You will find several themes in Emergence and the Janus Unfolding series each with its own source of inspiration.
Foremost is the mysterious Jim Post in Emergence. The mystery and the and the beginning of the book came to me in a 
dream. A wealthy and mysterious man had built a grand home in Southwest Washington State in our near future. The locals knew nothing about him.
The home was on fire, and burning so hot that the fire department couldn’t put it out. When the fire finally burnt itself out, there was little left of the house, and the fire crew found a body inside.
When I woke the next day, I started to write about the man and the mysteries surrounding him, including about whether it was his body they found.
The book and series developed around additional themes. Evolution is a prime one. What would you do if evolution took a turn to develop a better model of human and you found that you were one of them? What would you do if you found you weren’t?
When we think about evolution, it is usually about what has happened in the past. What will happen in the future? Technology and Social Media are making changes in our lives, but what about the basic human. There were a number of different hominids in our past, and our model emerged to be the dominant one (with traces of the others in our DNA).
Is that it? Does evolution stop with us as we are? Why not a new and better model?
The new humans might have readily identifiable improvements: a little stronger and maybe faster, physically. Perhaps they could reason better and faster as well. What more would they have, and where would these other abilities take the human race. 
I’ve taken the liberty to stretch the concepts I found a number of books. Three that stand out are: The Phenomenon of Man, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Entangled Minds, by Dean Radin, and Mindfulness in Plain English, by Henepola Gunaratana. Also I found the ‘k-space’ notion in James P. Hogan’s The Genesis Machine helpful.
Of course, when thinking about an evolutionary change, one wonders what triggered the change. The characters in Emergence and the other books of the series Factotum and Inheritance are curious about that, too.
I must warn you in advance, that my books create a hopeful scenario for our common future.
Friendly Thoughts
