Supernice came true!

Posted on by inkbiotic

train sign saying wear a face covering

So I wrote this book Supernice about an alien invasion. The aliens create a dystopia of oppressive new rules and terrible consequences for breaking them. In response, the government replace advertising hoardings with posters that politely (and then not so politely) tell the public how to behave to avoid trouble. Following are some quotes from the book. (And the book can be acquired for a dollar, to your right, if you fancy)

Advert hoarding for a charity. Says Be more us. Let's talk more.
There aren’t many adverts for products left in London stations. Instead there are adverts for charities.

At first the messages seemed friendly:

Advertising hoardings stretched along the seafront. Usually they were filled with adverts for phones or cars, but now the adverts were in pastel shades of purple and pink, with butterflies and smiling faces. In large letters the messages were simple:

SHOW LOVE, NOT HATE

PSST, YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL, PASS IT ON

But even then, Natasha was suspicious and happy to see signs of rebellion:

As she headed back home, Natasha passed a hundred more pink posters in bus stops and stuck to lampposts. Some had already been defaced.

KINDNESS SPREADS was graffitied with DESTROY!

And LOVE UNITES US in purple, with FUK DA ALIENS in angular black writing over the top. Natasha had never liked graffiti – she always thought it made a place look messy – but this was righteous.

And finally as the oppression became more extreme and the pretense ended:

The main road had changed again. Instead of advertising hoardings with hippy messages, now there were screens, each showing an order.

POLITENESS IS NECESSITY and SHOW RESPECT and DON’T BECOME ONE OF THE TAKEN.

I wanted to create an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty, but one in which people needed to find a way to not only survive, but to still laugh, still connect, still keep going. And of course they wanted to dupe the aliens and escape too.

Well now I’m back at work, I’ve discovered that is exactly what London has become. Lots of instructions with cute pictures, saying Cover your face, Keep your distance, Don’t travel unless you have to. It’s all considerate messages for our own safety, but the atmosphere is still intense. With half our faces covered, people are more suspicious of each other, and anyone could be a virus carrier. But we still need to laugh, connect and keep going. Luckily we don’t need to worry about the alien bit. Yet.

Sign in London station says Please keep your distance

30 thoughts on “Supernice came true!”

  3. I don’t live in such a crowded place, but I can imagine myself wanting to practice some belly dance moves in a queue to keep my muscles moving, which might be considered too weird.

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      4. Sounds lovely! I hope you do it. If you need any advice from someone who doesn’t really understand what they’re doing, but muddles through ok, then let me know.

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      7. I had a look via Amazon at your three books and they are fiction, very good fiction, but fiction all the same and I’m not really into fiction. I know where to look if I start and I like you as a person so that has to count for sommat, dunnit? 💐

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      8. Well, they say fiction, but when the aliens land and the walls start eating people, you’ll know where to look 😉

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    1. Ah, is that what it would take to get you to read it? 😀 The tricky bit is the cover, I’ll see if I can figure it out this weekend. I can send you other files if that helps, a word doc or PDF?

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    1. Well that’s the nicest accusation I’ve ever had, thank you 😀 I couldn’t steal your time-wizarding abilities. But then, did you ever watch the series 4400? There were characters with various odd powers on it. One of them was a bad film maker, but his films showed the TRUTH about an evil power corrupting the world. Maybe that’s my super power (I mean, we all have one, right?)

      I think he got killed by the evil, power in the end though 😦

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      1. No! I’ve never seen that. I’ll have to check it out. I do love meta fiction though like Stranger Than Fiction where fictional characters figure out some truth in or about the real world. It’s like this whole other level of thought that makes me wonder if we’re just in layer of the pie like there’s some OTHER reality above this. I almost said crazier, but *gestures at everything*

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      2. Yep, somewhere is another layer where Michelle Obama is in power in US, Stephen Hawking hasn’t died but become part of the Internet and is using it to overthrow the billionaires, and the virus gave everyone superpowers. If only we could get there.

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