The Sci-Fi novel Green and the Green Movement

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Green and the Green Movement

The setting for this novel was in the distant future. The planet is heavily overpopulated and polluted. Nature has been ravaged.

I was exploring the philosophical nature of mind and whether the inner universe is infinite.

The other major theme was that of the Green Movement. In a last desperate attempt to safe Nature from complete destruction, they were trying desperately to get the government to take drastic action.

The Greens were split into three distinct factions who argued fiercely among themselves.

One faction believed they could gain public support and force the government to take action through the sheer force and rationale of their argument.

A second faction believed that big business was too powerful and that most people were simply not interested enough until things became so bad that it directly impacted on them, by which time it would be too late. They believed force was the only way to get big business and politicians to take notice. They were using terror and attacking the polluting industry.

A shady third faction believed that the problem was people. They hated mankind and believed that there was an inherent flaw in all people. There was no hope while humans were around. They believed it was only a matter of time before we destroyed the world. Consequently, the only way to save the planet was to eradicate mankind.

It set the background for the intrigue and drama as the two themes interweaved.

Why not give it a read?

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Star – the way the Sixties youth rebellion was incorporated into the story.

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Star – the way the Sixties youth rebellion was incorporated into the story.

The main idea that I was playing with in this book was the youth rebellion of the nineteen sixties.

Having lived through it and, as a student living in London, being heavily immersed in it, I felt that I knew a lot about the sixties phenomena. I found the idea of taking the underlying principles and applying them to the future quite inspiring and intriguing.

I set the book in the future in the sixties of the year 3167 AC. We had an intergalactic civilisation. Rock Music performed, not in stadia, but huge arenas in space on a gigantic scale.

There were a lot of elements to bring together.

The glue that held the sixties movement together was Rock Music. I had to create a band featuring a larger than life Rock Star – based on Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Arthur Brown, David Bowie and John Lennon.

The Civil Rights movement was an important element. I had to create an alien species who were subjected to abuse and yet were highly intelligent.

The antiwar movement was another. I had to create two competing powers and a proxy war being waged on a remote planet.

I then incorporated many of the events and people from the sixties in many guises. There was the Black Panthers, the Yippies, the Fugs, the Chicago riots, Peace Park, free festivals, Woodstock, Altamont, Games in May, Martin Luther King, the antiwar marches, the raising of the pentagon, the civil rights marches, Bob Dylan’s motorbike accident and many more.

My main story was the way the lucrative Rock Music business was being controlled by big business and the mafia. Behind the scenes, my Rock Star was subject to all manner of forces. His manager, based loosely on Albert Grossman, Peter Grant and Bill Graham, was caught up in the politics. My star was trying to remain true to his principles but the pressures were building.

Would the revolution change society? Or would it be incorporated into the money-making establishment?

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Certainty is our biggest enemy.

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These are a couple of short extracts from the book – Farther from the Sun’ that I wrote twenty years ago and am presently editing:

Just leave footprints. The world is in our care. We are just passing through.

15.9.01

 

Muslims do not allow living things to be represented in their art. They have a thing about idolatry. No face can be depicted. Their art is largely abstract design. I have no problem with that. Their art is beautiful but their certainty and intolerance is the ugliest side of humanity. Their blind interpretations and adherence to every word of a text written more than a thousand five hundred years ago are abhorrent.

Religion is a personal view. I have no problem with what a person believes.

There are no facts. Certainty is ignorance.

I do have a problem with what they do in the name of belief.

When they ousted the Hindus in India and took over their temples they knocked the heads of all the statues and gouged the tiles.

One has to ask why? They were not theirs. They were merely passing through. They defaced the seventh-century Jain sandstone carving outside of Agra. The Afghanistan Taliban demolished the even older and more beautiful Jain statues carved in sandstone on their steppes – the Buddhas of Bamyan.

These are crimes against the whole history and culture of the world carried out by brainwashed fanatics. Such intolerance and disregard is at best ignorant. It displays egotistic arrogance.

I tell you – certainty is our biggest enemy.

15.9.01

What readers said about New Eden by Ron Forsythe – a Sci-Fi novel.

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What readers said about New Eden.

‘The measured, seemingly almost real-time narrative made it even more chilling in its pragmatism. The glacial momentum carried over into the horror of unstoppable inertia. Who hasn’t contemplated the almost ubiquitous runaway human population growth and its sequelae for our planet? The meek shall inherit the Earth…and probably do a much better job.’

‘A great read of a disturbing future. Well written and delightful in places, shocking in others – all too real. It tells the story of over-population and a world government’s attempt to solve it. You could really identify with the characters and the scene were pictures in your head. You’ll cry in places. If you love good Sci-fi then you will enjoy this book.’

‘An incredible read! If you’re a fan of futuristic books I would definitely recommend this book. It is so realistic because a lot of the problems we face today are shown in the future that may just come true if we don’t solve them soon. Really loved reading this!’

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Farther From The Sun – an old novel I’m currently editing.

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I’ve raided the archive. I still have a number of unpublished books lurking in there. This one – Farther from the Sun – was a sequel to Reflections from a Ditch.  I dug it out and started editing it. It’s quite fun – rather like visiting with myself as I was twenty years ago. I’ll share a couple of samples as I go along.

Here’s the beginning of the first chapter:

Memory is a terrible thing. It betrays you. I can remember my father’s face clearly. He is always smiling. But then I realise that it is not his face I am remembering; it is the photographs of him that I see with my mind’s eye. He is some shadowy figure lurking in the background and I cannot remember him at all. But this is the man who gave me life, who stayed, and looked after me until I became a man.

‘Turn that music down!’ I can still hear him bellowing from the other room, so, so very unreasonably.

‘The 60s was a great time,’ I can hear my mother saying. ‘All that fabulous music and excitement.’ Yet she forgets she also yelled at me to turn it all down.

So why is it that my memories of my father have shrunk to auditory echoes and cameo snap-shots? Why, when I picture a scene I know he was part of; does he only smile back at me through photography? Is it because he has ceased to exist?

15.8.01

Is New Eden a possibility?

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Is New Eden a possibility?

Is it possible that a government, for political reasons, or to remove surplus population, might have a virus engineered in order to wipe out the ones it does not want?

I reckon so.

Is it possible to manufacture a deadly virus and put a vaccination programme in place for those you want to survive?

I think it is.

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A Review of the Gordian Fetish

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A Review of the Gordian Fetish

The Gordian Fetish

I liked this review – not just because it was so positive, but because it captured a lot about what the book was about – the satire, the humour and the serious underlying questions.

I don’t know who wrote it, they did not leave a name, but thank you! (Douglas Adams, Michael Moorcock and Rob Grant were all much loved by me – it is great to be mentioned alongside such greats.)

‘An ambitious sci-fi novel packed with serious ideas and amusing moments. The alien perspective on humankind is sometimes hilarious and often thought-provoking in this racy, zany and sometimes politically-satirical story. It’s never sentimental and creates convincingly detailed worlds, with a solid biological and scientific feel. The novel explores multiple viewpoints with the thoughts and reactions of a huge range of characters and I sensed many influences, from the American sci-fi greats to – particularly, I think – British writers like Douglas Adams and Michael Moorcock. But it’s never other-worldly and I liked it that the question of what it is to be human is central to this stimulating story.’

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The Gordian Fetish – is there, somewhere in the galaxy, a zoo dedicated to conserving intelligent aliens?

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The Gordian Fetish – is there, somewhere in the galaxy, a zoo dedicated to conserving intelligent aliens?

The Gordian Fetish

There is in my novel. It contains human specimens. The manager likes furry specimens and is fascinated because humans have sex.

My conservation institute is really a zoo for exotic alien life that is considered endangered. There are trillions of humans but a dodgy dealer manages to interest the manager in purchasing a pair.

I felt this was a good setting for a Sci-Fi novel with a bit of humour in it (as well as some more serious ideas).

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Ron Forsythe on Science Fiction.

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Ron Forsythe on Science Fiction

General

I started reading Science Fiction novels when I was in school. At the age of fourteen, I was a bit of a rebel. We had compulsory Religious Education and I had no belief in God and regarded the R.E. classes as brainwashing. For some reason, my parents would not write me a letter withdrawing me from the class so I went and saw the teacher and explained my views. I told him that I had no intention of doing any work. I was adamant and dug my heels in. We came to an arrangement. I would give out the bibles at the beginning of the lesson and then sit quietly at the front and read. So it was that in R.E. I worked my way through the entire works of John Wyndham. In my view, a much better use of my time.

From that time on, Science Fiction became my preferred reading.

As a youth I read avidly, consuming three to four novels a week. My favourite writers were the likes of Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, James White, Arthur C Clarke, James Blish, Robert Sheckley, Philip K Dick, J.G Ballard, Ray Bradbury, Gordon R. Dickson, Jack Vance, C. L.Moore, A.E. Van Vogt, Fred Saberhagen. Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut jnr, and Larry Niven, though in practice I read any Sci-Fi I could get my hands on.

Every Saturday I used to browse the second-hand book shops and buy up any Sci-Fi books I didn’t have. They were dirt cheap and I soon amassed a sizeable library.

I still love those old books and that library has followed me around through move after move.

I suppose my favourite Sci-Fi writer is Iain M. Banks. It was so sad that he died young.

Looking back I realise that this love of Sci-Fi probably started as a boy when I was an avid reader of comics such as Wizard, Adventure and Eagle. I was drawn to the Sci-Fi.

What drew me in was a combination of the science and the world of all possibility. It unfettered the imagination. While retaining a grounding in the laws of science we were free to explore human nature in the future, the past, any part of the universe, and solve all the problems that held us back. On top of that one had adventure, intrigue, love, philosophy and the full gamut of human experience. It took writing into a new dimension.

It certainly stimulated my mind. I had a head full of ideas and, at the age of twenty, began to realise that I too could write novels. I had the ideas, I could invent the characters and settings. I could devise the plots. So I started writing.

I would say, to use a cliché, that I never looked back; but in truth, I looked back, forward, up, down and sideways. I became a Sci-Fi writer. There were no limits.

Welcome to my world

New Eden – Who survives a pandemic?

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New Eden – Who survives a pandemic?

New Eden

We are very fortunate with the current Coronavirus pandemic; it only kills around 2% of the population, and they tend to be (though not always) the elderly or weaker members. Many pandemics are far more deadly. Bubonic plague killed off between 50% and 70% of the population, and Smallpox at least 20%. It is not inconceivable to have a new virus that kills 99.9% of the population.

In my story, New Eden, a government creates a deadly virus to wipe out the excess population.

The theory of evolution is widely misunderstood. It revolves around the selection of the fittest. The fittest are not always the strongest, most intelligent, the fastest or those with skills; they could be the slowest, most stupid, or the weakest. For example – faced with a terrible predator the one who faints might be left alone while those who fight or run away might be killed. The survivor selected might be the weakest member of the group.

Surviving a virus is mostly a question of luck. It is not whether you are clever, fit or healthy; it is merely whether you have the right antibodies to neutralise the disease. This is a quirk of fate.

So, evolution does not always produce bigger, stronger, fitter and more intelligent offspring. It produces offspring more suited to survive.

If a fatal virus was to wipe out most people on the planet the survivors would be the ones with natural immunity. They could be a group of people with a particular genetic ‘disorder’.

In 1986 I took this basic premise and wove it into a story. It is the story of courage, bravery, intrigue, misuse of power and hope. It has redemption, joy and tragedy.

It is also a story that could easily come true.

Available in both paperback and kindle .

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