Our second (and final) note is from Brenda Cooper, about The Silver Ship and the Sea:

This is my first solo novel.  I started out wanting to write about difference and prejudice; The Silver Ship and the Sea also gathered a general anti-war theme as it went (one thing war represents is a superset of prejudice).  My heroes, Chelo and Joseph and their friends, are affected by a past they did not create, as are many of us.  They have to deal with a lot of choices that other people made for them.

I think we're going to spend the next few decades trying to determine what our boundaries are as a species.  How will genetic engineering affect our basic humanity?  What will we embrace, and what will scare us?  So that's part of what this book is about, too. I hope it is also fun.