Symbiont, Volume 1

A story of human struggles on a world with alien biology that must be understood to remove the threat to the future existence of humankind. Symbiont is an exciting new science fiction novel presenting some of the challenges that might face explorers to a new world with a different underlying evolutionary history. Early explorers inadvertently brought alien microbes to Earth, and they were released by terrorists. Always fatal, the infection spreads rapidly while the research team is away on the alien planet. The challenges are both human including love, lust, terrifying but also wonderful experiences, and scientific being faced with certain knowledge that your failure means the end of humanity. Imagine yourself in the same situation, because we may face it soon as exoplanets are discovered and contacted. How would you react while at the same time incredible predators attack, microbes infect, and crew break under the strain? Only Stan and Selene can save Earth but they are trapped on the alien planet. While this book is entirely a work of fiction, the basic thesis is probably correct that our planet's most primitive genetic material originated from parasitic, single-celled organisms that became incorporated as our genes with their now much transformed organelles acting today as our modern chromosomes. The hypothesis of this book is that the same process began on the far-away planet, but the single-celled organisms never became incorporated into the alien planet's genetic material. So there is no sex on this planet. Instead complex organisms have developed with both reproduction and a history of evolution in ways that are totally unfamiliar to modern science. What would happen when our two very different biologies mix? And how would a scientist figure it out in time? The story is also based on situations that can and do occur on field trips to distant and dangerous places. People fall in love, get angry, go berserk (rarely, but sometimes), make amazing discoveries, have scary adventures, work hard, and get frustrated. The career scientist can be a strange mix of brilliant and stupid, humanly empathetic, or empty of passion. Their personal lives can be great or messy, while their professional lives can seem to be impeccable -- about like most people. The story and the thesis of the story is intended to be a platform for discussion and speculation. It is also intended to be the first of a series of volumes exploring many aspects of life now and in the future, all based on the reality of our natural world and the properties of the universe as we know them today, but pushed beyond what we normally see and experience.
About the Author: Alan Emery, marine biologist, has published many scientific papers on the subjects of ecology, evolution, and taxonomy as well as a book on the origins and natural history of coral reefs, the world's most complex underwater environment. He has led scientific expeditions to the far reaches of the globe to study formerly unexplored ocean regions, often in the company of sharks, poisonous marine snakes, and moray eels. His main interests, however, have always been the development and behaviour of all organisms as they live out their remarkably full and complicated life histories. For 13 years he was president of one of Canada's national museums, the Canadian Museum of Nature. He has also served on the boards of many scientific and science-related institutions, often in the role of president. This unique combination of experiences gives him several perspectives from which to portray this fictional expedition to a dangerous environment - from that of the director of the organization sponsoring the expedition to those of its scientific, technical, and support members. He is also well-equipped to speculate on the edges of biological theory about the first encounters with alien biology and how surprising that just may turn out to be. He and his wife live on 100 acres of field, swamp, and forest in Ontario, Canada, delighting in studying the myriad wild things that surround them.