Invasion might be my most fun book, at least from the point of view of the writing process. In contrast to my more typical medical mystery/thrillers where I’m constrained by the need for medical/scientific accuracy to bolster my underlying social message- with Invasion I was able to enjoy the entertaining opportunity to indulge my imagination far more than my memory and just let the ideas flow. Of course with my education skewed toward science, the story is based in fact; in particular- what I have learned over the years about viruses- about theories and concepts concerning the nature of consciousness- and about the near statistical inevitability of alien life in this universe or a possible parallel universe. But all that was a mere starting point for a wild, imaginative ride that raises a few social issues like global warming a decade before it became such a hot topic- as well as a scenario that answers a few earthbound mysteries like explaining mass extinctions- specifically that of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The story even highlights some frivolous facts like the off-road capabilities of a Range Rover automobile.
As Invasion is such a marked departure from my other twenty-five novels (subsequently I wrote a second science fiction novel- Abduction– since I had had so much fun with Invasion); some people might be curious where the initial impulse to write it came from. Actually I have to thank NBC. It was their movie department’s request for me to come up with a scenario for a two-night science fiction miniseries that was the stimulus. The fact that I had never written any science fiction was not a deterrent; in fact- it was a stimulus. For NBC,-1 believe they thought they might get something fresh; while for me, I had an inkling that it would turn out to be as much fun as it was.
