A professor of computer science at a northern North Dakota university, Will Francis specializes in the study of Artificial Life (AL which he sometimes refers to Actual Life). As he and his graduate-student laboratory work on various approaches to the creation of new life using computers he and they (mostly him) discover a highly dynamic field of those wishing to take advantage of his successes for illegitimate purposes and those wishing to put him out of business for religious and philosophical reasons. As he gains more widespread notoriety reactions become more dangerous and deadly chasing him to Canada, New York City, and the North Atlantic and from traditional computers to analog and quantum varieties. As time progresses we learn how life may have been created on Earth as well as many alternate versions of the genesis of life via mathematics, accidents, biochemistry, and biodiversity. It's a grand journey with a remarkable ending that will surprise even those most hardened of readers who think they have it nailed before getting there. Welcome to a humankind bent on suiciding its own existence for reasons no one seems able to explain.