In no significant order, here is my top 10:
Ian Muir
I enjoy the creative writing process. This is difficult to explain to someone who has never tried it, but it’s a bit like undertaking a painting project, or decorating a favourite room. Creativity is fun.
I wanted to get inside the mind of a genocidal megalomaniac. Not a pleasant experience you might say but, unfortunately, such individuals do come to the fore on a regular basis. If we can better understand how they think, perhaps we might be more able to detect them earlier.
Like all authors, I wanted to entertain and inform my readers. Hopefully some of the less frightening parts of the story are entertaining and informative.
I wanted to help make people more aware of the dangers of “reverse genetics” This is a process that can be used to construct man made viruses and can be designed to be extremely deadly. Bill Gates has been warning the world about the dangers of this technology and how it could be used to relatively easily create a biological weapon. In Lebensraum 2018 the central character attempts to deploy such a weapon in a rather unique and devastating way.
I wanted to illustrate the vulnerabilities of a democratic system. Currently, democracy in Turkey is threatened. Democracy in Russia has been perverted. History tells us that this is something we should be alert to. It can happen almost anywhere, if the right individual and the appropriate circumstances arise. I also wanted to describe what a modern totalitarian system might look like.
Populist Political movements are on the move everywhere these days. I believe that while they can be seductive they can also be very dangerous. This is something I want to describe in my book.
I wanted to expose the ignorance behind far-right and extreme nationalistic politics. Enough said!
In a minor way I wanted to illustrate how social media can be used to secretly manipulate public opinion. This something we have very little control over and it seems to me that it is becoming a growing phenomenon.
I wanted to see if I could change my life, just a little, by becoming a writer.
I hoped that I might inspire a few of my family and friends to write a book. There are certainly several who have stories to tell!
