Lucky me! My novel, “Jellyfish Have Eyes,” was well reviewed by Joel Shurkin (thank you!) in the National Academy of Sciences website and its journal, Proceedings of the National Academy – a rare case of a first novel not lost in the vast wasteland out there.

But what I think is important is that he got it right: fiction can be a powerful advocate for science.

Any why is that? For starters, there’s a strong narrative component of science.

And what is that? It’s the story that fills the cracks between the data points, which are what we take as the facts. If it were all the absolute truth – unchangeable – then why would the story – the narrative – change so often with new data?

There’s much to say about science and narrative and speculation, and it’s all interesting and worth discussing. And no, it does not make evolution controversial, and it’s not questioning the validity and importance of science.

It’s how science works, and beautifully at that!