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Project Pitch
My evolving historical novel tells of the hypothetical Percy Bysshe Shelley Society, dedicated to finding a definitive proof, or disproof, of God's existence.
All About the Project
Galapagos Regained is a follow-up to my previous historical novel, The Last Witchfinder. I'm conceiving it as a rollicking intellectual extravaganza in which a dance of ideas will be counterpointed by narrow escapes, shipwrecks, con games, mistaken identities, erotic encounters, and other such literary pleasures.
The year is 1847. The Percy Bysshe Shelley Society is floating a huge cash award to anyone who can settle the God question: does a Supreme Being exist or not? My heroine, Chloe Davenport, believes she has a shot at the gold. Her checkered past has brought her to the estate of Charles Darwin, where she earns her keep maintaining the menagerie he brought back from the Galapagos archipelago. Something strange is brewing at Down House, a radical new understanding of humankind's role in Creation, and to Chloe it sounds a lot like atheism.
I'm hoping that the iCrew community will help me articulate the sorts of arguments, both Darwinian and non-Darwinian, that the custodians of the Shelley Prize might hear as the Great Contest unfolds. I imagine that the judges will entertain all sorts of petitioners, both fictional and historical -- theologians, philosophers, scientists, mystics, sages, fools, cranks, crackpots -- each such aspirant bent on shoring up or tearing down the God hypothesis, and winning 10,000 pounds in the bargain.
Genres
- Writing > Fiction > Novel
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