Cloning

Walker & Co., 1972. Hardcover with dustjacket, 1st edition. A novel of human cloning.

I was born in Boston, MA in 1938. I studied math, biology, chemistry, and philosophy (B.A., Swarthmore,1959) and have a Ph.D. in biophysics (Brandeis, 1966).

I have taught biophysics, biochemisty, physics, biology, chemistry, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, math, creative writing, a course on the nuclear arms race race, in which I said in 1985-87 that the most likely attack on the U.S. would involve not ICBMs, but terrorists striking multiple sites simultaneously--c.f. 9/11/01) and another on "Provocative Writings by and About Scientists." I was on the faculty of SUNY at Buffalo (Biophysics and Theoretical Biology), the Univ. of GA at Athens (Physics), and the Univ. of MO-Columbia (Biochemistry).

My talent--and curse--is that I read and watch everything the same, scientific articles, textbooks and fiction, noticing fine details. The reasons I wrote "Cloning" include the *many* scientific errors in Michael Crichton's "Andromeda Strain"--and Crichton has an MD from Harvard. Also in Rod Serling's TV movie "Doomsday Flight." Both came out in the late 1960s. I wondered how hard it could be to write a novel without mistakes. Although I wrote it quickly, "Cloning" has shown over three decades to have no errors. Only the element of telepathy should be considered fantasy, and who knows if it may still be shown to exist?

I am an artist, and a good (amateur) photographer--especially on trips to Morocco, Spain, the Netherlands, France and Germany, Mexico and Peru. I designed a computer typeface. I am an audiophile and musician (guitar) and performed as a folksinger in the early 1960s. My tastes include classical guitar, baroque (classical up through Mozart), folk music, bluegrass, blues, and some jazz.

I am making progress on a much larger and literarily superior second novel, provisionally titled "Moment of Inertia" (a double play on words), set in the 1980's. It contains an abundance of dark humor, some science, and some science fiction--as of today.