One of my works-in-progress has been a dystopian novella. While many dystopian stories and novels explore the future, I was interested in combining a dark fiction genre with alternate history, to ask what if our present never happened?
In developing my own tale, I was inspired by those classic dystopian tropes we are already familiar, with and have been imagined, classic novels like 1984 by George Orwell and The Stand by Stephen King which were my first introduction to dystopian literature and dark fiction. In considering modern history, I focused on scenarios that most-closely mirrored those classic dystopian futures which are already familiar to most readerships.
The events of the First World War were a turning point in modern history, where wars were fought on a global scale for the first time, the speed of development from the Industrial Revolution had a profound impact on the natural landscape and the capacity for mechanised warfare, casualties were high, chemical warfare was employed, and the occurrence of the 1918 Flu pandemic also incorrectly called the “Spanish Flu”.
The horrors of the First World War were catastrophic for those who survived and as a historical legacy. In modern history, it is often considered a turning point. After the First World War, the course of humanity was forever altered, a reality that affects our present, and likely, our future.
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