{"id":14,"date":"2013-07-27T08:52:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-27T08:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phenweb.wordpress.com\/?p=14"},"modified":"2025-06-19T19:19:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T18:19:02","slug":"to-the-survivors-the-authors-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phenweb.co.uk\/es\/to-the-survivors-the-authors-view\/","title":{"rendered":"To The Survivors \u2013 The Author\u2019s View"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Survivors\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

First Published at Morphys Book Blog<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To The Survivors<\/a><\/i> was published on 13th<\/sup> June on only Kindle for the time being.\u00a0 (Editor: now also available in Paperback and This Author’s View) The story is completely different form my first book, An Agent\u2019s Demise<\/i> a serial killer\/spy\/thriller based on the events leading up to and after the second Iraq war.\u00a0 As a new writer, I am experimenting with different genres based on my reading habits.\u00a0 In my teens, I was very keen on Science Fiction, reading many different authors Silverberg, Heinlein, Asimov, Niven and Clarke amongst many others.\u00a0 Their works tended to concern space within science fiction. This is what a news diet of the space race does for the imagination, rather than my later preference for a different type of Sci-Fi such as Neal Stephenson\u2019s books Snow Crash<\/i> and The Diamond Age<\/i>.\u00a0 In the 1970\u2019s the BBC, in the UK, broadcast a series called The Survivors<\/i>; I was gripped by it.\u00a0The programme was remade and broadcast from 2006 to 2010 but this time I was not gripped, just frustrated by the portrayal and the reality<\/i> factor.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both series portrayed life in the UK after a major virus that kills 95% of the population. I have covered my dissatisfaction with this, and other books, films and TV Programmes covering catastrophic events in another blog Dystopian Survival \u2013 Where Reality Sneaks In<\/a><\/i>.\u00a0 This blog is about my<\/i> book, why I wrote what I did, and how I researched the elements that make up the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly a disclaimer, as I point out in my disclaimer notice in the book:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I have no personal experience of the end of the world as we know it, but neither do you\u2026<\/i>\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiction is just that. It is not real, but if, like me, you like doses of reality mixed in them, then this is the type of plot that I have tried to write.\u00a0 The book is split into four parts.\u00a0The first deals with the virus and the government\u2019s actions, the next three parts deal with the survivors. What do they have to do to survive. It also covers their thoughts on why they survive.\u00a0One of the issues I attempt to depict, is how the infected react to their impending doom, heroism, fanaticism or stoic acceptance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part One of To The Survivors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For the first part, I focused on the medical aspects of genetic viruses, relying on several research papers available for public viewing including reports on Bird Flu, Foot and Mouth Disease, AIDS and HIV research, but also recent Measles outbreaks and the herd immunity ideas.\u00a0 I also had to research population numbers.\u00a0 SPOILER<\/b> \u2013 My twist to the other genetic virus stories was the impact on mammals. My virus<\/em> kills them as well, and this also had to be researched in terms of common genes.\u00a0In other words, my virus plausible<\/i> if highly unlikely.\u00a0 Recently there has been much discussion about the rise of anti-biotic resistant viruses and diseases such as tuberculosis have made a return.\u00a0 This sparked my reason for a cataclysmic story.\u00a0 Much of my writing is sparked by snippets of news not necessarily the headline.\u00a0 For my first book I used the production of the Iraqi dossiers in the USA and UK which convinced many sceptics that war was necessary against Iraq. Then, when no weapons of mass destruction were found this embarrassing misleading of politicians, media and the public was covered up.\u00a0 For To The Survivors<\/a><\/i> I was intrigued by the spread of measles in Wales during a recent outbreak and the seeming inability of the Authorities to cope.\u00a0 I just went a lot further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Two<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For the second part, my focus was on sustainable power and water, mainly solar, along with the basics of survival. I also introduced the key characters for the rest of the book.\u00a0 Several ideas for the house that plays a large part in the story came during the installation and setting up of my own solar power system; although it is nowhere near as extensive as the one described in the book.\u00a0 The viewpoint in this stage switched from the government\u2019s macro view to a survivor\u2019s micro view but covering a similar time period.\u00a0 The house construction had intrigued me since I saw a documentary on the building of a Huf House several years ago.\u00a0 The hardest element wasn\u2019t the house it was deciding where in the UK to locate the scenes.\u00a0 Research using Google maps can only go so far, poetic license has had to be applied to find the right geography, although many locations are accurately described.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parts Three and Four<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The later section of Part Two, and Parts Three and Four are the story from a survivor\u2019s perspective.\u00a0The Sci-Fi reduces as it turns to more human interaction elements.\u00a0This takes the timeline into the future and the different challenges that evolve.\u00a0This is more fiction, than science. The Sci-Fi element remains in the settings, but there is no new<\/i> technology, super power abilities, or other elements typical of this genre.\u00a0New technology is ruled out due to the collapse of civilisation. No one has super power abilities, unless surviving the virus is considered to be an evolutionary step by human kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civilisation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the book, are several quotes on the fall of civilisation. I found these or had read them previously.\u00a0 I am interested in post-Roman Britain as an example of the fall of civilisation.\u00a0How did so much technology and capability disappear?\u00a0 Roman houses had central heating, but nearly two thousand years later many houses in the UK still do not, or were built without it.\u00a0In all the sections, I wanted to cover the realities of living in this new<\/i> world.\u00a0 That has meant talking about sewage and latrines.\u00a0I am not that<\/i> interested in toilets, but it\u2019s something that I felt was missing from virtually every other book and film in the genre.\u00a0My previous experience in the military helped here, not with the descriptions but the reality of survival. I found on deployments that living without a modern toilet or shower is not fun.\u00a0Yes, camping for a few days with a chemical toilet might be an adventure but we all feel relieved when we return home to hot running water and flushing loos.\u00a0Modern humanity creates massive amounts of waste for disposal from food packaging to empty bottles.\u00a0Even a scavenging society has to dispose of its waste.\u00a0 The sewers and drains no longer work so how do people cope? This element seems to be conveniently overlooked in nearly every film, TV, or book portrayal.\u00a0The blockbuster movies love using CGI to destroy a city, when creeping grass over a road is more realistic and will eventually prevent road travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Survivors’ Characteristics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Character development is always tricky, I prefer not to give too vivid physical descriptions of people, not because I am not picturing them in my mind, but I want the reader to paint their own picture.\u00a0 Where it is relevant I have described race and age, along with the gender, but I deliberately kept this minimal.\u00a0 I have also tried to write only from what the chief protagonist knows, might know, or has been told by another character.\u00a0 Consequently, he does not know everything or why certain things in the plot have happened.\u00a0I have given him some character traits, which go some way to providing an insight to his actions, but again I leave some of this open to interpretation.\u00a0 Mostly, I wanted to write about what people did, more than why other than the overreaching to survive.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many friends and family have asked if I have used them as the basis for my characters.\u00a0 This has a yes, and no answer. In that some elements are bound to filter through, but it is more likely to be a snippet rather than an entire character.\u00a0When I picture a character in my mind, I may base this on someone I have met, but it is unlikely to be a friend or family member because that will condition my thoughts rather too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Survivor’s Actions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some survivors are more ruthless than others, which lead to other concerns about censorship and how far descriptions go.\u00a0 I have blogged on this dilemma for an author before in How Far Should I Go<\/a><\/i>.\u00a0 It remains a cause of concern and the more extreme I am, the less audience I might have in for example Young Adult readers. My books are not for children, but I read so called adult literature as a teenager, so the YA market is confusing for me anyway.\u00a0 Would I want my children to read what I have written?\u00a0 They are both adults, so it does not apply now; in fact most of the moral comments have come from friends who seem surprised that I can write about sex and violence.\u00a0 Morality, in my view, is easy when you are living in semi-luxury, with a full belly and enough water to drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History teaches us that rape and other violence is common in stressful situations from war to famine.\u00a0 Disaster survivors, whether genocide or natural calamities, report different experiences, from Death Camp guards, to Schindler\u2019s List, and onwards to cannibalism in the case of the Andes air crash survivors.\u00a0 If personal behaviour is based on background and culture, what happens when that envelope disappears? \u00a0I am not a woman, but if I were, would I sell<\/i> my body for food, shelter, or water?\u00a0 As a man would I take advantage of such a woman and is that rape?\u00a0 In our comfortable homes we all like to think we would behave with decency and morality, but would we?\u00a0 Society no longer exists so its morals, may not survive either. In my story, new moralities and behaviours takeover especially in the relationships between the survivors and the need to procreate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, I have written a fictional story. \u00a0I hope thousands<\/i> read it and enjoy it, but some will not, some will loathe it, some will criticise it, some will complain that it would have worked better with aliens, or zombies, or a nuclear war.\u00a0 If it makes a reader turn into a writer because of their dissatisfaction with my efforts then all the better.\u00a0I am happy to move on to my next book and story, another change of genre, but that is for another day.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Published at Morphys Book Blog To The Survivors was published on 13th June on only Kindle for the time being.\u00a0 (Editor: now also available in Paperback and This Author’s View) The story is completely different form my first book, An Agent\u2019s Demise a serial killer\/spy\/thriller based on the events leading up to and after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[35,53,113,194,210,496,525,640,678,717,718,728,764,824],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-writing-blogs","tag-an-agents-demise","tag-arts","tag-catastrophe","tag-diamond-age","tag-dystopian","tag-neal-stephenson","tag-online-writing","tag-science-fiction","tag-snow-crash","tag-survival","tag-survivors","tag-television-program","tag-to-the-survivors","tag-writing","post_format-post-format-link"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phenweb.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phenweb.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phenweb.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phenweb.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phenweb.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/phenweb.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phenweb.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phenweb.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phenweb.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}