Dystopian YA Fiction – Mole Hunt – Book #1 in The Maximus Black FilesSomeone recently asked me why I’d written a dystopian novel. Had I specifically targeted a booming genre? Well, truth be known, I wrote Mole Hunt some four years ago. The submission process can be long and tortuous. One major publisher still hasn’t replied to my submission after two years. During the four years many publishers expressed interest. Penguin UK said if they didn’t already have the young James Bond and Artemis Fowl, they would have taken The Maximus Black Files trilogy. Sometimes it’s just a matter of timing. But one thing I have learnt over the years is that persistence pays off most of the time. Two of my best-selling books, Dragonlinks and The Glasshouse, were also rejected up to fifteen times each before finally getting published. There must be thousands of manuscripts in bottom drawers right now that, if published, would become best-sellers.
But I digress. Why dystopian fiction? Well, I’ve written it in the past with The Earthborn Wars published by Tor in the US (The Earthborn, The Skyborn and The Hiveborn). Fifteen years before The Hunger Games, I also wrote a virtual reality dystopian novel with a remarkably similar plot called Cyberskin. People dying from a terminal illness can sign their lives over to a legal “snuff” movie company and get killed live for the audience (for payment, of course – a life insurance policy that goes to their grieving family). They’re pitted against a superior fighter who is an enhanced fighting machine.
So it’s a genre that I feel comfortable with. I think dystopian fiction also lends itself to fast-paced filmic action, which is usually attributed to my writing. Sometimes it’s best to stay with what we know and love. My own favourite authors are Ioin Colfer (Artemis Fowl) and Philip Reeve (Mortal Engines). I can just as easily see these books as films, as I can my own Mole Hunt. No wonder when I grew up in a house without books. However, I had a voracious appetite for Marvel Group Comics such as The Hulk and Captain America.
Here’s a run down of the plot. I hope you enjoy the book.
Special Agent Maximus Black excels at everything he attempts. The problem is, most of what he attempts is highly illegal. Recruited by the Regis Imperium Mentatis when he was just fifteen, he is the youngest cadet ever to become a RIM agent. Of course, being a certified sociopath helps. He rises quickly through the ranks, doing whatever it takes to gain promotion. This includes murdering the doctor who has certified him, as well as a RIM colonel who Black deems to be more useful dead than alive. Now seventeen, he is a valuable member of a highly secret task force whose assignment is to unearth a traitorous mole. Unfortunately for RIM he is the mole, a delightful irony that never ceases to amuse him.
In the two years he has been with RIM he has only met his match once. Anneke Longshadow, another RIM agent, who nearly succeeded in exposing him. But nearly wasn’t enough. Now she is dead and he is very much alive to pursue his criminal activities.
Right now, Black has a new problem; one that will challenge him to the max. He has a lot of work to do and little time to do it but as with every facet of his life, he plans each step with meticulous precision.
Maximus needs to find three sets of lost coordinates to rediscover the power of the dreadnoughts – a powerful armada of unbeatable power, long since put into mothballs by the sentinels whose job it is to keep peace and harmony in the ever expanding universe.
Sadly for Black, complications arise. It seems Anneke Longshadow isn’t dead after all. Every bit his match, Anneke eludes the traps Black sets for her. Born on Normansk, a planet with 1.9 gravity, Anneke is more than capable of defending herself against Black’s hired help, the insectoid Envoy, and his professional mercenary and hitman, Kilroy.
Power-hungry, Black usurps the throne of Quesada, a powerful crime syndicate. His ultimate aim is to replace the Galaxy gate-keepers, RIM, with his own organisation. Matching him step by step, Anneke collects as her allies all those who Maximus has deposed in his march to becoming ruler of the universe.
Paul Collins
Melbourne June 2011
Mole Hunt – Book #1 in The Maximus Black Files by Paul Collins and published by Ford Street Publishing
RRP $19.95
Available at all good bookshops
