Today I’m excited to introduce a guest post on exploring the ideals behind changing the world using fiction in Shannon Knight’s paranormal sci-fi dystopia, Death Rights.
Let’s get right into it:
I wanted to write about changing the world. I wanted to show the kind of social change that comes through laws, peaceful protests, and the will of the people. Except I write action-adventure stories, and these sorts of movements are slow and full of stagnant periods and even sweeping defeats. Yet, look at how we teach history, pinpointing dramatic turns. We’ll say that President Lincoln or the American Civil War freed the enslaved, as if on a single day freedom dropped from the sky. Someone might hedge that news of freedom took time to disperse, but more than news was needed. Laws and the enforcement of laws are two separate steps. Regarding freedom for Black Americans, Juneteenth offers further explanation, and Jim Crow laws expand the idea into something else entirely. (For those outside of the US or those needing a refresher, the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the enslaved, was issued by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863. Juneteenth celebrates legal freedom reaching the enslaved across the South on June 19, 1865, two-and-a-half years later. The Jim Crow laws allowed segregation and legal discrimination until the late 1960s, more than one-hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation.) Nevertheless, we all agree that ending enslavement in 1863 was a tremendous, positive change to the United States.
Fiction, especially thrilling adventures, need definitive turning points. Readers watch for that climactic win—for the feeling of triumph. How could I tell a story, a middle book at that, full of excitement, but also reflecting a social reality we can believe in? Death Rights is set in a military autocracy in future Portland, Oregon. After genetic mutations and modifications have become rife, the government allows all sorts of scientific experimentations. Grave Cold, the first book in the Grave Chronicles series, focuses on cemeteries and laboratories as readers learn how the District of Portland is using the dead as an energy source. The natural continuation of the story is for our heroes to face off against the government that has permitted this abuse of the dead, and they do! However, I like to deliver something really new to readers with each book, and a series promises a certain level of continuity, so I balanced that with my desire to write about changing the world. Therefore, Death Rights moves away from the cemeteries and laboratories. Civil rights take the forefront of the plot, but medical research remains a driving point, as well.
Reader feedback has focused on character motivations and questioning the usefulness of laws, nationally or internationally, without a means of firm enforcement. These are precisely the types of questions I wanted readers to linger on. If you look around yourself right now, you’ll see the same problems in our reality. Do we have equal civil rights? If a minority group is attacked or undermined, do the existence of protective laws work in their favor? When a minority, rather than a majority, holds power, does that change the situation? Similarly, Death Rights asks readers to consider which people methods of social change are directed at. Is the point of national protests really to change the mind of the national leader? Consider the true dispersement of power. Consider the ripple effect of protests across the various social classes, and how social opinion affects people in different positions. Current events offer many examples of the interconnectivity of civil rights, legal changes, social outrage, and economic impact.
How did I manage to show the world-change that I wanted with the dramatic turning point and the realistic setbacks? I took advantage of that middle-book status. Death Rights is fast-paced and dramatic. The final book in the trilogy, which releases later this summer, jumps forward in time, delivering that distant, historical perspective to the choices made in Death Rights. I dedicate Death Rights to everyone who has ever wanted to change the world. Change can be explosively exciting, or it can be slow and full of setbacks. Nevertheless, let’s all do our best to make this world a place where people can flourish and be happy.
Find Your Copies!
Interested in learning more about the Grave Chronicles series? Find them both here:
- Grave Cold (Grave Chronicles #1) https://books2read.com/GraveCold
- Death Rights (Grave Chronicles #2) https://books2read.com/DeathRights
You can also get your hands on a copy of Death Rights on Library Thing through May!
About the Author
Shannon Knight lives in the Pacific Northwest with her most excellent cat. Their adventurous lives include coffee, reading, ribbon games, and K-dramas. Shannon graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s in English. She is the author of Death Rights, Domestication, Grave Cold, Insiders, and Wish Givers. Sign up for her newsletter at https://shannonknight.net/.
- Website: ShannonKnight.net
- Bluesky: @shannonknight.bsky.social
- Goodreads
