Criminal blog tour: Guest Post from KB Hoyle

August 19, 2016 Anni Giveaways, Special Feature 0

Welcome to Tea in the Treetops’ stop on the Criminal blog tour!

You can read my review of Criminal in my post from yesterday, but today, I’m pleased to welcome author, KB Hoyle, to the blog!

What was the inspiration behind the UWO and the girls being locked up as breeders?

My inspiration for the UWO (The Unified World Order) came from the typical Dystopian idea that there should be a one-world government of some sort. This is a recurring element in Dystopian literature for a reason, and I think it’s because humans are inherently afraid—or at least leery—of being controlled by one overbearing force that demands conformity to a particular pattern of living. Where I found my inspiration for the particulars of the Unified World Order were initially in an online article describing certain elements of people belonging to certain radical movements, and then I expanded my research out from there. (I don’t want to get too specific here because I don’t want to color anyone’s reading of my story. I’d rather readers are able to come to it without too many preconceptions.)

As to the Breeders and the idea for the Breeding facilities, I don’t mind saying that one of my main decisions was to take aim at the idea that humanity can be engineered to perfection. In a one-world government system like the UWO, it made sense that people would have come to believe in the future that only certain genetics are acceptable, ergo carriers of those genes should be separated from society, locked away, and carefully monitored and controlled. For my main character, Pria, to break away from that control, then, means that she becomes an inherent threat to the very fabric of society. That’s why she’s a Criminal.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

There are several messages, really, in Criminal, that I want my readers to grasp, but as an author, I never want the message to overtake the primary function of the novel—which is to entertain the reader. So obviously first and foremost, I want to just tell a good story, and for my reader to be carried along by the story and to have a good time reading it. As far as the message/messages go, I’d say the primary one in Criminal has to do with identity. I sought to answer the question of what makes us human? The main character, Pria, is faced with this question over and over in the story, even to the point where, by the end, her entire reality is shaken by some presuppositions she has about this question. Pria has to discover her personal identity, but she also has to figure out what she believes about the identity of others, and what that means about the human race and her part in the rebellion against the Unified World Order. These are big issues, and things I think we should all think about, even though we’re not living in a dystopian society.

How much of the book is realistic?

I’d say this book is about 50% realistic. Obviously all the characters and the plot are fictionalized (and the concept of the Golems), but I base my settings and my conceptions of the future society off research I did into real technologies, conspiracy theories, my own knowledge of Denver and its surrounding areas, and just basic knowledge of human nature and my thoughts on future trends in society. I could see some of the sorts of things I write about coming to pass. Actually, some of the things I have written about in my books have come to pass already in the years since I started researching them. It’s a little frightening.

About the Author

K. B. Hoyle is an author, public speaker, creative writing instructor, and classical history teacher who uses her knowledge of the ancient and medieval worlds to pen speculative fiction for readers of all ages. She and her husband stay busy at their Alabama home with their four young sons. She is a Readers’ Favorite 5-Star reviewed author, a multiple recipient of the Literary Classics Seal of Approval, the winner of the Gold Book Award for YA Series (2016) for The Gateway Chronicles, her best-selling six-book Fantasy series, and the Silver Book Award winner for YA Science Fiction (2015) for BREEDER, the first book in her Dystopian Trilogy, The Breeder Cycle. She was a featured panel speaker at the 2013 Sydney Writers Festival in Sydney, Australia, and her books receive high acclaim from readers and reviewers worldwide.