Friday 27 January 2017

Sailing too close to the wind

http://www.darknetwork.co/

“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.” 
  ― Adam Smith

The epigram from my work-in-progress, Dark Network, the sequel to the thrilling Faithless Elector, seems more apt as the days since the commencement of the 115th Congress and Donald Trump’s inauguration roll unalterably by (it’s only been a week!).

Each morning as I open the document and set to work finishing the novel, Adam Smith’s quote, above, stares back at me. The first clause, “virtue is more to be feared than vice” seems at first perversely counter-intuitive, the kind of cheeky opposition Oscar Wilde might construct to sharpen the witty inversion or tart reveal that completes his aphorism, as in: “It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”

Adam Smith is after darker matter. Principled men are often the worst sort of demagogues, because they believe they are doing the right thing. Taken in full, Smith’s sentiment seems like a postscript to Socrates’ claim that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” We examine least—if at all—that which we regard as virtuous or legal. As the comedian Chris Rock reminds us: apartheid was legal; the holocaust was legal; slavery was legal. In the end, legality seems to be less a matter of justice than of power.

Dark Network is about power. The umbral conspirators are bent on taking power for themselves at the expense of everything we hold dear. The chilling, dark recognition at the heart of the plot is that the conspirators would say they were seizing power in order to preserve everything we hold dear. They are doing the right thing, they would say. And people who are doing the right thing are rarely troubled by scruples or conscience. Why would they be?  The tension for the characters in the novel centers on how far they are prepared to go in defense of their principles before they have abandoned them all.

I was troubled by how close to the wind Faithless Elector unwittingly sailed. (I wrote it years ago and published it March of 2016, long before Trump was even the Republican Party’s candidate.) But Faithless Elector presaged the threat of vote-rigging as a campaign tactic, as well as the manufacturing of news stories. It does not end in the same way as the true election; and I thought, wrongly it turns out, that Dark Network, as the sequel describing in effect an alternate universe would not be so potentially controversial or inadvertently relevant.

I may be all too right about the forces arrayed behind the shadowy conspirators and where the real power lies.

Dark Network is coming soon.  Maybe it's already here.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center

Saturday 21 January 2017

Writing Ahead

Dark Network and Faithless Elector examine and distill an important moment
I am finishing work on Dark Network, the sequel to Faithless Elector.

Working on the draft has had a strange Sliding Doors/alternate universe feel as I near writing the end of book two because the events are taking place RIGHT NOW! Or rather, the dates coincide.

In fact, I find that I am now behind for the first time since I started writing this series. In the world of the book Dark Network it's January 17, 2017; whereas as I write this post, it's January 21, and Donald J Trump is president of the United States.
Faithless Elector was published in March, 2016, and it rode a wave of enthusiasm and interest right up to the true election, the Electoral College vote on December 19. Sales remain good, but they have cooled.

Until this week, when the dates I was writing about fell behind reality, I felt a little like I was writing SciFi. I was editing Faithless Elector in the winter of 2015-16, too early to include real-life candidates and events.   The events were in the future (albeit the immediate future).

I regard the non-specifics as a strength.  The books examine and distill an important point in time, speak to the issues of that time: a hostile, suspicious, divided electorate; eroding trust in institutions and norms; the sclerotic power of elites.

They are works of fiction, novels. Novels are not reporting. The book I wrote and the one I am finishing were never meant to be prophecy, and they certainly weren't meant as polemics.  It is worth noting, however, how much of the fictional plot came into play in the real world:  fake news, vote-rigging allegations, a shadow power ruthlessly, secretly attempting to manipulate the process to their own ends all play a part.

I've blogged earlier here and here about the enduring themes of literature and what I take to be the true business of writing:  telling a good story, creating a believable world in which character is revealed through action.  The immediacy of the stories, then, is not disposable "ripped from the headlines" reportage, not after-the-fact diagnosis, nor snooty punditry.

They are thrillers.

And though the books are set against powerful, inscrutable forces, the message is that people--ordinary people--still care, and can still make a difference.

I've been pleased by the reactions and overwhelmingly positive reviews for Faithless Elector. It's been quite a journey, and I am hopeful it is not near ending.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, that
Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center


NOTE: Charles Johnson has recently published The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling.  Check it out!