Ask the Author: Frank Ryan
Answered Questions (10)
Frank Ryan
Hello, John,
I presume you read Virus X. In fact I have continued to work ever since then in evolutionary virology, helping to establish a new understanding of viruses when viewed from a symbiotic perspective.
Last year I published a new book, Virusphere, which has been recognized internationally as relevant to understanding the COVID pandemic. I am of course a consultant physician and evolutionary virologist.
Back in the early 1990s, I spent four years travelling internationally spending time with virologists entering numerous perilous plague zones, I was aware that such pandemics were inevitable. That was why I wrote the bestselling book, Virus X - as a warning. A Virus X was a virus that would be so devastating it would encircle the entire globe, be resistant to any known therapy or vaccine and cause havoc. Did anybody, outside the virus world, take any notice? Judge for yourself. COVID is of course exactly that.
I have been asked to help media and readers all over the world to explain and understand what is happening. Virusphere already explained the basis of COVID. But I thought it might help further if I revised the intro and two of the chapters to deal specifically with what is going on. Thankfully, my publisher was helpful and that revised narrative will soon be available as a revised kindle and paperback.
I would like to thank my editor at Harpercollins and my agent for their help in this.
Meanwhile I'll do my best to help.
I presume you read Virus X. In fact I have continued to work ever since then in evolutionary virology, helping to establish a new understanding of viruses when viewed from a symbiotic perspective.
Last year I published a new book, Virusphere, which has been recognized internationally as relevant to understanding the COVID pandemic. I am of course a consultant physician and evolutionary virologist.
Back in the early 1990s, I spent four years travelling internationally spending time with virologists entering numerous perilous plague zones, I was aware that such pandemics were inevitable. That was why I wrote the bestselling book, Virus X - as a warning. A Virus X was a virus that would be so devastating it would encircle the entire globe, be resistant to any known therapy or vaccine and cause havoc. Did anybody, outside the virus world, take any notice? Judge for yourself. COVID is of course exactly that.
I have been asked to help media and readers all over the world to explain and understand what is happening. Virusphere already explained the basis of COVID. But I thought it might help further if I revised the intro and two of the chapters to deal specifically with what is going on. Thankfully, my publisher was helpful and that revised narrative will soon be available as a revised kindle and paperback.
I would like to thank my editor at Harpercollins and my agent for their help in this.
Meanwhile I'll do my best to help.
Frank Ryan
I would suggest a Virus X Scenario that encircled the entire world. In other words, a virus that was utterly new to our immune system and we had no drug or vaccine to treat it.
Does it sound familiar?
Does it sound familiar?
Frank Ryan
I'd travel to Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and laugh my way around it.
Frank Ryan
Svetlana Alexievich: Secondhand Time
Jon McGregor: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
Mark O'Connell: To Be a Machine
Jon McGregor: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
Mark O'Connell: To Be a Machine
Frank Ryan
Ideas, major new levels of understanding within biology and medicine, really excite me. That excitement is essential for the deep level of inspiration I need to begin the major project of researching and then writing a new book.
Frank Ryan
I have a major new non-fiction title coming out on June 5, "The Mysterious World of the Human Genome". Your genome defines you at the most profound level. It directed your physical and mental construction from the fertilised egg to the emerging baby, and it continues to direct and care for you all of your life. It determines what you immune system recognises as "self". I've been involved in understanding how it works for 20 years. I have compared it to a mysterious world, and it really does have features that fit with this metaphor. I have even introduced the metaphor of an ultramicroscopic steam train that will take you, my reader, deep into this mysterious world so you can examine it directly . . .
Frank Ryan
For me writing appears to be "in my blood". I'm happy with writing and unhappy when not. It also means that I can focus on important themes, speak to others involved in these themes, and present new insights that might be of interest to my readers.
Frank Ryan
Most writers suffer this for short periods. In my experience, all it takes is one new idea and it is gone. But sometimes it lasts much longer. This is worse in fiction than non-fiction since fiction is so dependent on new inspiration. Try to distract yourself. Do something else - preferably something out of doors. Read, watch inspirational programmes on TV, or film. For me visual stimuli are very important. Music can also be very inspirational to me.
Maybe try talking about your theme to a group, or a lecture audience, and encourage questions. The questions reveal what your potential readership might like to know.
Be patient.
Maybe try talking about your theme to a group, or a lecture audience, and encourage questions. The questions reveal what your potential readership might like to know.
Be patient.
Frank Ryan
Stick to it. Get your book as well-written as you can. With non-fiction, ask yourself -- have I really explained the message I wanted to communicate as lucidly as possible? Have I explained it to the target readership you have in mind. If not, go back to it and improve it. If you are self-publishing, get professional editorial help before ever you submit to a publisher.
Frank Ryan
I teach evolutionary biology to a final year medics module at Sheffield University. My new book derives in part as a natural sequel to Virolution - this would be apparent from the closing pages. But it also derives from what I teach, week to week. I would like to open the minds of lay readers to the wonder of a very important evolutionary message. That's as much as I can say prior to publication in Feb/March 2015.
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