It’s always fun when a novelist imagines something wild and crazy, only to have that very thing pop up in the real world later on. Of course, we’ve come to expect it in science fiction. About 100 years ahead of time, Jules Verne wrote about things like electric submarines, newscasts, solar sails, lunar modules, skywriting, video conferencing, tasers, and spaceship splashdowns. He probably gets the prize for the most imaginary fictitious scenarios to come true.

But I am in the running.

Consider The Cure. In that novel, a scientist is relentlessly pursued by an evil corporation which wants to profit from her invention, a cure for alcoholism. Crazy idea, right? Science could never cure addictions. And yet, it seems there really might be a drug that does just that. Check out this video or read this article to learn about naltrexone, and the exciting role it’s playing in healing people from alcoholism.

sometimes even in the strangest of stories it’s hard to find the line between fiction and the truth.

Next up is Lost Mission, in which construction workers digging a building foundation disturb a mass grave, exposing themselves to small pox which has lain dormant underground for hundreds of years. Awfully unlikely, no? But wait. Just last summer more than 40 people were hospitalized after being exposed to anthrax that had lain dormant in reindeer carcasses for nearly 50 years. In another article, the Siberian Times offered this: “The fear is out there. Recently French scientist Professor Jean-Michel Claverie issued a warning that energy exploration in permafrost regions could unlock ancient viruses…. ‘If we are not careful, and we industrialise [sic] these areas without putting safeguards in place, we run the risk of one day waking up viruses such as smallpox that we thought were eradicated.'” Hmm…

Then there’s They Shall See God, with a character who is stalked and killed by a tiger which escapes from the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. It seemed like a far fetched scenario when I wrote it, and then it actually happened in San Francisco.

“Truth is stranger than fiction,” as they say. But sometimes even in the strangest of stories it’s hard to find the line between fiction and the truth. That’s one of the reasons I love to read good novels, and why I love to write them.