The Moral Virologist

"The Moral Virologist" is a science fiction short story by Greg Egan. It was first published in September 1990 in Pulphouse Magazine, and subsequently republished in 1991's The Best of Pulphouse, in the Summer 1993 issue of Eidolon magazine, and in Egan's 1995 collection Axiomatic.[1] An Italian-language version, "Il Virologo Morale", was published in 2003.[1]

"The Moral Virologist"
Short story by Greg Egan
Genre(s)Science fiction
Publication
PublisherPulphouse Magazine
Publication date1990

Synopsis

John Shawcross is a fundamentalist Christian who is disappointed that safe sex has limited the spread of HIV/AIDS, which he considers to be God's punishment for sexual immorality. Consequently, he becomes a virologist, so that he may create a new and more lethal virus. His new virus evolves in four steps by encoding the RNA of the person infected into its own, thereby rendering universal vaccination impossible. The host is killed, if their virus detects a new sexual partner or one of the same sex. Only homosexual incest between identical twins stays unpunished. John Shawcross spreads the virus and returns home, where he tries to save a prosititute by telling her the truth. She asks him what happens to babys being wrongly detected by the virus. John Shawcross first laughs because having considered this, but then realizes that breastfeeding one month after birth is still a loophole. Catched by a wave of faith, he leaves to convert the sinning mothers.

Reception

Rich Horton, writing at the SF Site, calls "Virologist" "particularly memorable",[2] while Jonathan Strahan describes it as a "standout".[3]

Karen Burnham, writing in the New York Review of Science Fiction, however, considers Shawcross to be "cartoonish",[4] and in her 2014 biography of Egan says that it is a "heavy-handed critique" and "obviously contrived", with "the author's thumb on the scales."[5]

Origin

Egan has described the story as "a fairly direct response to religious fundamentalists blathering on about AIDS being God's instrument".[6]

References
  1. The Moral Virologist at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, retrieved May 4 2016
  2. The Original Anthology Series in Science Fiction, by Rich Horton, at the SF Site; published 1999; retrieved May 4 2016
  3. Greg Egan’s Axiomatic, by Jonathan Strahan, at JonathanStrahan.com.au; published April 10, 2015; retrieved May 4, 2016
  4. Free Will in a Closed Universe: Greg Egan’s Orthogonal Trilogy, by Karen Burnham, in the New York Review of Science Fiction; published April 13, 2014; retrieved May 4, 2016
  5. Greg Egan , by Karen Burnham, published April 2014 by University of Illinois Press (via Google Books)
  6. An Interview With Greg Egan: Burning the Motherhood Statements, originally published in Eidolon #11, January 1993; via archive.org
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