From 1961 to now

America and Russia are desperate to know what each other is up to. The UK is caught between both, wondering if it should throw its lot in with either of them. Or with Europe. Or try to go it alone with no allies and a crippled economy. And all over the world privacy is being eroded by technology that can secretly gather more data on every member of the public than ever before.

Sound familiar?

History doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme, just like Margaret Atwood said. And there was a lot going on in 1961 that feels similar to what’s happening right now.

As the warm post-war delirium of the early ‘50s started to cool, the world became a very interesting place. New nations, ideologies and technologies were being born, but alongside the optimism some felt was a growing sense of paranoia. Economies and governments were teetering on the brink, and nuclear apocalypse was a constant, terrifying possibility.

RED CORONA could have been written about today. It’s a very modern story that explores the dark side of information and how people turn knowledge into dangerous power. But I didn’t want to make readers sit through three-hundred pages of people staring at spreadsheets and Facebook advertising metrics.

So, I stepped back into recent history, to the birth of the era of surveillance and data mining we live in now, when the Cold War had turned into a space race, and lots of players were making their first moves in the long game were all still caught up in.

Hopefully by discovering a fascinating and pivotal moment in the past, readers will be entertained and provoked to think differently about the present, and the future.