Hera, or Empathy: A Work of Utopian Fiction

Ever since Plato, philosophers have been imagining future utopian societies. In more recent times, many of these fantasies have been about the doings of scientists because modern science fascinates us with the prospect of changing every aspect of our lives.

Hera is one of twelve sisters genetically modified by their neuroscientist parents to have superior mental faculties. During their teenage years the sisters were forced to flee for their lives from the remote Indonesian village where they were born. Later, Hera challenges her father's right to have engineered his children, using the Biblical story of creation against him. But one day she discovers that the sisters' genes contain modifications that their parents didn't intend.

The story told in "Hera, or Empathy" begins in a village situated high up on a great mountain, the Carstenz Pyramid in the island of New Guinea, and then moves to southern Alberta (Canada), the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, Bali, the Central California coast, and finally to the Mojave Desert near Las Vegas, Nevada.

This is "a work of utopian fiction" and it is the first volume in a planned trilogy called "The Hera Saga." The second volume will be called "The Priesthood of Science" (2008); the third volume is entitled "Hera the Buddha" (2010).

Table of Contents:

• Part One: In the Mind's Eye
• Part Two: Band of Sisters
• Part Three: The Avenging Angel
• Part Four: To the Deserts of the New World