Michelle Rodriguez weighed in on the subject of race with regards to superheroes, and in doing so contributed to an on-going discussion about race in fiction.

If you’re not familiar, then Idris Elba as a possible future James Bond, the hispanic Spider-Man, and the female Thor are prime examples of race — and also gender — becoming lost in a furore that needn’t be such.

As a disclaimer, I am not of a racial minority; being of Anglo-Saxon stock kind of greases the wheels of life for me, which I take great care to be aware of, to avoid that sense of entitlement, privilege, and of victimhood from creeping in, which is so prevalent in parts of Northern Europe.

No, we Caucasians are not under threat from a tidal wave of immigrants. If anything, we’re a danger to ourselves.

A few years ago, I would have known little of the on-going superhero-of-colour debate (I’m not much into DC or Marvel comics), but I did understand — or at least, was aware — that there weren’t many minority superheroes, and that even fewer of them were British.

So I wrote A Darkening of Fortune, a near-future sci-fi crime thriller, to address both of these issues. But more important was the need to address some of the aspects of what it means to be British and Asian — or at least as to the best of my own abilities, observations, and vicarious experiences.

Let’s imagine for a moment A Darkening or Fortune becomes a huge success and I receive an offer of a cinematic adaptation. If during those discussions the movie studio was to propose changing Yusef “Joe” Iqbal to a white Caucasian, there the discussion would come to a grinding halt. End of story.

In between puzzling over action sequences and continuity, I decided to learn how to touch type, which has helped ease the physical pain of writing. And I’m learning Spanish, again!

Onwards…

In typical good spirits, the un-dead acclaimed actor laughed off his untimely demise. But the false report got me thinking, because it’s eerily similar to a story that influenced me some time ago, the one surrounding the equally untimely and entirely false report of George Clooney’s death during a motorcycle holiday around Italy.

Influence? Yes, the idea became a mechanism in my latest action thriller and hard science fiction novel A Darkening of Fortune, where the death of a footballer is used as lure to ensnare those unsuspecting souls and drag them into a social media honeypot of identity fraud.

A Darkening of Fortune is the first major novel by Wayne Smallman, author of psychological thriller Lucidity and post-apocalyptic thriller Earth Day.

Justice with extreme prejudice.

“A riot-torn London struggles under a rising tide of racially motivated violence that gradually sweeps up through Birmingham to the great northern cities of Leeds and finally Manchester.

Detective Constable Pooja Chopra — a feisty and gifted second generation British-born Indian — and Detective Sergeant Matthew Bray — a motivated, brash and cocky local lad with a chequered past — of the Criminal Investigation Department in Southwark in London, soon realise the violence might not be everything it appears to be.

Joe — Yusef Iqbal, of Arab-Jewish extraction, and a former competitive martial arts combatant — is on the verge of sealing a lucrative government defence contract that could change his life and the life of his girlfriend, Sarah, forever. But when his presentation to the military is overrun by rioters, Joe inadvertently finds himself in possession of an advanced military prototype, and the temptation to try it out is unimaginable.

Joe is no super hero, and he quickly realises he’s definitely not Ironman, Superman or Batman, when things don’t quite work out the way they do in the movies. As his exploits become more elaborate, Joe becomes the target of a determined Colonel Rooney — head of the prototype research program — who doggedly pursues him and the prototype across the fiery cityscape of a London deep in the grip of turmoil.

Are these riots really an outpouring of a disaffected, racially divided nation on the brink of socioeconomic collapse? Or is there something more sinister and deadly lurking behind the scenes?

In a frantic quest to make good of this one truly unique opportunity, spurred on by memories of his dead father — a vocal campaigner for peace in the Middle East — Joe forges on. He is determined to bring an end to the unrest, rising to a climactic conclusion in his native Manchester, amidst a backdrop of raging street battles and, in doing so, resurrects dark demons from his youth.

But what price must Joe and the nation pay for victory, justice and peace?”

A Darkening of Fortune is available NOW on Amazon

A Darkening of Fortune is available to buy right now for Amazon Kindle and Apple’s iBookstore.

As some may remember, I’ve already written a large novel, which came very easily. However, that really isn’t the same here.

Presently, I have a written plan of how the end of the novel must be re-written, and it’s a substantial task.

I’m hoping to have a final draft ready for my editor by the end of the week. But I won’t allow myself to be rushed with this, not with so much depending on this first novel.

“Worse things lurk in darkness and shadows than the evil of men.”