborhoods and in comfortable middle income conditions. Though we attempt to channel human nature through culture, education, and advanced medicine, it is what it is. We wish for science to tame the worst of our nature, and future knowledge may enable us to significantly alter mankind. We should be careful to thoroughly understand the side effects of what we put in motion. A visit to England, combined with personal experience in the high tech world, inspired me to write this fictional novel.
