Playing god: the birth of a new world order

CRIME author Peter James says the concept of what makes us human will change dramatically in the next 100 years. “Bionics, memory, artificial intelligence, the length of the human life span … it’s all to play for,” he says.

James is the bestselling and prize-winning author of the Roy Grace novels, police procedurals set in Brighton on the south coast of England. His latest novel is a departure. Perfect People concerns itself with Naomi and John Klaesson, a couple who have lost their young son to disease. Grieving, but determined their next child will enjoy all the benefits of science, the Klaessons sign up to a genetic engineering clinic run by Dr Dettore, a man described by Time magazine as “the Dr Frankenstein of the 21st century”.