Honestly, I do.

If it wasn’t for one stupid little meme I saw on the internet, there’s a very good chance The Genesis Saga wouldn’t exist.

And before you ask…

No, I wasn’t sitting at home surrounded by ancient books, wearing a robe and trying to work out the secrets of the universe.
I saw a meme.

That’s it.

A bloody meme.

It suggested that Adam and Eve could have been Martian.

Now, I’m not going to pretend that my immediate reaction was:
“Good heavens! This is clearly the beginning of a six-book literary masterpiece.”

It wasn’t.

It was more along the lines of:
“Hang on… could they?”

And unfortunately for me, once that thought got into my head, it wouldn’t leave.

So I did what any perfectly normal person would do.

I started reading Genesis.

And that’s where the trouble really started.
The more I read, the more questions I started asking.

Not necessarily questions about whether the Bible was right or wrong.

I wasn’t trying to rewrite the Bible.

I wasn’t trying to tell anyone what they should believe.

I was simply wondering…

What if there was another story hiding underneath the one we already knew?

What if there was another explanation?
What if the things we think we understand about the beginning of humanity were only part of the story?

And then came the dangerous little phrase that has probably caused me more work than it was ever worth:
What if?

Two words.

That’s all.

Two completely innocent little words.
And somehow they turned into six books.
I probably should have stopped there.
I didn’t.

Instead, the idea started growing.
Mars became important.
Earth became important.
Science became involved.
Then mythology.
Then ancient history.
Then gods.
Then demons.
Then families.
Then secrets.

Then people started doing things that made me think:
“Well, that’s going to cause problems later.”

And of course, it did.

By this point I realised I wasn’t writing a little story based on an internet meme anymore.

I’d created a bloody saga.

So what is The Genesis Saga actually about?

That’s difficult to answer without giving half the story away.

And I’m not going to do that.

I hate adverts that tell you practically the entire film before you’ve watched it.

So here’s the short version.
The story begins on Mars, where a scientist named Master Token becomes involved in events that eventually connect his world with something far more mysterious and ancient than he could have imagined.

And that’s where the story really begins.

From there, the saga stretches across generations and worlds, bringing together science, ancient history, mythology, creation, family, power and secrets.

There are things that look familiar.
There are stories you may recognise.
There are names you may already know.
But perhaps not quite in the way you expect.

I wanted the reader to discover the story
That was important to me.

I didn’t want to simply take Genesis and rewrite it.

I wanted to take the questions that started this whole thing and see where they could lead.

The story also developed in ways I hadn’t originally planned.

Characters changed.
Ideas grew.

Things that seemed insignificant became important later.
And sometimes I had absolutely no idea where something was going until I got there.

Which, as an author, is either very exciting…
or extremely worrying.
I’m still not entirely sure which.

And that’s why I called it The Genesis Saga.
Because it isn’t just one story.

It’s a journey.
It starts with a question about where Adam and Eve might have come from.
Then that question opens another door.
And another.
And another.

Until eventually you’re asking completely different questions about humanity, history, mythology and the stories we’ve passed down for thousands of years.
But I’m not going to tell you the answers.
You’ll have to read it.

Sorry.

That’s the annoying thing about writing a book.

Eventually you have to let the reader do some of the work.

Six books. One very strange idea.

The complete omnibus contains:
The Beginning
Genesis
Lilith
The Dreamer
Egypt
The Forgetting

Six books that all grew from one completely unexpected starting point.

A meme.
That’s right.
Someone made a meme.
I read it.
And apparently I couldn’t just scroll past it like a normal person.

So here we are.

The Genesis Saga.
It started with one ridiculous question.
It became a story about Mars, Earth, humanity, creation, mythology and the origins of the stories we think we know.
And underneath it all is the question that started everything:
What if?

Because sometimes…
all it takes is one stupid idea.

And sometimes that stupid idea turns into six books.
The Genesis Saga — by Andrew Elson
It started with a meme.
The rest is history.
Or…
at least, my version of it. 😄