My A-Z theme this year is a guide to my trilogy of novels called ‘The State Trilogy’. Set in an unnamed island country known only as ‘The State’, in the imagined near future, the books follow the intertwining stories of a number of characters, principally a State police detective named Danny Samson and an assassin, Gabriella Marino, over a period of six years. It begins with the assassination of an elected official and spirals into revolution and civil war. Part political thriller, action story, war story and dystopian science fiction, the trilogy took three years to complete and the books are available to read now – you can find links to purchase them HERE
In The State Trilogy, ‘G’ stands for:
Gabriella Marino: Alongside Danny Samson, Gabriella is one of the main characters in the trilogy. She is the opposite in many respects to Danny: an ex-military assassin who is tough, no nonsense and doesn’t let emotions get in the way of her work. She is decisive and physically and mentally strong and she was the favourite to write of all the characters. I tried not to stereotype her, so she is not a ‘sexy’ assassin, although she is fit. She doesn’t run around in skin-tight clothing, but wears army fatigues. She is scarred and through the course of the trilogy becomes disfigured from injuries sustained. She is a natural leader and left the State military after objecting to what she saw in the First Strike War. When she assassinates Consul Donald Parkinson, she instigates all the events that follow. Initially she teams up with fellow ex-soldier Phillips, but later she and Danny become close friends and loyal comrades. Of all the characters, I could see Gabriella returning in the future in her own series of stories. Who knows? Aliases: Helena Myers, Phillipa Young
Great Britain and Glasgow: Although never mentioned, the island of the State is a thinly-veiled futuristic version of Great Britain, and Central City, where much of the main story occurs, is the city of Glasgow, where I was born and live. I wanted to set my novel in Glasgow, which features in lots of gritty crime novels, but I always felt had so much more to offer to the world of literature. By basing the State on places that I knew well, I was able to describe a world that felt real and was familiar to me, even as it was set in a fictional future. I could imagine the locations and the distances between places. The river in Central City is the River Clyde, which I see every day from my work office. The old part of Central City in the east is Edinburgh, and the castle and Princes Street feature. The subway system around Glasgow is the underground tunnels that characters travel through. The wilderness along the west coast of the northern state is the rural, rugged landscape of north-west Scotland, and so on. It saved a lot of time and research in writing the novels to make the State mirror an actual place I knew well. And hopefully some of the character of Glasgow, and Scotland, comes through in the books.
Giesler: A structural engineer and trusted lieutenant in the rebel army of the civil war in Central City. Giesler is ruthless and focussed, and Phillips, the leader of the Independents (as the rebels are known), trusts him with planning the final attack on the city, which he hopes will turn the civil war in their favour.
Genetics: Not something I am an expert on in anyway, but in the future world I created, I wanted to imagine a place where genetic engineering had eradicated almost all disease and illness and disability. It has also been used to solve things such as obesity and baldness. This of course, does lead to the creation of inequality – for those who have not benefited from such science, they become disadvantaged. It also leads to new problems, such as citizens who can physically live for a long time, but lose the mental will to keep on living.
All the entries in the A-Z of ‘The State Trilogy’ can be found HERE
The books are available from a wide selection of online retailers, including AMAZON
Genetics plays a part in my new novel too. Who wouldn’t want to live in a disease-free world?
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Definitely! I think the questions are more about the rich and poor – no one should be left behind or deprived, and the rich shouldn’t be able to buy good health while others are left to suffer. An intriguing conundrum.
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Canada has universal health care which does even the playing field some. I can’t imagine living somewhere where you would have to choose between seeing a doctor and feeding your children.
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I read an Icelandic tec story that centered in on an issue of genetics Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason – it was good.
Some years ago, a company set up a genetics program to profile every person in the very small and quite isolated country. They gave all participants access to their own results resulting in a rash of divorces when it was discovered that many children were not of the father they expected…
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Ha, that’s a great story. I’m also not sure about wanting to find out if there are any genetic defects that will affect my future – do you want to know that you will develop, say, MS or Alzheimer’s in the future?
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Hari OM
Eugenics is a concept that will not go away it seems… it will be interesting – when I get to them – to read how you handle this one! YAM xx
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Thank you Yamini, glad these posts are still leaving you looking forward to the books.
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Another interesting post. The Genetics part made me think of that one Greek myth with the Goddess who got her lover eternal life but forgot to ask for eternal youth so it became a nightmare. Sometimes life is like that.
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I hate it when those little details spoil a good wish! 😉
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Gabriella sounds like a total badass, and I definitely think she needs her own books. I love how you’ve based the places on what’s familiar to you – a really sensible way to keep things real in your own head.
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Thanks Pamela, it definitely made the writing easier to be able to ‘see’ the places I was writing about.
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Reading about a world where genetic engineering helps get rid of diseases, and obesity, I was like, “Sign me up!” but then you pointed out some of the downsides. Dang. There went my illusion of a perfect world.
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Yeah, nothing is ever that simple! If only!
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You’ve chosen to “write what you know” by setting your story in the world of Glasgow where you were born and live. A wise choice because the reader gets to experience though you the true essence of the city.
gail-baugniet.blogspot.com
Green Flash at Sunset #AtoZChallenge2021
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Thanks so much Gail, it is a good bit of advice.
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I like these flashes about your trilogy, great teasers ;))
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Thanks so much, hope they are interesting to read 🙂
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Gabriella’s a really strong character. all the more so for not being stereotypical. She definitely deserves a spin-off. I hadn’t twigged the Glasgow connection, but now you mention it, it does make sense!
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Thanks Keith – I hoped to write it in a way that it doesn’t matter if you get the connection to Glasgow or not. If you are from Glasgow, I think you get it, but if not, it doesn’t affect the story.
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Every letter I read, your fictional world becomes clearer.
My “G” Jethro Tull song for today is here:
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Thank you, hope it is intriguing you 🙂
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Yes 🙂
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I listened to an Experts on Experts podcast with Dax Shepherd where he interviewed Walter Isaacson who just published the biography Code Breaker about Jennifer Doudna’s gene editing work and how she used her knowledge of CRISPR to help with the fight against COVID. It was fascinating. We are on the cusp of another innovation revolution with big ethical questions tied to it. Weekends In Maine
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The ethics are the key, and the equality of it, but in general, to cure some of the more terrible degenerative diseases that exist, it has to be something that will be good.
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Gabriella sounds like an interesting character.
Genetic engineering raises a lot of ethical questions which I enjoy exploring in dystopian fiction.
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Thank you. In principal genetic engineering could be beneficial to all, but as you say, it has to be very carefully regulated and monitored.
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Oh yes, I vote for more Gabriela 🙂
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Everyone seems to feel the same 🙂
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She sounds like a very interesting character. I like how you used real places to create well-detailed settings. I also have many ideas involving genetics.
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Thanks for visiting Steph
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Genetic engineering curing of all diseases sounds quite an interesting addition to your trilogy :). Though I would definitely be curious to know how many people would be able to afford this. On a different note, this is making me think of the current scenario how certain nations have hoarded vaccines and hundreds of others are even struggling to get a specific number of doses.
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Absolutely Aseem, the pandemic has highlighted inequality across the world, and genetic engineering will definitely follow that same pattern – the haves and the have nots.
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