Ruth Silver Guest Post

I am pleased to present the guest post written by Ruth Silver, author of Aberrant.
Please check out her website at http://writeawaybliss.com.
Aberrant was released on April 17th and on July 9th the paperback version will also be available.
I asked the author to do a guest post about something that as come to fascinate me:

The Ascending Popularity of Dystopian Novels

Dystopian Fiction has been around for a very long time. In college, I read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. I had no idea it was categorized as Dystopian Fiction. I actually didn't know what to categorize it as, but I loved it. If I'd have known what it was, I'd have sought out similar books. Instead, I read several other novels by Atwood and they just didn't compare. I think this is true for the genre. It has existed but not everyone knew of its existence, until The Hunger Games.

Pop-culture has an effect on stories being produced. After readers finished The Hunger Games trilogy, they wanted other Dystopian novels to read. Many picked up Divergent because they were familiar with the genre. Some Dystopian novels were already written, however, publishers saw the rising success and there was a shift of new novels being produced. Consider it like Harry Potter or Twilight. After Twilight was a success, there was an increase of vampire novels being sold to publishers. It doesn't mean the stories weren't already written but publishers may not have been buying them until it became popular.

So why Dystopian fiction? We root for the underdog. We want the heroine to win but we often witness their change and growth through the story. We watch them endure through whatever hardship they suffer and in most cases, they come out stronger. It makes you connect with the story, the character and the world that they live in.

It's relevant because of our current economic state. The rise in unemployment, the uncertainty that even after you graduate college, you might not have a job. Dystopian stories have become relevant because they feel real. We often wonder how far away we are from taking that next step. Whether it's losing electricity around the globe or a massive pandemic, what's stopping us from no longer existing? It's something we may not even be able to control and yet that's what makes us even more curious to read about it. Then we wonder if the world had changed, what would become of it?  If a few survived, if we were the lucky ones, how would the world behave? Would we be caged like animals or free and alone?

Book Synopsis:

            In the future dystopian society of Cabal, the government instills equality for all and offers its citizens the perfect system. There is food, shelter and jobs for everyone. The one requirement is to follow the rules without question, including the government’s match in marriage and “The Day of the Chosen”, a lottery that randomly selects families to conceive children as natural means hasn’t existed in generations. Following her eighteenth birthday, Olivia Parker accepts her requirement to marry her childhood best friend, Joshua Warren, and is eager to start her work assignment and new life when it all comes abruptly to an end as she’s arrested and thrown in prison. The only crime committed, her existence. Olivia is unlike the rest of the world born not from “The Day of the Chosen.” The truth haunts the government and puts her life in grave danger as one simple fact would destroy the perfect system.
With Joshua’s help, Olivia breaks free of prison and is forced on the run. Together they set out to find the promised rebel town in search of a new home and new life together. Their situation seems less than promising as they reach the town of Haven. New rules and customs must be adhered to in order to stay. Leaving would mean most certain death in the large expanse of the Gravelands. Time is running out as the government mounts an attack to destroy Olivia and bury her secret with her. Thrown into a world unlike their own, they must quickly adapt to survive.

Author Biography:

            Ruth Silver attended Northern Illinois University and graduated with a Bachelor's in Communication in the spring of 2005.  While in college, she spent much of her free time writing with
friends she met online and penning her first novel, Deuces are Wild, which she self-published in 2004.  Her favorite class was Creative Writing senior year where she often handed in assignments longer than the professor required because she loved to write and always wanted to finish her stories.  Her love of writing led her on an adventure in 2007 to Melbourne, Australia.  Silver enjoys reading, photography, traveling and most of all writing.  She loves dystopian and fantasy young adult stories.  Ruth has been actively writing since she was a teenager.  She currently resides in Plainfield, Illinois. You can find Ruth by following her on Twitter @writeawaybliss, or on Facebook: writeawaybliss.

 

Goodreads link for the book:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17696943-aberrant