Body Harvest (13 page)

The crimes in all of
The Outer Reaches
books are inspired by genuine scientific issues and events. Here are a few details of the science that lies behind
Body Harvest.

The presence on Earth of two human species is not fantasy. Tens of thousands of years ago,
Homo sapiens,
Neanderthals and Denisovans were all alive. There was even a bit of interbreeding going on.
Neanderthals and Denisovans became extinct and
Homo sapiens
(that’s us) continued. In
The Outer Reaches
, I imagine that one of the other humanoid races did not die out and evolved into outers.
Homo sapiens
became majors.

While I have imagined a second human race called outers, I have not made up their diet. All of their meals are genuine bug-based food from around the world. Eating insects and arachnids is called entomophagy. It is much better for the Earth’s resources to eat insects instead of meat. It takes 10 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef but only 1.7 kg of feed to make 1 kg of edible crickets. Weight-for-weight, insect farming releases only 1 per cent of the greenhouse gases emitted by raising sheep and cows and it uses far less water.

There is an illegal trade in body parts. It is driven by a shortage of organs donated on death. Gangs harvest organs from vulnerable and desperate people, and sometimes from executed prisoners and murder
victims. In 2012, the World Health Organisation estimated that 10,000 black-market operations involving bought human organs happen every year, earning fortunes for the traffickers and surgeons.

Malcolm Rose is an established,
award-winning
author, noted for his gripping crime/thriller stories – all with a solid scientific basis.

Before becoming a full-time writer, Malcolm was a university lecturer and researcher in chemistry.

He says that chemistry and writing are not so different.
‘In one life, I mix chemicals, stew them for a while and observe the reaction. In the other, I mix characters, stir in a bit of conflict and, again, observe the outcome.’