Science fiction ‘The Eternal Gene’ talks about ETs & inter-galactic meets

Team L&M

The best science fiction books are based on imagination and foresight. They make the readers curious, suspicious, and excited, helping one think about whether such a world can exist. When all this comes from a debutante author, Ankush Sam Thorpe, rest assured, you laid your hands on a brilliantly creative, well-written and smooth, and thoroughly engaging book.

Launched during the author’s marriage reception ceremony early this month, The Eternal Gene (published by BluPrint) is a compilation of six innovative stories, each different from the other. The stories answer questions like whether the world is the real one or not, whether we can trust what we remember, whether extra-terrestrial species visited the Earth in the prehistoric era, and whether a rare mutation has the ability to stop aging.

The book is a collection of fascinating science-fiction stories interwoven with suspense and thrill. In the stunning title story, a man’s journey to investigate his father’s mysterious death leads him to the nation’s best kept secret. A Stitch in Time, follows a soldier’s quest to finish a mission in a world long forgotten, with a gut-wrenching revelation. In Down Memory Lane, the protagonist learns that the reality is not what it seems amidst an imminent political coup. In The Representative, a man suddenly wakes up billions of light years away, in an inter-galactic conference, representing Earth. And in Hera, a group of Neanderthals are visited by a guest from a hyper-advanced civilisation, forever changing the course of evolution on Earth.

Ankush Sam Thorpe grew up in Punjab and went on to do his PG in Genetics after graduating in Anthropology. His love affair with science fiction began during his teenage years – when he became a huge fan of Hollywood science fiction films, especially The Terminator and Jurassic Park, authors Sidney Sheldon, Dan Brown and George Orwell. “However, my passion for storytelling grew with Isaac Asimov’s short story Nightfall, which inspired me to create my own tales,” he says.

During the Covid pandemic, he found the time to create characters, dialogues, and storylines based on the scientific concepts. Presently living in Toronto, Ankush is now working on his second book, perhaps another science fiction.