The parallels of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Purge Plague are eerily similar. Granted, the Purge Plague is a fictional pandemic, conceptualized in my Mona Bendarova novels. When I began writing the first novel in the series, ‘The Taste of Honey’ #TOH in 2011, the Purge Plague #purgeplague was the catalyst that started society on the road to where Mona’s community ended up. The Purge Plague was an unstoppable pandemic that ended up killing everyone and everything. Mother Nature corrected the imbalance we placed upon her.
To all my fans and readers of my books, Happy New Year 2020. I hope it is a good one for you and yours.
Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? I’d love to know what they are. As for me, I don’t. There’s so much I want to do, I can’t prioritize them into a resolution.Continue reading “Happy New Year 2020”
What follows is the continuation of an interview I conducted with one of my readers. I captured their notes and turned it into this update to my blog. This is Interview Mona’s Stories part 4.
Q: Speaking of the Doctor. Does he have a name?
A: Of course he does. His name is Doctor.
Q: But that is a title or function of what he does. That’s not a name.
A: In Mona’s society, they are the same. He is the Doctor and his name is Doctor.
Q: Interesting. Fair enough. Tell me about the ‘BLOODLINE’. Can you elaborate on that?
A: The ‘BLOODLINE’ is still a work in progress. I haven’t yet worked out all of the details related to them. Right now, they are an unknown to Mona and her supporters. They have a personal agenda that seems contrary to the society Mona lives in. They have been working on this agenda for at least three generations and frankly, she’s scared.
Q: So, she has no idea of what their endgame is?
A: No, she doesn’t. And neither do I? The ‘BLOODLINE’ was an invention developed in my second book in the series, ‘Broken Steele’ to explain tainted meat and the widespread the effects it had on a significant portion of the society.
Q: So, are the ‘BLOODLINE’ a villain?
A: Could be. I don’t know at this point. But they are a good source for conflict in Mona’s society. For tens of generations, Mona’s community has lived in peace and harmony, everyone knowing their place and everyone contributing to support the whole. Mona was born to a time when this harmony is about to falter, where stress and conflict are being felt for the first time in centuries.
Q: Are you saying that the ‘BLOODLINE’ could be the good guys?
A: Again, they could be. They don’t have to be the power-hungry, arrogant subculture that most of our books and movies assume. They could be advancing their own agenda in attempt to reverse the need to consume their own to stay alive. It remains to be seen as I work out the next couple of books.
Q: So, there are more books in the future?
A: Yes, I have outlines for at least two more books as well as a possible sixth book.
Q: I look forward to reading them.
A: Thank you. I hope you continue to enjoy them.
Care to Comment?
Feel free to comment and agree or dispute my opinions. I love a challenge. Till next time, have a great day!
What follows is the continuation of an interview I conducted with one of my readers. I captured their notes and turned it into this update to my blog. This is Interview Mona’s Stories part 2.
Q: Are you an activist, passionate about stopping the practice of genetically modifying organisms?
A: I’m not an activist. In fact, I’m not an activist about anything. I just write stories based upon my passions. If anything, I subscribe to facts science reveals. Take for example, obesity rates in the U.S. My country has been modifying our food sources for nearly a century in order to increase profits. In the 1940’s, obesity was a rarity. Today, it is the norm.
Check the statistics. For example, in the 1950’s,
the widespread use of corn syrup was added to our food supply as a cheaper way to produce food. Compare the graphs of the introduction of corn syrup to the obesity rates in this country. You will find a near perfect duplication of the charts, separated by only a decade. For every change in the production of our food supply, an exact change in the obesity rate occurs a decade later. 70 years later, corn syrup is now a staple in our diets. I try to avoid it but it is virtually impossible.
Q: How does that relate to the premise in your books?
A: To me, human arrogance is the relate. We presume to know better than what Mother Nature and millions of years of natural selection has produced. I believe we are digging a hole that the human race will find difficult to get out of. It may not happen in our lifetime or our children’s lifetime but I believe it is coming. We ourselves are going to cause a massive extinction event. Assuming our species survives, will be radically changed forever.
Q: And that is what ‘The Taste of Honey’ and the follow-up books speculate.
A: Yes, exactly. I don’t wish it to happen to anyone but I do feel powerless to prevent it. I believe an extinction event is inevitable and we will have caused it. How our extinction manifests itself is the question. All I know is, and I am firm in my belief, we will be causing our own extinction.
Care to Comment?
Feel free to comment and agree or dispute my opinions. I love a challenge. Till next time, have a great day!
What follows is the continuation of an interview I conducted with one of my readers. I captured their notes and turned it into this update to my blog. This is Interview Mona’s Stories part 1.
Q: Richard, as you talk about the Mona Bendarova books, it seems to me that you are passionate about them. Are you?
A: Yes, I am. I’ve been dreaming up this society for years now. I have picked at it, revised it, poked holes in it, reworked it, revised it and re-examined it for a very long time. I tend to compare Mona’s culture to the world I see around me in my everyday life. Even in my sleep, my dreams compare the two. Frankly, it scares me. This really could happen.
Take, for example, my new book ‘Lucky Bitch’. In this story, Mona, the submissive property of Charles, breaks through the glass ceiling to become the Mistress of her own estate. As Master and Mistress, she is no one’s property. She is her own person, responsible to no one but her house and all it contains. She is eager to do well and break the cycle developed hundreds of years before her time. A cycle developed due the arrogance of her ancestors.
Q: By ancestors, you mean us, people living today?
A: Yes, I do. The society Mona lives in is a direct result of what we are doing to our planet today. People talk about global warming. Some believe it, just as I do. Those that do not are fools.
I think we should be just as concerned with what our food-producing industry is doing to ever increase profit. They are playing with the genomes of every living organism on the planet. Grafting plants are one thing. Mother Nature will either integrate the graft or it won’t. However, we are splicing genes at the genetic level, extracting one gene sequence and replacing it with another.
They believe they know what they are doing. But really? Do they?
How many mistakes have been made that the public are not aware of? Take for example the news surfacing over the past couple of years. Deadly substances such as Anthrax, plague, and Ebola are accidentally transported from high secure facilities around the world in unsecured and vulnerable containers.
In my mind, it’s not a matter of if something goes wrong but rather when. What will we do when a wildfire genetic maelström is released upon the planet. Will we be powerless to undo its damage?
Q: And?
A: And when it happens, all life on this planet will be affected. My stories of Mona’s culture is simply one possible result of the extinction event that we are building towards all on our own.
Care to Comment?
Feel free to comment and agree or dispute my opinions. I love a challenge. Till next time, have a great day!
