If By Reason of Strength...

[Jamie]

A discussion on my my novelette, If By Reason of Strength, published by 40kbooks.

[Gail]

Jamie, Your novelette title provokes intriguing thoughts. Can you give a bit of background to your choice?

[Jamie]

Gail wrote: "Jamie, Your novelette title provokes intriguing thoughts. Can you give a bit of background to your choice?"

Some years ago, I remember hearing about a fellow who was sentenced to 7 consecutive life sentences in prison (or something like that). I wondered what the point of that was--he would die in prison--so why not just say "life in prison"? And it got me thinking: what would happen if, for some reason, a person was sentenced to multiple life sentences--and managed to live out the entire sentence? That was the germ for "If By Reason of Strength..." which was originally written at a science fiction workshop run by science fiction Grand Master, James Gunn.

The title is from the Bible and I liked it for this story because it referred to what the Bible considered to be a natural human lifespan (70 years: threescore and ten) and implied that living any longer than this would only bring you despair, which is very much what I imagined Norman Gilmore experienced when he was released from prison.