The Next Book: DIVINE PARADOX

I am working on the idea for my next book, the sequel, currently called DIVINE PARADOX. The theme is going to draw from the story of Darwin and the clash of science and religion in the mid-1800's. The theme of the Twin Paradox was: "Do we get to choose who we are?" The theme of the sequel is: "Are we all gods?" Exploring the idea that meaning and myth creates our biology, and is not just a result of it. Darwin was the center of a clash between belief and logic, mysticism and science; however, even then, the dialectic on evolution was also tied to questions of economics and free will. (If the natural order of the world and all its beauty, even man, arose from the pressures of competition for resources, should not the same principles be applied to free markets and democracy?) Darwin spawned not only a profound tool for understanding the world but also, a new theoretical language for the Victorian era's global expansion. So... obsessed with Darwin currently. Reading a killer biography called Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. The adventure in Divine Paradox revolves around the other seven kids (Darwin included) who went to North Dakota. They have gone missing at a nuclear bunker site beneath a mountain. And it is up to Alastair, and the gang to "save" them. At least that seems what is going on. The story is a journey to the center of the earth story, that will mix military installation & nuclear bunker science with questions of the soul—stories of colonialism's push into unknown worlds—Dante's Inferno, Paradise Lost, and The Descent of Man. I can't stop thinking about it, so I know there's enough to chew on for the year. One of my favorite books is Conrad's Heart of Darkness, another story about the blank spaces on the map, and man's search for his soul.