Henry Gee, senior editor at Nature, adds another string to his bow this week in the form of a serial novel, which he is publishing in installments on the LabLit website. From LabLit: “We are pleased to begin the weekly serialization of an original novel by Henry Gee, By The Sea. Set in present-day Norfolk, Gee blends science, murder, sex and Victorian secrets into a dark, gothic thriller.” Here is an excerpt:

Oh God…Morrison. His ideas for rolling out new, re-synthetic natural products. His contacts at MagusPharm that led to her fellowship, buying her. Resource acquisition. Drug discovery. Secrets of the Sea. And none more Secret than at the LPI. And she, fresh from a PhD and a career for the making. Or the taking. How had she let herself come to this? There is nothing for it. She has made her bed, she muses, turning to straighten the duvet, and so she must lie in it. Do the work, fulfil the contract, get out, move on. She puts on her slippers and pads into the horrid, white-chipped, never-quite-cleanable bathroom.

Henry is known to Nature readers and authors as the journal’s palaeontology editor, Futures commissioning editor, and Nature Network blogger, to name but three of his current activities.

Lablit.com, “the culture of science in fiction and fact” , is worth checking out for an energetic and imaginitve universe of articles, forums and debates on all aspects of fact and fiction in science culture.