Allen Wyler's Backstory

    It’s strange how a story is conceived and takes form. As a neurosurgeon, I often encounter situations with the potential to become an interesting plot kernel. Or so I think. Usually I mull over the idea for a couple hours only to find the great idea has huge flaws that cannot be overcome or it leads nowhere and reject it. Not so with Dead Head. I was in New York, returning to the Flatiron building after a delightful lunch with my editor when she offered, “Have you considered writing a story about keeping a severed head alive? If anyone could write that one, it’d be you.”

    Strange concept, I thought. But, one that had the potential to be a “high concept.” I flashed on The Tomorrow File, a 1973 novel by Lawrence Sanders – his only attempt that I know of at science fiction – before his very successful Deadly Sin series. I discovered the book had been reissued and was available on Amazon. Rereading it thirty-two year later, I was shocked at how off the mark some of his predicted technology had become even though it seemed bang on at the time. One of the issues he never addressed scientifically was how the detached head – devoid of lungs to drive the vocal cords – could communicate.

    Then I remembered a couple scientific publications by a neurosurgeon in Cleveland in which he attempted to transplant animal heads with the ultimate goal of using this as a treatment for patients with high quadriplegia (never mind where he might obtain the donor bodies).

    As I dug further, I discovered that in 1987 the United States awarded patent number 4,666,425 to inventor Chet Flemming, for a device “which provides a physical and biochemical support for an animal’s head which has been “discorporated” (i.e., severed from its body).” I downloaded the patent off the internet. It made for some interesting reading.

    Thus, these gruesome facts became the kernel for Dead Head – the idea of keeping a severed human head alive for the information in its brain is the concept behind Dead Head.

Please visit Allen Wyler's website at www.allenwyler.com

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