Writing the Dystopian edge by T.M. Smith
Hello everyone, and thanks for stopping by Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words for their stop on the Opposites Audiobook tour. I thought I’d talk about the Dystopian edge to the world that I created for Opposites. I’m a huge fan of books like Dune, The Lord of the Rings and the Matched series by Allie Condie. I pulled elements from these three series when I started writing Opposites.
In Dune, people don’t have last names, they have Houses. Since Opposites took on this elemental saga with a huge cast of characters, I decided not to give the characters last names, but to give them Houses that they’d be tied to. So you have Aiyan of House Gaeland, Kaden of House Devi and so on. There’s also the intricate storyline in Dune with the worms and the drought, there are similar elements in Opposites with ‘Global Warming Ignition’ or GWI as I refer to it within the story. Opposites is set some 200 plus years in the future after Global Warming basically ignited and annihilated our planet. Society was reborn from the ashes and the Houses were created and the smartest people still alive are put in charge of these Houses.
Tolkien’s epic saga is one of my favorite books, series and movies. While this is an older series, it’s still wildly popular and, dare I say, almost a cult classic in its own right. I love the costumes, the era, the weapons and sword play. I included this ancient but recent style of clothing and weapons in the Opposites series. I also tried to keep the clothing and weapons somewhat liken to the area or region that the specific characters were from. I think I had the most fun with House Devi when describing culture and clothing, especially the Mehndi.
The Matched trilogy is exactly what the title says. It’s a future society where everyone is matched, sometimes without having even met each other. It’s what can happen when you’re incompatible that really plays into the story. Taking it one step further, what if in this society I have created where as being Gay/Lesbian is the norm, one of the royal houses children is very much straight? She’s matched to a young woman that she very much admires and loves, though not the way it was intended. How will the relationship shape these two women?
I promote the Opposites series as Dystopian SciFi because there are elements of both in the world I’ve created. If you’re a fan of either sub-genre, I’m confident you’ll enjoy this series. But at its heart, Opposites is about romance, passion, figuring out who you are and deciding that the person you want to be is up to you… not some preconceived notion of what a relationship should be. I hope you’ll grab a copy, Greg Boudreaux really outdid himself with all the various accents and characters. Each dialect is accurately portrayed and brought to life with rich accents and nuances.
In the year 2081, our planet survived global
warming on an apocalyptic scale. When the dust settled and the water receded,
Dr. Anthony Smith, one of only a few hundred survivors of GWI, started society
anew. Having come to the conclusion that injudicious breeding played a huge
role in the destruction of Earth as we knew it in the twenty first century, he
worked closely with other survivors to isolate the Dionysus gene: the gene has
the ability to manipulate human DNA to ensure that all male children be born
gay, and all female children be born lesbians.
A new society was born
In the year 2300 Dr. Smith’s descendants are
ushering in the twenty fourth century having maintained control of the
government that still rules society. Twins, Aiya and Aiyan, are preparing to
meet their matches and take control of House Gaeland, the current ruling House.
But not everything is as it seems.
Nature vs Nurture
Love is Love… it knows no gender and doesn’t
conform to restrictions or boundaries. Aiyan has found his soul mate in Kaden,
the prince of House Devi, that he is matched with and eventually marries. But
when the person Aiya falls in love with tests the boundaries put in place after
GWI, all hell breaks loose. And in the midst of one secret unraveling, another
will emerge. There is a growing anomaly that threatens to destroy over two
hundred years of progression. This anomaly is known as Opposites.
*WARNING* Opposites is an Adult Dystopian
majorly M/M novel that contains explicit sexual content and relationships
between gay, lesbian and straight couples. There are brief scenes of violence.
Opposites: Audible | Amazon Audio | iTunes
Meet the Narrator of the Opposites series; Greg Boudreaux.
The spicier side of the oh so amazing narrator, Greg Tremblay, Boudreaux brings the more erotic LGBT titles to life like the Opposites series by TM Smith – the Fitting In series by Silvia Violet and the Assassin/Shifter series by Sandrine Gasq Dion, just to name a few!
Opposites: Audible | Amazon Audio | iTunes
The Library, an Opposites novella: Audible | Amazon Audio | iTunes
The Cellar, an Opposites novella: Audible | Amazon Audio | iTunes
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