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The inventive and provocative stories in this book set out boldly to explore the possibilities of this fundamental revolution in human affairs. They deal with new moral problems which men and women have never had to face before, and with projects which could dramatically transform the most fundamental aspects of human existence: birth, sex and death.

The timespan of the stories extends from the last years of the present century to a world three thousand years hence, and they take in a spectrum of possibilities which ranges from the Apocalyptic to the Utopian. The stories are all humorous, but their dark sarcasm does not detract from the essential seriousness of their underlying purpose; the satirical tone serves to bring the important questions which they address into sharper focus.

The most crucial of all the questions which today's scientists and statesmen must address is: what kind of future ought we to try to make for our children and our children's children? These sardonic tales offer no propaganda in favour of a specific answer, but they do take for granted that a wilfully blind determination to refuse the opportunities inherent in the new technology is both stupid and wicked. The food for thought which they offer is of vital concern to everyone who faces the prospect of living in the twenty-first century.

CONTENTS:
Bedside Conversations
A Career in Sexual Chemistry
Cinderella's Sisters
The Magic Bullet
The Invertebrate Man
The Furniture of Life's Ambition
The Fury That Hell Withheld
The Engineer and the Executioner
The Growth of the House of Usher
And He Not Busy Being Born…

Note: As well as ten stories and an introduction, this collection also features the essay Mankind in the Third Millennium, which originally appeared in Japanese in Japan Research & Techology 249 (1988)

Published by Simon & Schuster Ltd in 1991
ISBN:0-671-71734-0

Pocket Books edition 1993
ISBN:0-671-71559-3
Cover illustration by Bruce Hogarth.

Review by Ian Braidwood

In these wry, provocative and darkly comic tales. Brian Stableford addresses the revolution in genetic engineering and explores its possible, dramatic consequences. From the present day to thousands of years hence, he offers a tantalizing glimpse into a new phase of human evolution, where new weapons can deal with our illusions, delusions and little games of pride and malice.

A potent brew of rejuvenation and jealousy, aphrodisiacs and immunity, murder and molecular mayhem, of immortality and its pitfalls, of paternity and its (unexpected) pains, these stories paint an eerily plausible picture as we hurtle towards the twenty-first century. Tingling and terrifying, sensual and sardonic, Sexual Chemistry shows that it's not just the earth that's moving when bright new technologies clash with the dark regions of human behaviour...

The Brian Stableford Website