Friday, March 14, 2008

Science in Fiction: The Giving Plague

The Giving Plague

A superb piece of science fiction from the sci-fi podcast magazine Escape Pod. Everything comes together in this one; interesting characters, a perfect choice of narration, and the science -- which involves a virus that causes people to become more altruistic -- is both compelling and accurate.

Here's an excerpt from EP:

"Yeah, you viruses need vectors, don’t you. I mean, if you kill a guy, you’ve got to have a life raft, so you can desert the ship you’ve sunk, so you can cross over to some new hapless victim. Same applies if the host proves tough, and fights you off — gotta move on. Always movin’ on.

Hell, even if you’ve made peace with a human body, like Les suggested, you still want to spread, don’t you? Big-time colonizers,you tiny beasties.

Oh, I know. It’s just natural selection. Those bugs that accidentally find a good vector spread. Those that don’t, don’t. Butit’s so eerie. Sometimes it sure feels purposeful…"

1 comment:

Daniel said...

I've moved computers so much since you first introduced this to me that I somehow forgot all about it. Thanks for posting it. :]