The news…
Although media people are often featured as characters on TV shows, movies, and now on the Broadway stage, they’re not main characters in my books. Pam Stuart, Detective Castilblanco’s wife, is almost one—she had the crime beat for a NYC TV station for a long time, which is how she met Castilblanco (see The Midas Bomb). A similar relationship is found between DHS agent Ashley Scott and a freelance journalist in The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan. And I poke fun at a TV reporter in More than Human: The Mensa Contagion.
This lack of including media people in my books might seem odd considering I’m a person who believes a journalism degree is a better one to have than an MFA for writing fiction, especially in the mystery, crime, suspense, and thriller genres. A legal or medical degree might be better for legal and medical thrillers, respectively, but I believe a journalism degree or experience in journalism works best in general. That background provides practice in writing minimalist prose that moves a story along and allows the future writer of fiction to become acquainted with many personalities and situations. Journalism was one career I considered early on. I never thought of doing an MFA.
Pam Stuart centers Castilblanco while performing that delicate balancing act so many women have to do—juggling career, wife, and mother roles. You can add to Pam’s resume being married to a cop who has a dangerous job, one that sometimes puts her in danger as well. Ashley Scott is done with her juggling in Virginia Morgan. She has another problem: retirement looms and she is alone, having divorced early on. Sparks fly when she meets the journalist, though. They experience romance as well as danger in the novel.
But what about news cycles? My stories tend to be ahead of them. In The Midas Bomb, where Pam and Castilblanco’s romance takes off, a dirty bomb is featured. This possible terrorist weapon has never been set off in NYC fortunately, although there have been some close calls. It’s always been in the NYPD’s list of WMDs to watch out for. The book also considers Wall Street excesses too, which still continue. (That’s one of my best titles, by the way. In three words, I summarize two of the book’s important themes. Titles are important.)
My sci-fi oeuvre is obviously ahead of news cycles. Written at the same time as Andy Weir’s The Martian, both More than Human and his book predated the news about plans for future Mars colonies. That’s in the second part of my book (Weir never actually establishes a colony); the first part deals with a worldwide pandemic. The virus produces Homo sapiens 2.0 in More than Human is created by ETs. In other words, in contrast to The Last Humans, where the virus is man-made, the virus in More than Human is beneficial in the long run. Still, let’s hope that neither case becomes a real news cycle!
In a sense, Virginia Morgan is sci-fi too, and it forms a bridge between my detective series (the main character Ashley Scott is an old friend of Chen and Castilblanco’s) and the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy.” It’s more thriller than sci-fi, though, and considers an important question: What if a future US government decides to protect state secrets they think elderly agents might divulge?
I do have some ideas for stories about a main character who’s a journalist. I might write a novel with one yet!
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Comments are always welcome.
“Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” the National and International Novels. In Angels Need Not Apply, the two NYPD homicide detectives join a national task force to go after a drug cartel leader who has an insidious plan. In Aristocrats and Assassins, the detectives are in Europe, fighting a terrorist who is kidnapping European aristocrats. In Gaia and the Goliaths, they learn about a plot conjured up by a US energy company and a Russian oligarch and set out to stop it. All these ebooks are available on Amazon and Smashwords and the latter’s affiliated retailers (Apple iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.). Current, pithy, and exciting, this is great summer reading!
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
