Imagining The Future #amwriting #scifi

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A few months back (August last year to be exact), Laurie talked about the difficulty of writing SciFi and keeping ahead of technology. We live in an era where science fiction from a few decades back has become or is becoming science fact. While faster than light travel is still theory and very early experimentation, and the first tentative steps have been taken in matter transmission and cloaking devices, a few years ago these were still very much fiction. And now scientists are working on them.

When I first thought up Zombie Girl, I'd planned it as near future SciFi - just 100 years from now. Looking back over the past century, it's not so hard to imagine how life might be in another (though I often wonder if we'll make it that far some days). Even though ZG is a zombie dystopia, it's also, bizarrely, utopia. The city of the future is self maintaining and self sufficient. Almost sentient. It keeps its streets and buildings clean, provides state of the art medical treatment, environmentally friendly and automated transportation (on the 6th February, it was announced the British government was discussing the use of driverless cars in London), and synthesizes whatever food, clothing, medicines, equipment etc its inhabitants could ever need (3D printing is well on the way to this, and the first lab created replica food has been made). The city is close to being a living, breathing entity in its own right. On top of that, the inhabitants have an all-in-one communication and entertainment device - a One-Dee - that also gives them access to all the city's facilities (since first writing about this, the Apple watch has come out). Life would be truly idyllic...

...except it isn't, because that would be boring. Even in the utopian city portrayed in Logan's Run, people were still trying to escape to a mythical Sanctuary. And it still had its drawbacks - in this instance anyone over 30 is killed off. In Serenity, they used drugs to try and pacify their citizens, with appalling results (I won't say just in case you haven't ever seen the film, being as it's key to the whole plot). So is a true utopia actually achievable? Or will there always be some drawback that stops it from being a total paradise? What could possibly go wrong in a city that can cater to your every need? Well, a bioweapon that kills most of the population and turns the remainder into mindless cannibals maybe. The city couldn't anticipate or prevent something like that. Its programming doesn't allow for it, so it continues as if nothing happened, following the rules laid in by its creators. Adaptability is one advantage humans still hold over machines however well they're programmed. One day perhaps machines will learn that too, but not for this story.

Personally I hate cities. While I loved to visit events in London and go to Covent Garden, Greenwich and Camden markets, I loathe all the rush, the volume of dirt, rubbish, and people, the constant noise and traffic. I'm very much a country girl. So in some ways the city in Zombie Girl is the kind of thing I would dream of rather than what we have now, if we had to live in cities. But even though it solves the issue of dirt, poverty, the stress of modern living with its technology, would all human beings tolerate what is essentially a nanny state? Your every need catered for, but to never be allowed beyond the city walls, to build your own house, to have your own car, to have nothing to aspire to other than being one of thousands of solid citizens all at the same social, educational, and fiscal level? Would you give up? Want to escape?

YA Zombie Dystopia Novella
Goodreads | Website
Available from...
Amazon | iTunes | Omnilit
Kobo | Smashwords | B&N

Imagine waking up to find the world has ended, but unfortunately you’re not alone...

For Connor Innis, awakening from a year-long coma with no memories, no ability to move, and unable to speak was bad enough. Then he learns that a bioweapon set off a zombie apocalypse—for real—while he was sleeping, and the world he can't even remember no longer exists.

Rehabilitation might be torture, but far worse awaits him outside. All too soon, the hospital Mentor declares him fit to leave with nothing to go home to except a city full of mindless, flesh-eating monsters. That is, until he forms a strange relationship with the one he nicknames 'Zombie Girl'.

Happenings

My certificate for my Rebecca finalist Revived came last week, along with my first ever cash prize. Woot! I'm hoping to release it sometime in the next year, but it all hinges on finances from now on. One of the downsides of self publishing is all the editing and artwork needs paying for in advance rather than being dealt with by your publisher.

Zombie Girl: Dead Awakened released at most online retailers on the 15th February.
Quickshot, my hot space opera short, is now available to pre-order (Amazon exclusive), with a release date of the 31st March.

A Space Opera Short Story
Goodreads | Webpage
Amazon inc KU 

There's still time to enter the Goodreads giveaway for Keir's Fall, and Keir is still up at NetGalley to read and review for free HERE until the end of the month.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Keir's Fall

by Pippa Jay

Giveaway ends February 29, 2016.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

I am shortly to be joined by a second published author in my household! My 11yo entered a fiction contest via his school (grudgingly, it has to be admitted - his whole class had to write an entry) for the Young Writer's Time-Travelling Tales mini saga competition. They were only allowed to use 100 words or less (something which I struggle with even for a blurb or synopsis). Work was selected from the hundreds of entries based on imagination, perception, expression, and creative use of language. I've no idea exactly how many entries were received or how many selected for publication - I only know his made it into the Essex and Kent publication - but apparently each book will be sent to the British Library and other libraries across the UK and Republic of Ireland, releasing 31st May 2016. Of course I've ordered a couple of copies. Considering 11yo is not an aspiring author and I only found out about the whole thing by checking his bag for homework (he doesn't like doing that either), I'm stunned. Imagine if he decided he did want to write... O.o With my eldest set on publishing too (though in her case it's finishing anything that's holding her back), we could one day be a multi-author household!

Status Update
At the time of this posting, I'm coming to the end of my time away from social media for the half term holiday. Hopefully I've got some reading done so I can post some new reviews next week (and hopefully topped up my vocabulary too). I'll be back to my regular Tuesday slot here at Spacefreighters as well.
Reunion at Kasha-Asor is still in second round edits. The June project is still awaiting the first round. My word count is dropping, though mostly because of chopping out redundant scenes in Reunion while writing some new ones. It's unusual for me to do a slash and burn type revision on a work that's gone into edits, but sometimes it happens.

Ping Pong
Congrats to Donna on the release of her second novel - Trouble In Mind - on the 16th!
Good luck to Greta with her new WIP.
And how are edits going, Laurie? Strength!