Showing posts with label dystopian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dystopian. Show all posts

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Sue Parritt Shares Her Inspiration for "Sannah & the Pilgrim" @OdysseyBooks #AmReading #Dystopian

What inspired me to write my book?

Anger, abhorrence and disbelief motivated me to write Sannah and the Pilgrim. I was and remain appalled by past and present governments’ policy on refugees and asylum seekers. News bulletins and current affairs programmes helped fuel my deep concerns about the direction our country is heading. From a country that welcomed scores of displaced people after the Second World War, we are becoming xenophobic, rejecting those that have fled what for most of us are inconceivable terrors. As a migrant myself, I tried to imagine how I would have felt, if instead of paying my ten pounds and travelling here on an ocean liner, I had been forced to flee my homeland, hand over my life’s savings to greedy people smugglers and risk my life by boarding a leaky overcrowded boat.

My thoughts then turned to a different category of refugees, those we can expect in the not so distant future. Low-lying Pacific islands are already under threat from accelerating climate change, about which wealthy first-world countries have so far failed to act. Soon there will be a flood of environmental refugees seeking a safe haven in our sparsely populated and prosperous nation. How will our government react then, when turning back the boats won’t be an option?

I felt my option as a fiction writer was to draw on contemporary government policies regarding refugees and climate change to create a portrait of a future Australia that is, to my mind, entirely possible. The idea to divide the country into zones according to race of origin came from a thinly veiled proposal made by an ultra-conservative politician some years ago. Research into climate change led me to place my characters in the most inhospitable part of twenty-fourth century Australia, the extremely hot, humid and disease-ridden north. Confined to the Brown Zone (formerly Queensland) the people, descendants of Pacific environmental refugees, are forced to cultivate the remaining fertile coastal strip to produce food for White Southerners, whose zone, although more suitable for human habitation, is too arid to support agriculture.

I was inspired to create the role of storyteller for my protagonist, Sannah, by the manner in which information is often distorted by both the media and government in order to provoke certain reactions. For instance, fears of being swamped by refugees are intensified by using terms such as ‘illegals’ and concerns over rising utility costs assuaged by promises to repeal the Carbon Tax. Sannah’s people are kept in ignorance through a steady diet of Tales (a weird blend of historical fact and fiction) delivered by government-trained storytellers. In similar fashion, we are fed only what governments and multinational companies want us to hear and it takes a great deal of effort to uncover the truth. Lies ensure compliance in both twenty-first and twenty-fourth century Australia.

Sue Parritt author pic

About the Author:
Sue Parritt is an Australian writer, originally from England. Her poetry and short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies in Australia, Britain and the USA. After graduating BA University of Queensland 1982 (majors: English Literature, Drama and French), Sue worked in university libraries until taking early retirement in 2008 to pursue her long-held dream of becoming a professional writer.  Since then she has written Sannah and the Pilgrim, numerous short stories and poems and‘Feed Thy Enemy’, a feature film script set in Naples in 1944 and 1974 and based on a true story (Sue is currently seeking a producer). She recently completed a second novel Safety Zone and is now writing a sequel to Sannah and the Pilgrim – the working title is Pia and the Skyman.

Sannah and the Pilgrim by Sure Parritt

When Sannah the Storyteller, a descendant of environmental refugees from drowned Pacific islands, finds a White stranger on her domestep, she presumes he’s a political prisoner on the run seeking safe passage to egalitarian Aotearoa. However, Kaire’s unusual appearance, bizarre behaviour, and insistence he’s a pilgrim suggest otherwise.

Appalled by apartheid Australia, Kaire uses his White privileges to procure vital information for Sannah and her group of activists regarding new desert prisons that are to be built to house all political prisoners. The group plans sabotage but needs help, and Kaire is a willing accomplice. But when Sannah turns Truthteller and threatens to reveal the country’s true history, even Kaire’s White privilege and advanced technology cannot save Sannah and her daughter from retribution.

About Sannah and the Pilgrim:

Sannah and the Pilgrim is a tale of courage, defiance and deceit that asks the reader, ‘Would you risk death by telling the truth about your country, or would you play it safe and spend your life as a storyteller?’

Are you concerned about our governments’ (both past and present) failure to act on climate change and the detention and inhumane treatment of refugees? I am, so I have drawn on contemporary conservative attitudes to present a dystopian view of a future Australia in my speculative fiction novel Sannah and the Pilgrim. Read it and discover what could happen to our‘lucky’ country.
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Friday, February 21, 2014

Alarm bells began to ring ... The Galatia Series by @CDVerhoff #excerpt #fantasy #scifi

In this excerpt from chapter two, in the middle of the night Josie has been shaken awake by a loud rumble. It’s happened before, so she’s only mildly concerned. Unable to get back to sleep, she shuffles has shuffled off to the kitchen for a snack:
****************
As she sat at the kitchen counter, spooning pudding into her mouth, the bowl on the counter started to vibrate. Dishes rattled in the cupboard. Knickknacks fell off the shelf. Another tremor?
There had been dozens of them over the last two years. Sometimes the damage was a big deal, but most of the time everything was back to normal within a few hours. Last week, a tremor had caused the entire facility to go offline for two days. Nobody was allowed to shower. The temperature hovered around fifty degrees. No videos to watch, no computer games to play, no ebooks to read. Horrible. No way did she want to live through that again. The lights blinked on and off again, leaving her suspended in darkness with a chocolate pudding in her hand.
“This is not good.”
Alarm bells began to ring throughout the facility.
The sound of people running down the public corridor made her drop the spoon on the floor. She flung open the front door. The sound of chaos instantly increased tenfold. Dim emergency lights cast everything in an eerie blood red glow. Entire families were running down the hallway, dressed in heavy clothing, carrying their emergency backpacks, fear etched across their features.
“This can’t be for real,” she whispered. Her bladder wanted to faint. Her sister lived in the pod across the hall. Its door swung open and there was her brother-in-law, Dante Armstrong, standing there in his boxer shorts. Dante was of African descent—somewhere near Ghana was all he knew. Until just now, she had never seen him without his shirt. His impressive height and muscular build made him an imposing-looking man. His five-year-old son, Nicholas, stood behind him and peeked around his father’s hip, while Dante held three-year-old Shasta on his hip.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Josie yelled across the hall. “Where’s Jo?”
“She was called to an emergency meeting a few hours ago.”
“Mom was too.”
“Jo just called me,” Dante spoke rapidly. “She said this is the big one. The bunker has split in two and there are hundreds of secondary fissures. It’s total chaos below. The main control room is on fire and the entire city could crumble at any second.” His words were like ghostly punches to the gut, taking her breath away. “They’ve done everything they can, but it’s not going to be enough. She’s going to meet us at the main hatchway.”
The acid taste of bile coated her throat. She took a step back into the pod where things used to make sense.
“We have to evacuate,” Dante said.
“To where?”
“The surface.”
“We’ll die up there,” Josie said.
“We’ll die down here.”
Josie shook her head vigorously, retreating further into the pod.
“Jo made me promise to get you out of here.” Dante’s eyes were sympathetic, but his voice strained with impatience. “I’ll carry you over my shoulder if I have to.”
She’d debate the matter more, but Dante was the kind of man who meant what he said. If she refused to leave, he would stay, putting himself and his children in grave danger.
“Okay,” she said, feeling weak all over. “I’ll go, but let me grab a few things first.”
“I’ll give you three minutes,” he said. “I need to get a few things, too. We’ll go up to the Pringle exit together.”
PromisedLand
Short Description:  The last survivors of the human race are riding out nuclear winter in an underground bunker when disaster strikes. Forced to the surface centuries ahead of schedule, what they find blows their minds. Who can explain it? Two social misfits work together to unravel the mystery.
Extended Description:  After living in a posh underground shelter his entire life, Lars Steelsun is plunged headfirst into a mind-blowing adventure on the surface of the Earth. As Lars and his displaced bunker mates are led across the grasslands by Mayor Wakeland, a man of questionable sanity who claims to talk with God, they discover a primitive world where human beings are no longer welcome. Even more mystifying is the emergence of new senses and abilities from within. Learning to use them has become a priority, but his biggest challenge comes from the vivacious Josie Albright. Her lust for glory is going to get them both into trouble. Sparks fly when her gung ho ways clash with his cautious personality. Can they overcome their differences to find love and a homeland for their people?
May not be suitable for younger readers. Contains mild profanity, sexual situations (infrequent), and violence. 
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre - Epic Fantasy
Rating – R
More details about the author
Connect with C. D. Verhoff on Facebook & Twitter
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