Muta is available in paperback or for 99p in Kindle format from Amazon.
Muta, one of a discontinued line of clones based on a dead Hollywood star, is assigned as a companion to scientist Wade Newman.
So begins a love-hate relationship in which Muta is used as an experimental guinea pig by Newman and his troubled AI partner Keyland.
What starts out as a quest to help Keyland ends with Newman questioning his own reality. In the shadow of a corporate conspiracy, Muta appears to be the only one Newman can trust. But is she really as innocent as she appears?
Welcome to a post-pandemic world of androids, robots, clones, AI and virtual reality.
Welcome to the future.
The Story
Earth has been devastated by a pandemic virus which kills off 80% of the population. Human cloning is seen as the solution to labour shortages when the use of androids is curtailed. Many androids leave Earth and the ones that remain have to be clearly identified as androids by having an ‘A’ on their sleeves.
As well as clone workers there are ‘recreational’ clones of pop stars, actors and sports stars used by the rich and corporations as playthings. Muta is a clone of a dead Hollywood film star (imagine Megan Fox perhaps) who is living with a scientist as a ‘companion’.
In other words Muta is a ‘sex slave’, but the scientist in question isn’t interested in her and at first finds her more of a nuisance than anything. The scientist tries to help a friend by travelling from LA to Ireland in pursuit on some historical evidence to prove the friend’s origins. Meanwhile, back in the USA someone is murdering clones.
Writing Muta
I have to say that I enjoy writing sci-fi more than any other genre. After the experiment with Broken I needed to get back to safer territory where I wasn’t bounded by constraints of this reality quite so much. Okay I have to make it ‘real’ within the confines of the world on the pages, but I’m making the world up as I go along, so it’s a lot more fun.
That said I was working within a certain framework that could potentially lead on to the world of The Music after an unspecified amount of time. Yes, Muta is a distant prequel to The Music, but shares no characters with my 2009 debut.
In The Music human cloning is banned. So, just for a laugh, why not write a book set before the ban? The main influence for this one was (once again) Philip K Dick although I’ve been very careful not to ‘steal’ anything from any of the twenty or so novels of his that I have read so far. There’s a pinch of Asimov, a dash of Kafka, a dash of Nabokov (no honest), a nod to Aldous Huxley, not so much William Gibson this time around, and of course every film I watched between finishing the The Music and writing Muta.
However I wanted this to be a ‘book’ book not a ‘film’ book (anyone who has read the book I am Number 4 will understand what I mean). Also on reflection I guess there’s some X-Files and Dr Who bleeding through there too.
Cover Image: (c) Jose AS Reyes from Shutterstock Image 33818908. Duly paid for. Eye colour changed to imply a mutation.
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