Arthur Godschalk, an undergraduate student, innocent in the ways of the world and of women, finds part-time work at a lab that has contracted with the government to do experimental development of an army of killer chimpanzees. Becoming intimately involved with the family that owns the lab, as well as with several other women who work there, Arthur finds himself in a precarious position when he wakes up after an accident to find his fate is totally in the hands of the person who hates him most in the world, his mother-in-law.
Leading his new chimp army from California to Africa, Arthur struggles to survive his new situation as he discovers secrets about himself, as well as the search for meaning that has driven all hominids for a million years--the quest of Life itself.
J E Murphy, author, poet, philosopher, credologist, student of natural history, anthropology, sociology, genetics, and politics. Novels include A VIEW FROM A HEIGHT, THE GOD VIRUS, and THE NEXT BUDDHA.
A credologist is a person who studies belief systems. I cannot say I have studied all belief systems, because I am sure there are some I have never heard of, but I have studied most of them. What I can say I have learned from this is that the world is a mystery and nobody knows enough about it to even head off in the direction of an answer. Yet still we demand that everyone else stop and look at our own broken compass.
I have been around the world. I have been to Tibet, China, Nepal, India, half of the countries in Europe, a few in Africa, the Solomon Islands, the Galapagos Islands and parts of South and Central America. What I have learned from these travels is that, at heart, we are all the same; we are all cousins; we all want the same things out of life. As children, our souls are as free as angels, but we grow into the molds that our cultures have shaped for us.
I have always enjoyed most the books that expanded my horizons and showed me new ways to look at the world, a way to discard a broken compass, a way to break the mold of culture and belief. I hope that someday, people will say my books did that for them.