The Original Matrix
Long before The Matrix, long before scientists began to believe that the universe is a giant two-dimensional hologram, there was Simulacron-3: a science-fiction, suspense thriller about a computer scientist who has created a simulated world, only to discover that he is a simulation in some higher power’s computer simulation.
I read this book when it first came out (in paperback, of course) in the summer of 1964 when I had a summer job delivering prescriptions for Beemon’s Drug Store in Jackson Mississippi.
I was total techno-geek then, building “weird science” inventions in my garage that won prizes in international science fair competitions … and occasionally blew out the power grid near my house. Or blanked out TV channel 3. Or filled the house with poison gas.
Anyway, I read a lot of science fiction then, something that fed my desire to build weirder and stranger contraptions. I was 15 years old when I read author Daniel F. Galouye’s Simulacron-3 and it made a connection. There I was, a confirmed Southern Presbyterian and suddenly I began to think … “what if God was a computer?”
That thought led me to a questioning of my orthodox faith and into a lifetime quest for spiritual meaning that I’ve worked into several of my novels, most notably Daughter of God.
I drifted away from science fiction, but Simulacron-3 never left me. Of course, I loved The Matrix, but never realized that Simulacron-3 had been made into its own movie — The Thirteenth Floor — about the same time.
