Michael Gorton - Crossing Forbidden Frontiers

Michael Gorton is a 17-time serial entrepreneur, bestselling author, and pioneer in telemedicine and the internet industry. Best known as the founding CEO of Teladoc, he has launched companies across digital health, telecom, aerospace, energy, publishing, and education—helping create industries that generated over $1 trillion in market impact.He is the author of 12 books spanning business, fiction, history, and science fiction, including the award-winning Tachyon Tunnel series. Michael is also an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer, and a director of the Texas Business Hall of Fame. Today, he serves in fractional executive roles with high-growth companies in aerospace, biotech, and behavioral-health AI. He holds degrees in Engineering, Physics, and Law, and is an avid mountaineer who has completed the highest peaks in 43 U.S. states.What inspired you to write this series? Was there anything in particular that made you want to tackle this?I’m a scientist, engineer, entrepreneur, and lifelong science fiction fan. One thing that has always frustrated me about much of science fiction is how interstellar travel is often handled. Concepts like warping space or flying into black holes make for exciting stories, but they often conflict with what we understand about physics. Relativity suggests that approaching light speed requires enormous amounts of energy, and black holes are not exactly friendly places to visit. Tachyons fascinated me because they offered a framework to explore interstellar travel while staying grounded in real scientific thinking. My goal was to take challenging concepts and make them approachable, entertaining, and emotionally engaging. I wanted readers to experience big ideas through characters and stories they could connect with.Tachyon Tunnel 4 appears to push its characters into situations where time, causality, and survival collide. When writing the novel, were you more interested in the tunnel's scientific implications or in how human beings psychologically respond to forces they cannot fully comprehend?Both matter, but the human side ultimately matters more. Most people use technology every day without fully understanding how it works. We drive cars, use phones, and watch television without knowing the engineering underneath. In the same way, not every character in my books needs to fully understand tachyon tunneling to experience its consequences. My goal has always been to build science into the story in a way that feels understandable and approachable. The science creates the framework, but human relationships, difficult choices, and how people respond to extraordinary circumstances drive the story forward. In many ways, hard science itself becomes a character in the series.Science fiction often uses advanced technology as a mirror for human ambition or fear. What do you think the tunnel ultimately represents beneath its scientific function: progress, temptation, escape, or something more existential?For me, the tunnel represents exploration into the unknown. Technology itself is neither good nor evil. It amplifies human intent. In the series, some groups use advanced technology to dominate and control, while others use it to explore, discover, and push boundaries. The tachyon tunnel is simply a better way to travel through the galaxy, but it is only one scientific element within a much larger universe. The books are filled with science presented in a way that readers can understand without needing an advanced degree. I’ve always admired writers like Andy Weir because he delivers complex science in perfect cadence with story. That balance has been an important inspiration for my own writing.Isolation, whether physical, psychological, or temporal, seems deeply embedded in stories like this. How important was the feeling of disconnection in shaping both the atmosphere and the emotional stakes of the book?Isolation becomes critically important, particularly in the third book. Some characters become separated from the technologically advanced parts of civilization and are forced into a quieter, more grounded existence. That contrast creates emotional depth because it allows them to experience life differently. One of the fascinating concepts in this universe is life extension technology. When people can remain young for centuries or even thousands of years, ideas about relationships, purpose, and time itself begin to change. The isolation creates both vulnerability and opportunity. It opens the door to unexpected growth and entirely new philosophical questions.The title itself suggests continuity and escalation. By the fourth installment, how do you challenge returning readers without losing the emotional and thematic core that defines the series?One way to challenge readers is by continuing to ask larger questions. My goal in this series is to create something epic with ultimate questions. Technology that allows people to live for hundreds or thousands of years creates entirely new social and philosophical implications. In our lives today, many commitments are framed around an eighty-year lifespan. What happens when people live ten times longer? How do relationships change? How many careers can a person have? How does society evolve? As the scope expands, I work hard to preserve what readers connected with from the beginning: adventure, discovery, relationships, persistence, and science that feels grounded and understandable.Your world-building appears to operate on both cosmic and deeply personal levels. When writing Tachyon Tunnel 4, were you more fascinated by the scale of the universe or by the fragility of individual human decisions within it?Initially, I thought readers would connect most strongly with the science and scale. What surprised me was discovering how deeply readers connect with the human side. That part makes me happy. I enjoy writing the science and the human interactions. Reading reviews taught me that while people enjoy the technology and epic adventure, what often resonates most are the relationships, sacrifices, and personal struggles. The fifth book will explore human fragility even more deeply. As the universe grows larger, the choices individuals make become increasingly important.The novel seems to explore the cost of crossing boundaries that perhaps were never meant to be crossed. Do you think your characters fully understand the risks they’re taking, or is the story partly about humanity’s inability to resist forbidden frontiers?The characters gradually come to understand the consequences of their discoveries, particularly beginning in the second book. From personal experience as an engineer and entrepreneur, I can say curiosity drives innovation. Engineers naturally push boundaries because discovery requires stepping into uncertainty. There is always risk in exploring the unknown. That tension between curiosity and consequence becomes a recurring theme throughout the series.If Tachyon Tunnel 4 is ultimately read as more than a science fiction adventure, as a reflection on time, consequence, and human persistence, what do you believe the story is truly asking the reader to confront?This may be my favorite question.Over my life, I’ve come to realize that success is overwhelmingly tied to persistence. Life knocks all of us down. Challenges, failures, and setbacks are inevitable. What defines us is how we respond to adversity. If readers take away one message from the series, I hope it is this: persistence matters. With determination and resilience, people can accomplish extraordinary things.Besides writing, what other secret skills do you have?When I was young, my mother often told me not to be disruptive. As an entrepreneur, I learned that disruption can be one of the greatest forces for positive change. Over the past thirty years, I’ve had the opportunity to build companies that created entirely new industries and challenged conventional thinking. I genuinely enjoy finding difficult problems and building solutions that improve people’s lives. Creating meaningful disruption is one of the most rewarding experiences I know.What are you working on right now?I’m fortunate to be working on several exciting projects. I’m helping build Phantom Space alongside founders and early leaders from SpaceX as we work toward lowering barriers to space access. I’m also involved with technology company called Senseye focused on improving behavioral health diagnostics through objective measurement and AI. Another major focus is Plotsy, where we’re exploring what could become the next evolution of books. Storytelling moved from print to digital to audiobooks. We believe video books represent an important next step. Making the vBook available and affordable is going to disrupt the entertainment industry, give authors a new medium, and bring books to life. And of course, I’m continuing work on Tachyon Tunnel 5 and Tachyon Tunnel 6, both of which I expect to complete within the next year.