We are happy to republish Copernick’s Rebellion because it is better now than when it was first published almost 25 years ago. At the time, genetic engineering was only for science fiction and then only for very speculative science fiction. Everyone knew that someday, somewhere, we would have corn that resisted rot and tomatoes that stayed fresh longer than usual, but no one would have believed trees that grew golden apples and engineered sentient bio-beings. We knew the theory about DNA, but did not have the sequence for even the simplest bacteria. Now, in the real world, you can order mice with genes that glow in the dark when activated. Want to research a gene? Phone the lab and they will splice in a bioluminescence gene along with the one that you want to research. $20,000 and they will breed you a litter of custom mice with genes that glow. We now have sequenced an entire human genome, decoded the rat and several other species. It is only a matter of time before we can build a person from scratch. The problem is now only complexity, not science. When we decide to build a self aware bio-organism, we’ll do it. Twenty five years ago, this book was a hard sell for a new author. Now it is current. Virtually everything in this book is possible, from the tree houses, to the trees with golden apples, to the fauns. Come look at a future that is more possible now than when it was written.
