12-Year-Old's Science Fiction Book Comes True—Almost

When Sabina Anand started writing her science fiction book, Forbidden Earth, she never dreamed that the subject of the book—biological computers—could become a reality in her lifetime, yet scientists at The Scripps Research Institute in California and the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have done just that.

“A week or so after my book came out there was an article that said there were biological computers. It’s almost like my book came true,” Sabina, 12, says.

“We thought maybe it would be about 1,000 years out” before the technology would be developed for biological computers, says Shubhasheesh Anand, Sabina’s father.

Sabina, the futurist book’s author is a student at Cupertino Middle School who thought she was writing about something that would be impossible for at least a few hundred years from now. But her father came across an article on ExtremeTech.com that talked about the researchers’ work in decoding and storing DNA.

But don’t expect Sabina to jump into the research fray, she’s a student of the arts and it is her love of writing that drove her to craft Forbidden Earth.

Like many good ideas the concept of Forbidden Earth generated in a brainstorming session, Sabina says.

“We were talking about what would make a good movie,” she says of a conversation she had with her dad and a friend.

Inspired by the increase of technology around us, she wanted to combine things she loved—reading, action and drama—in the project.

Forbidden Earth takes place in the year 3060 A.D. and takes Macey “a chirpy teenager” on an adventure on Earth. Humans hadn’t lived on Earth for centuries because they were driven away by those biological computers—BCs for short, of course.

Between school and just being a kid, it took her a little over a year to write the book, which is available for purchase on Amazon for as little as $3.03 for the Kindle version, or $13.99 in print—remember, she’s local so just may oblige those who want it autographed.

It’s also available on AuthorHouse, the publishing house of the book.

Her interest in science most likely comes from her father, Shubhasheesh says, but the fiction writer in her is all her own creativity.

When she’s not writing books Sabina enjoys all the language arts classes at school, plus anything musical. She sings and plays piano, and has a weakness for show tunes—Wicked is among her favorite productions, she says.

Are you Patched in? Get the FREE Patch newsletter each morning, register here.

For more news about Cupertino, "Like" us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.