You may wonder why I am posting a link to this blog entry by Mr. Modesitt. I don’t normally do this but this is something that I found very exciting.

As some of you may know, L. E. Modesitt Jr. is one of my major influences. I have a large number of his novels, starting with his Ecolitan and Forever Hero series and continuing from there. Looking at his site, the date of publication for some of these novels dates back to 1987. Given that we are now in 2007, that means that I have been reading his work for close to twenty years.

I’ve always been partial to his Science Fiction novels, as they address issues in a context that is relevant to society. So when I recently came across an article discussing plants that had been genetically modified to remove environmental pollutants, I recalled Mr. Modesitt using this concept in Adiamante. After a little thought, I emailed him a link to the article. While I did not expect a reply, given what I know about him from his writing and his website I was not surprised when I did receive an email from him.

In that email he expressed his surprise about why this has taken so long, stating:

Over thirty years ago, it was known that various plant species could remove various impurities and toxins, including heavy metals, and sewage engineers were working with such “natural” systems in lagoons to purify waste water.

I responded back to him, citing one of his earlier posts regarding Homo Irrationalis. I also mentioned the current trend of embracing technological solutions, as well as the concerns regarding genetically modified plants.

This time I was surprised to receive a reply back. In that reply he discussed the irrational application of the profit motive, something that he has touched upon in some of his novels. I read the reply and found it interesting but I decided not to respond back to him, fearing that he would view me as a some sort of cyber-stalker.

Imagine my surprise when a new item appeared in my Google Reader newsfeed for his blog with my name in it. To me, it was the equivalent of the moment when I first found out that The Gender Divide was going to be published. I know that this is silly, that this has nothing to do with me or my novel but it was very exciting nonetheless.

So here is the link to the blog entry in question. Apart from the aforementioned reference, it is, as is typical of Mr. Modesitt’s blog entries, an articulate and insightful commentary on an issue that affects us now and in the future.

 Economics and the Future of Biotech.