Officially Released on April 23rd at the authors presentation at the ACM Online Conference
(but you can get it already in outlets such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com… Kindle/Nook editions coming soon).
ISBN: 9781936830480
Life is precious. Life is fragile. It’s the one thing we, as humans, hold tighter to than fame or fortune. It’s the one thing we all have in common. But what if one group of people had the power to decide who could live and who would die? What if one group decided which lives were worthy and which ones were unworthy of life?
History gives an answer; in 1920 Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding, two German professors, published a book called Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwertem Lebens… or Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life. The book crystallized and furthered prevailing thought about what to do about the ‘unfit.’ The world knows all about the tragedy that unfolded. The world does not know that similar arguments are being made today.
In this fictional account, author Derek Elkins gives us a glimpse into the unfolding of that tragedy.
Viktor Gottslieb was a doctor, fresh from medical college and assigned to one of Hitler’s pet projects: the T4 Program. Through the Program, which Adolph Hitler originated to eliminate the physical and mentally handicapped adults and children from the German population, Viktor initially finds a release, a prescription to alleviate the problem of patient’s suffering and lives that are less than full. He is firmly rooted in the ideal that life that is not as full as his own, or at the least, life that he does not judge as fully as his own, is not worthy to be lived.
Through a relationship with one of the patients and conversations with his brother and a nurse, Viktor finds his concepts of right and wrong in regards to the quality and legitimacy of life challenged and tossed on their collective head. His journey will take him to the boundaries of what he foundationally believes and make him question the presuppositions that constitute his very being.
Derek Elkins is the winner of the 