“CHINA GIRL” SPINS TALE OF A FAR-RIGHT DYSTOPIA

"A fascinating, action-packed adventure...explores the dangerous ramifications of persecution and marginalization through a wide variety of well-rounded, thought-provoking characters. This work will have every reader taking a step back to consider the far-reaching implications of our current political, cultural, and national climate." -Manhattan Book Review

New Thriller Asks “What If?” in AN Explosive Read

NEVER AGAIN. A fascist administration rounds up undesirables. Terrorist groups strike governmental and religious targets. The Constitution is under assault. Erec Stebbins’s China Girl is a controversial look at an America that is all too close to reality, radioactive in its timely examination of extremism in the nation.

"STEBBINS IS THE MASTER OF THE THINKING READER'S TECHNO THRILLER"

—Internet Review of Books

Imagine an America where fascism was ascendant, competent, and disciplined. Where the Democratic Party succumbed to internal divisions and badly lost all branches of government. Where the most extreme policies of the Far Right were implemented with little opposition across the nation. Mix in the extreme action and unusual plots for which the author is known.

“A monster new talent in the thriller genre”

—author Allan Leverone

This is the dystopian world of China Girl. It’s a contemporary thriller that asks a controversial "what if?" The plot immerses a diverse and unusual cast of characters into a nightmarish scenario. When the government goes rogue and commits atrocities, who is the terrorist and who the hero?

China Girl is a political techno-thriller with international and crime elements, topical to the developing American political crisis, touching on biotechnology, anti-democratic movements, and the rights of marginalized groups (especially immigrants) in Western societies. It picks up four years after the election of white nationalist and demagogue Daniel Suite. Deep State operatives and domestic terrorists battle to thwart an increasingly genocidal regime hell-bent on “white-washing” America through ethnic cleansing by any means necessary.

“Powerhouse of action and confrontation...almost impossible to put down. China Girl represents a powerful extrapolation of current-day events and near future scenarios. Highly recommended for thriller readers with strong stomachs, an interest in moral and ethical discussions beyond simple action, and a special appreciation for stories rooted in social and political change.” -Midwest Book Review

from the author

My thrillers are based on contemporary events, conflicts, and particularly the moral and ethical quagmires arising in the modern geopolitical landscape. In previous books, I've tackled issues of how civil societies respond to terrorism, the fragility of the digital infrastructure undergirding modern societies, the threats of biological weapons, and the struggle of developed nations to live up to their purported creeds and commitments to equality, fairness, and decency. I'm inspired to ground the action and my characters in these critical conflicts.

There is no hiding what this thriller is actually about. I don't shy away from an imaginary world that reflects an extreme version and direction of our own. CHINA GIRL sets the scene with a particular conceit drawn from certain interpretations of contemporary events: what would happen if a true autocrat came to power, one that possessed the charisma and competency to wrest control of the government, unhinge the checks and balances of the US Constitution, and moved to implement the age-old strategy of demagogues seeking power, namely Orwellian propaganda, societal division into desired and undesirable groups, with the demonization of the latter central to accruing power through fear of "the other," thereby convincing enough in the nation to jettison decency and previous norms. How would our heroes in INTEL 1 respond? When the government goes rogue and commits atrocities, who is the terrorist and who the hero?

This scenario, while extreme, is hardly a stretch for America. The nation was built upon the genocide of an entire continent. Even as the hallowed Founders were writing the near-worshipped documents enshrining freedom and governance, they were enabling the enslavement of tens of millions of human beings, etching that dehumanization into the Constitution itself, many profiting from that most complete abuse of power and insult to the idea of freedom. From a century of KKK terrorism, apartheid laws, the disenfranchisement of 50% of the population until (white) women won the vote 100 years ago, discrimination by race, nationality, gender, and religion, the nation has both acted upon the most monstrous of human instincts and slowly, painfully, haltingly struggled to raise itself to match the profound statements of rights in the governing documents.

Therefore, as a nation, we've been there. Done that. And we could do it again all too easily. History smirks at any doubters.

In the face of many abuses of power and the assault on the rights of minorities, as politicians brazenly spew vile, racist slander and enact discriminatory laws, the reactions of the people show just how vulnerable America is to a totalitarian seizure of power. "How did the Germans allow it to happen?" How did the Rwandans? Or the Turks? Or the colonists that systemically erased the indigenous populations in the Americas? When we see seemingly decent and normal people excuse, justify, defend, or otherwise turn their eyes from violations of human rights and decency, when a nation slowly allows itself to be transformed into a caricature of what it espouses, their mental gymnastics aided by vast propaganda outlets, the ever present siren call of fear, and the arrogance of racial religious, and cultural superiority, it is only too clear just how much on the knife's edge we stand.

China Girl is my personal response to this growing crisis. While I can vote, debate, even march or protest, my unique contribution has been and is in what I can produce with my own hands. In my daily work as a scientist, I try to find ways to make the world better by adding knowledge and working toward therapies. As a writer, I am inspired to address what appear to me to be the great moral quandaries of this age.

Unfortunately, everything is polarized, so that calls to decency and warnings of societal madness are viewed through political lenses. And so America limps along, blinded and increasingly numb, dangerously close to toppling over the cliff into utter ruin. With the power of nuclear weapons, the planet's largest economy and military, and the ability to stop any effort to reverse the coming climate catastrophe, America's fall will be the world's as well.