Peter McChesney is the author of the new novel Quinto's Challenge.
Q: What inspired you to write Quinto’s Challenge?
A: A combination of curiosity and unexpected life experience.
On the curiosity side, I’ve always been fascinated by questions like: What exactly is consciousness, and could it ever be artificially created? Are fears of AI ending the world overblown, or entirely valid? What do advances in genetics mean for our future?
Is a Theory of Everything possible, and if so, what powers might it unlock? Will our political institutions evolve toward greater unity or collapse into fragmentation? Is death truly the end of our conscious selves, or could the basic afterlife ideas of religion actually be made possible through science?
That last question ties into unexpected life experience, and is perhaps the most powerful driver of Quinto’s Challenge, which explores the scientific pursuit of resurrection.
In my teens growing up in Australia, I converted to Mormonism and felt fortunate to be part of a deeply positive, close-knit community. Though I never expected to move on from Church participation and belief, life eventually led me there.
While some who experience a major shift in worldview and leave a religion like Mormonism carry bitterness, I never did. It can all depend on the particular experiences we’ve had. While conversations about why I stepped away weren’t always easy with practicing members, I continue to hold the Church and its members in high regard.
That said, moving from believing in an actual afterlife, where resurrection through Christ is real, where we’d be reunited with family and friends in heavenly kingdoms, leaves something of an existential hole, at least for a while.
But one idea stayed with me: in Mormonism, there’s no real divide between miracles and science. Everything can be explained scientifically, even if so much of it is currently beyond our grasp. That perspective stayed with me, and became the seed from which the core idea of the book was born.
Q: How did you create the future United States in which the novel takes place?
A: My educational background in political science, especially U.S. politics and history, informed how I created the future United States depicted in the novel. I focused on extrapolating three major threads in a way that, to me, feels grounded and plausible.
The first is technological. To quote from a political speech in the book, set in the 2060s: “We’ve reached 100% energy sustainability and built a net-zero emissions economy. Atmospheric cleansing technologies helped us avert the climate crisis. Economically viable fusion power has been achieved and is now in early implementation. Once-extinct animals again walk the Earth … and we’ve developed advanced means of communication with animals in general.
“We edit the genomes of our unborn to eliminate disease before it begins. We are the generation that began curing cancer. We’ve developed techniques to revive the brain-dead and extend human life beyond any age previously experienced. And this medical revolution continues to accelerate—curing diseases that, just decades ago, were fatal.” (Quinto’s Challenge, Chapter 2, page 25)
That sets the stage for life in the 2060s, but most of the book takes place in the 2090s, where life has advanced even further.
Quantum computing has long since gone mainstream. Therapeutic cloning, where lost body parts are regrown from one’s own DNA, is the norm. The equivalent of today’s smartphones are now augmented-reality contact lenses that wirelessly pair with the user’s mind, making tablets, laptops, and desktops redundant.
And Artificial General Intelligence has a successor: Manufactured Sentience, the dawn of truly conscious, thinking, and feeling androids.
This is life in the United States, and around the world. But it isn’t all sunshine and digitally augmented rainbows. The rapidly advancing technological landscape has caused significant societal disruption, with many arguing that the digital modern world is fundamentally at odds with human nature and that its side effects are showing up in various social ills.
This leads into the second extrapolated thread: the political, both domestic and geopolitical. For better or worse, and at the risk of oversimplifying, the U.S. has almost always been a two-party system.
Even during Washington’s two terms, before formal political parties formed, there were essentially two ideological camps: those who supported Washington’s administration, and those who opposed it.
This quickly evolved into the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans respectively, known as the First Party System. Later came the Democrats versus the Whigs, then variations of the Republicans versus the Democrats, and finally the present-day Sixth or Seventh Party System, depending on who you speak to.
The point is that, despite radically different times, America has consistently operated with two dominant parties despite the existence of other political parties and factions.
In my novel, the two-party system continues, but it’s the Democratic-Republicans (named after the original party and formed as a merger of today’s Democrats and Republicans) versus the American Freedom Party. Again, the nation is polarized, but this time one of the main issues dividing voters is whether or not to introduce Manufactured Sentience into society.
Geopolitically, the novel imagines a world where China has become the sole global superpower. While some debate today whether China will truly surpass the U.S. in economic or military power, others argue that it will. That trajectory is extrapolated in the novel to show China dominating the latter 21st century.
Still, the United States remains a great power, one of three global giants, along with China and the United States of Europe (another informed extrapolation). But America’s hegemony was lost in the mid-21st century to an ascendant China led by a dynamic new figure.
The third thread is economic. In the future United States of the novel, a new social class has emerged: the “supported class.” This group receives a form of universal basic income, the first time a class of people has had all basic needs met, and more, even if they choose not to work.
As automation continues to displace human jobs and advanced AI systems can rapidly construct housing without human help (drastically increasing housing supply), the formation of a supported class becomes not only feasible but inevitable.
A senator who introduced the legislation that created this class ends up becoming president during the novel’s main narrative. The Democratic-Republicans support the existence of the supported class, while the American Freedom Party argues that its excesses rob people of dignity and kill incentive.
While this may sound like a lot, I went to great lengths to weave these elements into the story naturally, in ways that serve the narrative.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: The broad strokes were always there, but the ending definitely evolved as the writing progressed and certain ideas crystallized and found their proper hierarchy of importance. Perhaps the biggest change was that the original ending doesn’t appear in this novel at all.
I eventually realized that my early drafts were simply too large for a single book by a debut author. Fortunately, there was a natural and satisfying point midway through the original manuscript to end the first book. The rest now forms the draft for book two.
One element that was added late in the writing process was the epilogue, designed to introduce a bit more tension after the resolution of book one and to generate interest in the next installment.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: I hope readers come away with a mix of wonder, reflection, and awareness, though what they take from the story may vary depending on age and perspective.
A few core themes I hope will resonate include:
The power of collective scientific pursuit. When humanity unites behind science, done properly and free from political interference, remarkable breakthroughs are possible. In the world of Quinto’s Challenge, that includes nothing less than the conquest of death itself.
A spark of hope. For those who don’t believe in traditional religious afterlife doctrines, the story offers a scientific pathway to consider the possibility that death might not be the end.
Greater appreciation for neurodiversity. Many of the revolutionary insights and inventions throughout history have come from people who were wired to see the world differently. I hope readers come away with a deeper respect for those whose minds work in unique ways.
The dual nature of power. Any new discovery, no matter how noble its origins, can be used for harm as well as good. This demands that our most powerful tools be safeguarded by the wise, and especially the restrained.
A more discerning view of politics. Just because a politician echoes our beliefs or appeals to our instincts doesn’t mean they deserve our trust. I hope readers reflect on the difference between someone who seeks power for their own ends and someone who can be trusted with it for the public good.
Q: This is the first in a series--can you tell us what’s next?
A: This first entry in the Dawn of Immortality series introduces questions that future books will explore in greater depth, especially the implications of a world where science can bring back the dead.
If resurrection becomes possible, then who decides who gets to come back? What form of consent would be needed to resurrect someone? Our current laws and economics are built on the assumption that life is finite, and then you’re gone. What happens to that structure when people can return? What rights should the resurrected possess?
And then there’s the more emotional side of things. Many often imagine a blissful afterlife where we reunite with loved ones in harmony. But if our resurrected selves still carry the same human nature, would those reunions remain idealized? Or would familiar dynamics of conflict, jealousy, even the saying “familiarity breeds contempt,” gradually re-emerge and complicate what was once seen as a perfect ending?
In addition, the surveillance technology that is a component of resurrection will play a larger role. Its intelligence implications could reshape geopolitics and personal freedoms alike, as the scope of events broadens beyond the resurrection theme alone.
I’ve outlined the full plot of the series, and several future entries are already in the works, at least in note form. Each one builds on the philosophical and political questions introduced in Quinto’s Challenge, while continuing the personal journeys of key characters.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I poured a lot of heart and thought into this novel, and I hope it gives readers something meaningful to reflect on, about science, belief, memory, and what it means to be human.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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