Rebecca Rowe's 'FORBIDDEN CARGO' - Secret Illegal Nano-DNA Modification - the Next Step in Evolution, or a Crime against Humanity? You Decide.

Secret Nano-DNA Modification - the next step in evolution, or a crime against humanity? Rebecca Rowe's 'FORBIDDEN CARGO' raises powerful personal questions.

Rebecca Rowe's 'FORBIDDEN CARGO' will be released in the US at World Con in Los Angeles in August. Rebecca told us a bit about the book from her home outside of Denver,Colorado.

EDGEnet: Could you please tell us about the book 'FORBIDDEN CARGO', and why you believe this is an important book.

Rebecca: Well, it's a high adrenaline, fast-paced story—Tokyo-on-overdrive with a new wild west. It's about future ronin-styled cowboys, especially Sashimu and Thesni, who don't fit easily into societal confines, if at all. This gets them in a lot of trouble first on Mars and then the Denver of 2110 and in Novus Orbis, the new frontier of our minds.

I didn't set out to write an "important" book, although I appreciate you asking, but a hyper-real novel that reflects the complexities we're dealing with today. Okay, so Sashimu and Thesni are fugitives with forbidden nano-DNA on the run from government agents; they get help from the Cadet, who's an underground gamer and Ochbo who defines his own unorthodox brand of activism. Also, they receive help from the least likely of sources, the famous father of Novus Orbis, Creid Xerkler. There's a government cover-up, black market profiteers selling nano-band caught up in a political coup, two girls coming of age, and even a moment for romance. I've nothing against a fast read and unadulterated fun, but it might be a mistake to take Forbidden Cargo as a joy ride with cotton candy.

EDGEnet: So, what's the relevance of 'FORBIDDEN CARGO' to us and our society?

Rebecca: Right here and now, we're standing on the threshold of several key technologies that are set to change our world and us in potentially very good ways, but with risks we've only begun to explore. For the first time in human history, we are approaching control over our genetic code and altering our DNA. This may mean that our children's children won't inherit many debilitating genetic diseases that plague our generation. It also has other darker implications. As we grow in our knowledge, there are many difficult issues in potentially designing our own children. In a few short generations, we could forever change the face of humanity and to what? And even more importantly, who will control these changes? With all our amazing potential, our future could still turn grim.

Mass production, quantum computing may only be decades away. Nanotechnology may offer our salvation in climate control, environmental cleanup and medical applications. And yet, with genetic modification, quantum computing and nanotechnology, there will inevitably be unintended consequences. We know from experience that new technologies simultaneously bring great change and tragic loss. Forbidden Cargo avoids a black & white, good vs. evil, pro/anti-tech take on tomorrow, but presents the many shades of grays in our future where we are neither consumed by gray-goo-nanotechnology-gone-bad nor basking in a dreamy utopia, but grappling with our self-made demons both personal and societal in 2110, as we do today.

EDGEnet: Will you be available to discuss your book at WorldCon?

Rebecca: Yes, I will be available at the EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing booth at scheduled times throughout the World Con event for signings, plus we will be celebrating the launch of Forbidden Cargo. Schedule details are posted daily at the booth, plus you have an opportunity to enter to win an i-POD NANO. I am really looking forward to meeting everyone there.

Rebecca K. Rowe

Rebecca K. Rowe is a freelance writer, published author and member of the National Space Society and The Mars Society. She has M.A.'s in Journalism and International Relations. Her short work / poetry has been published in Polyphony, Ascent Magazine, and Sol Magazine. Rebecca is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop, and has been recently formally inducted into the Denver "Women's Press Club"

FORBIDDEN CARGO by Rebecca Rowe
ISBN-10: 1-894063-16-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-894063-16-6
Trade Paperback
5.50" X 8.50"
$14.95 US
$16.95 CN
352 pages


Forbidden Cargo is Rebecca Rowe's first novel.