See below for more content related to After Man’s back story.

Less than 6 hours to go.  Then the production starts for After Man.  We cleared 300 readers yesterday and are now approaching 350 copies sold.  That may not seem like a lot, especially compared to Rise’s 609 readers during the contest and 780 copies sold to date, but 350 copies is still a large number of books.  More copies means more people reading and more people talking about it and more people hearing about it.  That’s the key to a book taking off.  So thanks to you for helping make that happen.  Also, I’d like to say a big thanks to Jim Chatfield for his being the 300th reader to hop on board After Man’s support train and then later bringing his wife on board!  It’s things like this, people like you choosing to not only preorder but to go and find someone else to jump on board, that make an author smile a lot inside.

Now for what’s next for After Man.  First up will be my finishing the rewrite of the manuscript.  After that, the same editing and production process as before with Rise begins.  It will be several months before this book is ready.  Rise took almost a full year to get out to people (Nerdist Contest ended 30 Sept 2015, release date is 13 Sept 2016).  After Man is going to be shorter than Rise or Fall (which I’ve completed btw.  Keep an eye out for that one), but I still expect it to be in production until at least Jan 2017.  And remember, this time I’ll be going to San Francisco to sign all of these before they are shipped for sure.  That’s part of what you helped make happen by preordering.  I likely won’t be able to do the same for Rise, but everyone who preorders After Man will get one of those signed copies.

As always, some content for you, this time in the form of a news headline from long in the past.  Enjoy!

Martin Hoffman, Nobel Prize-Winning Geneticist and Last Man On Earth, Is Dead at 76

by Alexandra St. Fleur May 4, 2121

Martin Hoffman, who shared the 2100 Nobel Prize in Genetics for discovering a new more stable method for artificial insemination of the female egg using artificially create sperm using female genetic contributions, died on Sunday in East Sussex, England. He was 76.

The cause was complications of chorioepithelioma resulting from his exposure to the same viral agent released at the end of World War III in 2095 that led to what is now called the Great Death, the death of all Y-chromosome carrying males.

As a geneticist, Dr. Hoffman played a key role in the advancement of an early 21st century process wherein skin cells from adult females could be harvested and used to artificially inseminate an egg, thus creating an embryo. His Nobel Prize-winning discovery, which he shared with Dr. Rebecca Smalley and Dr. Roberta Curl of Rice University in Houston, was the demonstration of specification of hPGC-like cells (hPGCLCs) from germline competent pluripotent stem cells. 

Dr. Hoffman, a life long lover of art and service to community, always gave credit to his partners for the lionshare of the work put in to finish the revolution of this new process, a key step in preserving humanity in the wake of the Great Death.

"He always gave us the credit, and never wanted any accolades," said Dr. Smalley, formerly a genetics professor at Houston university, where Dr. Hoffmann worked for nearly two decades after the war before returning to England in the fall of 2115 because of failing health.

"Unlike most discoveries in genetics, this was immediately impactful," said Gina Forrino, a science writer who worked with Dr. Hoffman at the Science Museum of London for a brief stint in 2116 before he officially left public life and returned home to East Sussex.  "Everyone in the world felt this.  I mean, the work of those three saved humanity."

Dr. Hoffmann studied genetics at the University of Sheffield, earning his undergraduate degree in 2067, and completed his Ph.D there in 2070 with a focus on Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics.  As a student, he divided his time between conducting experiments, playing tennis and amateur painting.

Dr. Hoffman completed postdoctoral work in the United States and Canada in 2073 and returned to England to work as a teacher at the University of Sussex.

He began working with Dr. Smalley and Dr. Curl at Rice in the fall of 2091, two years after World War III erupted in central Asia.  In addition to his wife of 53 years, Mary, he is survived by two daughters, Stephany and Diana.