Dystopia and futurism are my thing, and I look to explore many different concepts in my work - social mobility and the class system, the relative nature of morality and the idea of good versus evil, the neutral alignment of the universe, and human nature.
'If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.' - Nietzsche
Light Speed Brave Heart Isolated System Angel Rose Prequel: LiliaI am currently working on a series of four novels plus a prequel. It follows the story of Lilia Parell, nine hundred years in the future, and her descent from one of the wealthy few to a life of poverty, crime, and ultimately rebellion against her unequal, unfair, unfree society. I drew heavy inspiration from the British class system, but pushed it to the very extremes. It's a meat-grinder world driven by pointless cycles of brutal revenge, and street-kids and gangs and corruption abound. You refuse to play the game, you end up as someone else's pawn. It's survival of the fittest, the nastiest and the richest - and everyone has their own agenda, especially the tyrannical Premier. Her cult of personality infiltrates every aspect of the city, with even the slightest criticism of her decrees treated as high treason. Lilia will come to learn that actions, no matter how small, always have consequences - and that people rarely get the endings they deserve. This project has been developed over five years, from when I was fourteen and had the first version of the idea.
It's been refined, reiterated and developed into its current form, and the final plans are all complete. At the most basic level, it's putting a cast of very different characters with different circumstances and polar motivations through the machine of a society the Light Age is, and seeing if they make it to the end. Plot note: a majority won't, and barely any survive unscathed. It's not all misery, I promise! It's just hard to stay 'human' in a world like that. I hope to start writing it properly soon; just as soon as I gain the confidence to begin.
'A lie told often enough becomes the truth.' - Lenin
Click on each book cover to be taken to the amazon page. Stories 8-12 will be published soon.
This was my gap-year project, a collection of interlocking short stories exploring a range of different concepts - including artificial intelligence, human experimentation, surveillance, false imprisonment, morality, suicide, and what emotions really are. It was a practice run, if you will, of various things for the Light Age, and an attempt to improve my writing. I see it as a very, very dark fairy-tale - the worrying thing is that parts of it are true.
It includes:
Opposite Day, where a young politician makes a deal to save his city. Souls of Machines, where a psychologist befriends the most remarkable soldier. Another Bite of the Apple, where a writer in the employ of the Ministry of Media comes to learn that the Government is not quite as kind as he preaches. Quantum Entanglement, where a neuroscientist has to make an impossible choice between right and wrong. We've Lost Our Moral Compass, where an orphan girl with no hope for the future turns to a life of crime. Spidermusings, where the city's real Premier finally gets his own word in on matters. Death of the Hour, where an old computer hacker - and one of the Government's most wanted - reflects on the penance she chose for herself. Original Sin, where two convicted defectors, guilty by law but not both by action, plot to break out of the Government's prison. Viral Heart, where the Government's final plan for the city is revealed. It's fought
against by a human who became a robot - and a robot who became a human. Against the Machine, the true story of the city's most notorious terror-maker. The Government is Kind, where that story comes to an end. Shadows on a Wall, where everything finally melds together.