The Imagined Nation

Well so teenage drinking is up, so's junkfood eating and illegal drug use. Today's young people just wanna satiate their superficial sensory instincts and hang tomorrow.

This sounds like a pretty sane response to the state of the world to me.

The Blair gene-ration, supposed to have been programmed to fit the demands of the modern, 24/7 world-class economy, and at the same time guilt-tripped to sickness on a "We've fucked up the planet so you've got to save it" mantra, have apparently decided they want out of the responsibility.

They look (if they bother at all) at politicians and see "representatives" who do the usual say-one-thing-do-another Janus trick, pretending that we can have business-as-usual and avoid environmental and social melt-down.

They don't buy it.

If the leaders abdicate their responsibility, what do you expect the sheep to do?

Depression is the sickness, self-numbing the treatment. In a double bind, where each avenue leads nowhere useful, paralysis results.

Looked at another way, it's patently obvious to anyone that with all the global sustainability indicators divebombing, the human race, with its skyrocketing population growth and resource demands, is killing its host with its parasitical activity.

If God put humans in charge with dominion over the beasts, that was his big mistake. The children couldn't take that level of responsilibty. They hadn't grown up enough.

In the face of this future, what would you expect powerless individuals to do? With all our leaders pretending that everything is ok, what can we do?

Each gene-ration has the chance to start again. It's the onus of each gene-ration to renew hope.

Hope sometimes seems a precious currency. Even more precious is imagination.

Imagination is the one resource kids have in spades. Even if every attempt has been made by the schooling system to drill it out of kids, many of them are still full enough of the "What if...?"s and the "Why not...?"s to make a difference.

Imagination, coupled with faith in its fruits, is needed now more than any other time. Kids have to envisage and live a different way or face death by tabloid prophecy.

Imagination is currently primarily channeled into music, but also into graphic arts, video, celebrity wannabe-ness, fashion, games - all of which are often just a way to suck kids into the system and hoodwink them with fake glamour.

Real imagination rejects the forms and contents presented, rejects the rules of the given game, and breaks them. It invents its own.

Imagination is needed to vision another way of living that isn't about money, jobs, economic growth - ie, buying useless stuff that either breaks or is out of date next week - but which is about you and me, and friends and building meaning back into everyday life.

Imagination is your secret weapon. Imagination is what they can't take away from you.

They'll want to - so they can sell it back and maintain control position.

Imagination is drumming on a skin of facts with sticks of poetry.

Imagination is painting on a canvas of science with a dancing brush.

Imagination transforms victims into escapees, it makes you the revolutionary's revolutionary.

With imaination they can try to pigeon your hole, but you've already flown.

With imagination they can try to peg your square but you're no longer a round there.

With imagination you're armed to the kilt with parallel worlds.

With practise you can make your imagination so strong that you can even make a memory seem to belong to someone else. Make them believe in your alternate world.

People learn by example, and you have to find the appropriate examples that work for you. If you can't find them, invent them.

Role models? They are not much to be found in celebrity magazines. They are the pied pipers, the evil faeries that lure you along the dangerous path.

Everyone must find and be their own hero and heroine.

As you journey through this workaday world, perhaps on the way to school or college, work or shop, and you see the bored faces of everyone else on train, bus or sidewalk, ask yourself why they are bored, and if they dislike it as much as you. What untapped potential is in their minds, and what are the creative uses of such cynicism.

We live in a narrow world, and there is so much more to explore. Reach out and take it to avoid the living death - and at the end a death full of regrets.

I realise this is a risky post to put up. Maybe it's just me. But you know, after years and years of trying, I can't see the world in any other way - I become more and more convinced:

There's not just one road less travelled; there's thousands.

Build your own Imagined Nation.

Hybrids has been shortlisted for award

Hybrids has been shortlisted for an award in London. School librarians in Lewisham and their students have chosen it for the second annual Lewisham Book Award.

There are 12 state secondary schools in Lewisham, in south east London. They say that students have already started reading the books, and will be voting for their favourite on the shortlist in February, with the winner to be announced in March. They will need to read all six to be able to vote.

They add: "We also expect many students to write reviews of the books which will be posted on the Lewisham VLE (Virtual Learning Environment)".

The other books on the shortlist are:
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
The Black Tattoo - by Sam Enthoven
The Wave Runners - by Kai Meyer
The Book of Everything - by Guus Kuijer
The Outlaw Varjak Paw - by S.F. Said

"Thank you for writing such a thought-provoking and thrilling book," they conclude.

"It is the government’s pandering to mass fear ... of which we should be afraid"

A pleasing new review by Donal Cumiskey in Inis - the Childrens Books Ireland magazine:

Hybrids is a thought-provoking novel that delivers a fast-paced plot, good dialogue and engaging characters.

As the story progresses it becomes evident that it is not just another 'live and let live' moral tale of inclusion and social harmomy, but a warning to readers of the danger of public panic and misuse of technology.

The Machiavellian actions of the corporations and government agencies and the differing responses from volunteer groups, freedom fighters, the media and the international community are all too real to people growing up in the modern political climate.

Thorpe injects a seriously Orwellian feel to the book, illustrating how it is the government's pandering to mass fear and not the victims of the disease of which we should be afraid.

Readers aged 13+ should enjoy an exciting read with substance from this great debut.

More Hybrids reviews

These have just come in:

• "When our teenage reviewer took this into a school as part of a lesson showing what you read at home, the book drew an appreciative crowd and was the star of the show. Not a bad reaction for a first novel! David Thorpe has cleverly tapped into the teenage psyche with awesome precision. The main characters are totally reliant on the gadgets that teens now take for granted and this book takes that obsession to a different, almost believable level. Oh, this is clever stuff and you will just love it! Bring it on!" - From Bump to Grump


• "Seriously spooky" - CY ezine, which made it Book of the Month, as did Collins Educational


• "An inventive, dystopian world whicvh plays with the role of technology in our lives and as part of our humanness. The plot hurtles along ... a rattling adventure" - Books for Keeps


• "The writing in Thorpe's debut is tight, and the dialogue convincing..... It would serve as a good jumping off point for debate about ethnic cleansing and human nature with young teenagers, as, like all good science-fiction, it's parallels can be clearly seen in the real world." Write Away (Featured title)

Full list on Del.ic.ious

Sold out again in less than 24 hours!

A few weeks ago Doodled Books sold out in one week of 20 copies of signed and drawn-in copies of Hybrids at £19.99 and ordered 15 more. They went on sale yesterday and sold out again in less than 24 hours! More are on order for me to draw in. I wonder who is buying them?

> See the galleries here
> Read their interview with me

I'm looking forward to Womad and a break.

An immense number of ideas

Isn't it nice when a book reviewer gets exactly what you're up to?

So it is with Anthony Brown, reviewing Hybrids in Starburst 351. He says:

"Hybrids may have the length and style of a Young Adult book, and two teenage heroes to go with them, but Thorpe doesn't pull punches with the satirical ideas he packs in.

"From detention without trial and three-layer registering of Creep victims that smack of control orders, through a Centre for Genetic Rehabilitation that reflects Guantanamo, to HIV-echoing conspiracy theory accusations against pharmaceutical companies.

"Thorpe approaches distinctly adult ideas in an approachable hero-led way, as Johnny and rich-kid fellow Creep victim Kestrella become the gurus of the Hybrid Resistance Army whose existence allows the hardline Deputy Prime Minister to call for harsh measures for dangerous times.

"Over the mere 296 large print pages, Thorpe packs in an immense number of ideas, shaking up the situations in surprising ways time and time again."

"An immense number of ideas" in only 296 easy-to-read pages for only £5.99. Who says you can't get a bargain these days?!

The second review of Hybrids

The Bookbag, a website about new books gives a very good summary of the plot and a positive review, with one irritating nitpick of the type "well if only I'd thought of this, I would have done it better". But you didn't, Jill.

However, it's the reviewer's children who give it the best response, especially when Jill says "my sons and I - even my younger son, the notorious reluctant reader - fairly galloped through it in our rush to find out what happened at the end".

It's the kids' reactions that matter, after all.

The older son noted, "perceptive as ever, that he had thought Hybrids was going to be 'just another' book all about how we should be nice to someone that's different, but it wasn't really about that at all".

She likes the double narrative strategy: "while I don't usually like a book to have multiple narrators, I enjoyed it here. It gave a double perspective on the disease and it also made the love affair between the two much more accessible to pre-adolescent readers."

"We also liked the way the book ended on more questions, not neat solutions."

The summary is: "A sharp, strong and tense debut novel."

The official launch date is 1 May, but copies are trickling into bookshops now.

Pre-order Hybrids on Amazon! And new cover info!

Great news! You can pre-order Hybrids on Amazon now! Just click on the following link and you can preorder it for £4.79 - a 20% discount on the cover price of £5.99!

>> Buy David Thorpe's Hybrids on Amazon UK. What are you waiting for?!

New cover image

And I've just received from my editor the latest image for the front cover design with Johnny Online's face changed, as previously mentioned on the last Hybrids update blog entry. Do you think it's an improvement?


Funny how both his face and mine on my profile are backlit. Do you think Harpers are trying to tell me something?