Luna Media Press Release | 13 April 2007
Starting on Monday, 16 April 2007, a new novel by one of Australia's best-known science fiction writers, Damien Broderick, will be serialised online by COSMOS magazine.
The new and previously unpublished novel, Post Mortal Syndrome, will be appear five days a week in chapters of around 2,000 words each over the next 56 weekdays.
"Novels have long been serialised in print in Australia, but not online," said Wilson da Silva, Editor-in-Chief of COSMOS. "I think it's a progression that's overdue. And science fiction – which often concerns itself with the future – is the appropriate genre to lead the charge.
"Damien is a talented and thoughtful writer who is internationally respected in the genre, and I think it's fitting that a popular science magazine like COSMOS be the first in this area," he added. "When I discovered he was near completing Post Mortal Syndrome, I was keen for us to be the first to serialise it online."
Broderick, the winner of the 2006 Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for his most recent book, K-Machines, is also the winner of four Ditmar Awards for Australian science fiction writing and the Distinguished Scholarship Award from the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. He penned Post Mortal Syndrome with his wife, Barbara Lamar, a Texas lawyer and mathematics major who is also a science fiction enthusiast.
COSMOS is a print magazine of ideas, science, society and the future. Founded by Melbourne neuroscientist and entrepreneur Dr Alan Finkel, it is the winner of 14 Australian and international awards, including Magazine of the Year and Editor of the Year at Australia's Bell Magazine Awards 2006.
Its digital counterpart – Cosmos Online – publishes daily news, features and opinion. The print magazine also publishes an original fiction story every issue and Broderick, credited with inventing the term "virtual reality", has served as the magazine's Fiction Editor since its launch in 2005.
The novel will be published over 56 consecutive weekdays in chapters of around 2,000 words each.
Can science find a way to defeat death? Will it offer us the gift of potentially endless, healthy life - and if so, at what cost? Will people spared the curse of ageing, and even of mortality itself, become inhuman - or more human than ever? And who or what will control this perilous boon: government, corporations, organised crime, or individuals?
Read Post Mortal Syndrome: an exciting blend of thriller and science fiction, with a poignant love story at its heart.