A division of
Treble Heart Books
WhoooDoo Mysteries!
Science Fiction
© Copyright 2001 - 2006 Treble Heart Books.  All rights reserved.
This web site is owned and maintained by Treble Heart Books.
designed with Homestead
Jerome Goddard, Ph.D.
Synopsis & Reviews
ISBN: 1-932695-32-X
Rated M [Mature]
Vital Forces
by
Jerome Goddard, Ph.D.
Duke Livermore was once a normal biology professor at the University of Mississippi.  He had good credentials, fulfilling research, a wonderful family, and a life.  He thought he understood reality.  Then a radical scientific discovery turns his perfect life upside down. Duke is shocked when his friend and colleague, Rich Haas, a virologist, stumbles upon a research finding so profound, so mind boggling, that it shakes Duke’s logic-based worldview to the core.  The discovery puts them both in grave danger.

    Suddenly Rich Haas’s mind is wiped clean by the
virus.  He stares into nothingness and whispers five
words over and over and over.

                “Stay away from the lizards!”

$13.50 Tradesize Paperback
Reviews
Vital Forces' explores science, religion, and spooky Mississippi lizards
9/10/2006 7:19:57 AM
Tupelo Daily Journal


"Vital Forces" (Treble Heart Books trade paperback $13.95) by Jerome Goddard


A Booneville, Mississippi native has stirred science, philosophy and some spooky lizards into a thriller.

Jerome Goddard's "Vital Forces" follows the adventures of a University of Mississippi reptile expert and his colleagues who discover a peculiar virus living inside Delta lizards.

They grapple with the implications that something darker might be working in the guise of the virus.

Goddard's professional focus is bugs - he holds a doctorate and serves as the state's medical entomologist. Along with scientific papers, he is the author of the major textbook used by physicians on the medical problems creepy crawly things can cause.

Goddard, who lives in the Jackson area, wrote "Vital Forces" over the course of six years, but the fictional tale has its roots in his professional experiences as a professor and state health official.

"It all started with a conversation," about rabies with then-state epidemiologist Dr. Mary Currier, he said. An animal infected with the disease "only wants to bite when the rabies virus is in the saliva."

The conventional scientific wisdom is that the behavior is the result of adaptation, Goddard said. The traits that help an organism survive - the virus - are the ones selected for reproduction.

"There's nothing spooky about that," Goddard said.

But you can also debate that the virus is alive.

"Then you can consider if they're using trickery and strategy," Goddard said. "That's much scarier."

The book steps beyond the thriller format, examining how people with different religious and world views contemplate a virus that might be "alive."

"It's a philosophical book," Goddard said. Some characters see the devil at work; others see an energy force; still others see a new age spiritual force to be manipulated.



It's not him

Although the book is written in first person, Goddard is quick to say the main character, herpetologist Duke Livermore, is not autobiographical.

"I'm not an agnostic and I wouldn't treat my wife or Benji (a character who had suffered a brain injury) that way," Goddard said.

The only major character in the book drawn directly from a real person is Liz Livermore, Duke's wife.

"That's my wife," said Goddard, who wrote himself a tongue-in-cheek cameo towards the end of the book."

Currently he's working on a sequel, tentatively titled "The Endless Present." which pulls in the Livermores and other characters at Ole Miss.

FROM: The Tupelo (Mississippi) Daily Journal, September 10, 2006 by Michaela Gibson Morris
Link: http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=228099&pub=1&div=Lifestyles
.
***Science Fiction***