by poet and translator Philip Ramp Aegina, 19.12.2022
DR. MAYERLAND, a Swiss hi-tech biologist well-known and/or infamous for his devious and at times even nefarious methods as he sees himself as one on a mission, one based on experiments run on human DNA, employing the cells of
exceptional performers in all the fine arts, cells he has gained possession of by hook or by crook methodically separating out the characteristic that makes them so uniquely creative. He claims to have the creation of a new world. one based on the use of these characteristics in new ways, a goal which includes solving major global issues and as the novel develops it becomes clear DR. MAYERLAND is not about to let anything or anyone stand in his way.
DR. MAYERLAND’S LAB: a novel, speculative in form but nonetheless cannot be described as belonging exclusively to any of the better-known forms as the sci-fi novel is moving constantly between good and evil centered on his legal and illegal experimentation, viewing, for example, the near human future as one of progress unimagined before him but swiftly followed by a darker far more destructive view of it…again reimagined by him.
Of course, at the core of the novel, DR. MAYERLAND’S swinging back and forth, who is just as baffled as the reader by what his true nature is as on the one hand, he is driven to create a “super human” as it were possessed of both higher intellectual and more standards while at the same time, he shows himself to be a ruthless opportunist setting himself against not only Nature and his fellow humans but God Himself. Not an uncommon theme, but this novel displays an originality somehow missed before.
An originality that may in part be based on her varied education and the places it was acquired, namely being born in Athens of well-known literary excellence…followed by studies in Communications at Boston University, later working as an assistant editor in Manhattan for a number of commercial magazines and later, as Deputy Director of Marketing and Audience Research for TV and Radio in Greece. In addition, she has written three books, one educational and the other two novels. “Toy Mausoleum” consisting of short stories had its first edition soon sold out and went on to win first prize in the “9th London Film Festival 2016”, a prize given for short film scripts and there is also the novel “Golden Lupins” which sold over 1000 copies in the first months and has received for the most past excellent reviews from leading critics. Which pretty much covers its and I can only hope readers find this her best work as I feel it is.
As a brief example of the originality of this sci-fi novel can be found in critiques of the book sent to the author in Greece many of which were published in the esteemed Greek newspaper “Kathimerini” and in their own way each one touches on what the author stresses…and which too few of us have come to realize…namely: sci-fi usually takes place in the future or it is the theme swiftly approaching while this novel takes place in the present and there is a subtle stressing of the fact the present and the future will soon be the same thing…
Think of Climate Change which we speak of working on in the future when in fact there is no future if we don’t act now. And the present needs the present as much as the past if it’s going to exist. So read the book and awake pleasantly but with a tolling bell in the foreground…the time is NOW. Read about it in this book.
Observations by poet and translator Philip Ramp
AEGINA 19.12.2022