The God Organ by Anthony J. Melchiorri Giveaway, Excerpt & Interview

The God Organ

by Anthony J. Melchiorri

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BLURB:

The LyfeGen Sustain is an artificial organ designed to bestow recipients with virtual immortality. Instead, its owners are dying.

In 2063 Chicago, a rapidly growing company, LyfeGen, drives a biotechnological revolution that enables people to live significantly longer lives, free of cancer, genetically inherited diseases, and even wrinkles. But these benefits are only available to those people with the money to afford these advanced technologies.

The prolonged lives of the moderately and extremely wealthy is upending the economy as job growth and opportunities stagnate, causing widespread unrest in the general populace. Threatening drastic action, extremist religious groups protest these unnatural artificial organs. Competing companies are desperate to take advantage of LyfeGen’s seemingly grim future as the chaos unfolds.

Caught in the midst of this turmoil, the inventor of the artificial organ, Preston Carter, worries that someone with no regard for human life has betrayed his company and is setting him up for failure. He is not alone in his fears.

Amid the confusion, backstabbing, and all-out assault on the biotech industry, a young bioengineer races to findthe fault in the artificial organ; an investigative journalist delves into a story that will alter her career; a destitute man struggles to make a living in the biotech world, as he turns to desperate measures; and an amateur hacker infiltrates LyfeGen as she roots out the secrets of their technology. With a Sustain organ implanted in his own body, Preston must weather the perilous storm, determined to save his company and the lives of all who once trusted LyfeGen—before he’s killed by his own invention.

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Excerpt 

Joel reached out to the glimmering incandescent light bulb and wrapped his fingers around it. It didn’t burn him, even when he clenched it tighter and his mind screamed at him to let go. Instinct was hard to shake. With an unquenchable curiosity, he squeezed the bulb and let out an embarrassing yelp as the glass shattered. Shards projected from his open palm as he rotated and examined his hand. Silver blood streamed between his fingers.

Stepping away from the holofield, he headed back into the main art gallery. He shook his head in quiet amusement and rubbed his hand against his black slacks. No blood actually seeped over his palm and no glass shards were embedded in his hand, but he couldn’t help trying to get rid of the mess. It was just another strange exhibit in the modern art museum, an illusion.

But the pain burning beneath his skull, making his vision swim, was no trick. He fell, his body going numb and his world going black.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

I grew up in Normal, Illinois. After a regular (it’s hard, but I refuse to make a pun of it) childhood in Normal, I left for the University of Iowa to get a degree in Biomedical Engineering. But, I couldn’t give up reading and writing and there really wasn’t enough of that in engineering (unless you’re into thick, no-thrills books on thermodynamics and polymer physics). I picked up a second degree in English while working on the Biomedical Engineering degree and have since counted myself fortunate for making that decision. Iowa City, North America’s only official UNESCO City of Literature, is a thriving hotbed of writers and readers, with some of the best visiting the city for their renowned workshop or famous authors dropping by to read a story they’ve written and chat.  I had the opportunity to meet plenty of great writers and storytellers that inspired me to keep writing, even when I graduated and entered a doctoral program at the University of Maryland for Bioengineering.

Today, when I’m not writing and reading, I’m primarily working on tissue engineered blood vessels, gearing my work for children with congenital heart defects. I get to work with awesome 3D printing technologies and am always astounded by the rapidly advancing technologies coursing through the veins of universities and research settings. Much of my writing has been inspired by those advancements and my conversations with other researchers, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and many others interested in our evolving world.

Interview:

Where are you from?

I’m originally from a town called Normal, Illinois. I’m not making that up; that’s the town’s name and you can feel free to make all the puns you want! From there, I lived in Iowa City, Iowa for a few years while earning degrees in English and Biomedical Engineering. Now, I’m living just outside of Baltimore Maryland.

Tell us your latest news?

I’m excited to announce the recent release of “The God Organ.” While I’ve written and published other books, I actually began this novel long before everything else I’ve published currently. The God Organ draws on my experiences in biomedical engineering and the behind-the-scenes controversies and drama in the biotech industry. It’s just a small taste of what the future might hold as medical technologies evolve and unfold.

Outside of writing, we’ve made some fantastic progress in my laboratory developing 3D printing technologies for tissue engineering. All our experiments in creating a treatment plan utilizing 3D printing for children born with heart defects have turned out extremely well and we’re excited about the progress we’ve made. Of course, it’ll be a long time before this type of work hits hospitals and can truly help people, but medical science is a “one tiny step at a time” kind of thing.

When and why did you begin writing?

I wish I could tell you why, but my I wrote and illustrated my first “book” in first grade. It was something like “The Bunny Family Visits Grandma and Grandpa.” Quite different than my current writing subjects like genetic engineering and cloning, but I never stopped writing since that first story. I suppose I’ve always enjoyed creating something new for others to enjoy and I’ve always gotten immense satisfaction when I find out that someone actually did appreciate something I’ve written.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

Back at the University of Iowa, I took several creative writing courses. Like I said, I’d always been writing, but I’d never really sat down and said, “Hey, I’m a writer!” But during one of those first creative writing workshops, our instructor asked us to raise our hands if we thought we considered ourselves writers. I did raise my hand and realized that I might as well call myself a writer if that’s something I wanted to do…and ever since then I’ve taken the craft more seriously, making it a daily habit, and striving to improve myself as a writer since.

What inspired you to write your first book?

Unlike the science fiction and thrillers I write now, my very first book was actual a historical fiction books inspired by my grandfather’s life. I’d always wanted to be a writer and used to write plenty of short stories that I’d share with him. I promised him some day that I’d write down the story of his life, from his perilous time in World War II up to the struggles he faced raising his family. Unfortunately, I didn’t write all those stories down before he passed away and ultimately decided to make good on my promise to him several years later. His story inspired me to write my first novel and I haven’t stopped since.

What would you like my readers to know?

I love to talk to people about science and books! So if you want to follow me on twitter (tony_melchiorri) or check me out on my facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/anthonyjmelchiorri), I’d be happy to hear from you. I think that academic organizations and research institutions often treat the hard sciences and subjects like literature very differently—these two fields are often assumed to be completely disparate. I like to think that literature provides not only a great window into society and culture, but also a fantastic venue for examining how science and technology fits into our lives and into our future. Ever since I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I can’t help but think how Science Fiction gets us to truly consider the implications of our fervor for advanced technology and the potential repercussions of our progress. So, in my own work and in my conversations with readers, I particularly like to discuss those very subjects!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tony_melchiorri

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anthonyjmelchiorri

Author Website: anthonyjmelchiorri.com

Goodreads Author link: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8260729.Anthony_J_Melchiorri

Goodreads book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22999126-the-god-organ

Giveaway:

Anthony will be awarding a $20.00 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn winner, and an autographed copy of The God Organ will be awarded to four randomly drawn winners (US ONLY); all awarded via rafflecopter during the tour

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