‘Cutting the Bloodline’ Book Tour – Dystopia

There is a place where fantasy, horror, and science fiction like to meet. That place is called Dystopia.

Horror relies on finding people’s fears, and while ghosts, serial killers, aliens, and even sharks in freak weather conditions, will always hit the mark, dystopian stories need to change and adapt to meet the over-riding fears of society.

My father started me off on the right literary track when he read me the likes of HG Wells and John Wyndham as bedtime stories. Those stories were about aliens and giant creatures attacking. As time has moved forward, we’ve seen trends in oppressive surveilance tactics, robots rising above their human creators, corrupt governments and dictatorships. Even the zombie genre in itself: zombies who were once the product of voodoo, or supernatural causes, are now created by genetic or viral experimentation going horribly wrong.

By looking at the horror genre, you can virtually map out a timeline of society’s greatest fears.

Dystopian fiction serves two purposes. It can be used as a political statement, broadcasting the thoughts, beliefs, and discontent of the writer. It can also breed positivity, however seemingly ironic that is, by showing people that things can always be worse. In its own contradictory existence, it can be used to supress, and to fuel a malcontent population.

Recent years have seen the toppling of dictators, widespread and violent protests, and support for those nations has been sustained via social media. People can publicly air their thoughts, and the news, in a way they never could before; from reaching just a few stood on a soapbox, people can now share their thoughts with the entire world. But we know that these thoughts are easily, and secretly, watched. The US has already found this, and the UK government is now looking to increase the online surveilance of its citizens (if you believe it’s not happening already). You can, essentially, be a terrorist before you even realise it yourself.

The recent UK General Election saw social networks alive with discussion, full of memes (the serious, and the not so serious), and it is widely believed that it was the media that won the election. Because people still believe everything they see in print. And so it begs the question; just how much of our opinions are, in fact, our own opinions?

Cutting the Bloodline is set in the UK in 2052, not too far into the distant future. The populace is kept content by a government that has extinguished crime through the discovery, and eradication, of the criminal gene. It’s the usual governmental sleight-of-hand; they appear to be giving people everything they want, but it’s a distraction from what’s really happening. Murder, corruption, genetic experiments, with women bearing the brunt.

As a progression from the world as it is today, with the UK entering another five years of strict austerity measures that are falling most harshly on women, children, and the poor, Cutting the Bloodline portrays a scarily plausible future.

Even more terrifying, according to the book’s timeline, all this comes to play by the next General Election. Just five years from now.

—This Book Cannot Bring Down a Government – But it is the Story of One That Can

Originally written as a stageplay five years ago, Cutting the Bloodline is the debut novella from British horror and fantasy author Angeline Trevena.

Released on Kindle on May 12th, this adult dystopian thriller follows magazine journalist Kenton Hicks as he sets out to change the world.

Born and bred in a rural corner of Devon, Angeline now lives among the breweries and canals of central England, with her husband, their son, and a somewhat neurotic cat. She’s been writing since she was old enough to hold a pen, and has several short stories published in various anthologies and magazines.

After spending her formative years on the stage, she graduated in 2003 with a BA Hons Degree in Drama and Writing. While at university, she decided that her future lay in writing words, rather than performing them.

Cutting the Bloodline is set in a future Britain where people are tested for the criminal gene, where carriers are outcast, and babies testing positive are aborted. Kenton simply wants to gather the stories of those who have suffered, but as his book gathers pace, and he investigates further, he finds that the crime free-utopia they enjoy was sold to them on a lie.

While the government fight to protect that lie, there are others determined to expose it, by whatever means. Kenton finds himself pulled between everyone else’s agenda, while his own motivations start to become a little confused. But his book has the power to start a civil war, and he needs to figure out who’s on his side.

Tony Benson, author of dystopian thriller, An Accident of Birth, said “Cutting The Bloodline is a vivid portrayal of a scarily real future, and the man who risks his life to expose the truth. Insightful, original, imaginative, and a great read.”

Links

Buy the book from Amazon: http://authl.it/B00W3AP0VY

Angeline Trevena’s website: http://www.angelinetrevena.co.uk

Cutting the Bloodline – The Blurb

Not everyone is born innocent.

A generation of defective children were abandoned. They grew up on the fringes, without rights, without a way to change their fate.

Journalist Kenton Hicks is driven to tell their stories, but these are not stories everyone wants told. As he digs deeper, he finds that the discovery of the criminal gene, the foundation of their crime-free utopia, isn’t quite the salvation it promised to be.

Armed with a book that could bring down the government, Kenton finds the country’s future in his hands.

Some see him as a saviour, others as a traitor. It’s time for him to choose which he will become.

—
Angeline Trevena: Bio

Angeline Trevena was born and bred in a rural corner of Devon, but now lives among the breweries and canals of central England. She is a horror and fantasy writer, poet and journalist. Cutting the Bloodline is her debut novella, and she has several short stories published in various anthologies and magazines.

In 2003 she graduated from Edge Hill University, Lancashire, with a BA Hons degree in Drama and Writing. During this time she decided that her future lay in writing words rather than performing them.

The most unlikely of horror writers, Angeline is scared of just about everything, and still can’t sleep in a fully dark room. She goes weak at the sight of blood, can’t share a room with a spider, but does have a streak of evil in her somewhere.

Some years ago she worked at an antique auction house and religiously checked every wardrobe that came in to see if Narnia was in the back of it. She’s still not given up looking for it.