Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

Hello,

I do not want to just post a blurb and a link for my book; I would really like to discuss some of the themes that ‘Eugenica’ covers, even if you have not yet read it. To begin, let me tell you something about it.

Eugenica is based upon the premise ‘what if eugenics had become a policy of the British government at the beginning of the 1930’s. This is not a particularly wild idea, many commentators expected Britain to adopt eugenics just as America, Canada, and Germany had or were about to. In fact it was quite a surprise that the country that was home to the (then) modern science of eugenics never adopted it into its health and social policies. There was plenty of reasons to support this opinion.

The book works in two parts. First, there is an international eugenics convention held on board the airship R102 as it flies a triangle from Britain to America to Germany and back to Britain again. The head of the newly created Ministry of Social Biology (MoSB), one Brinley Valentine Husher, hosts the convention and through this medium the ideas of both eugenics, summed up as ‘breeding good with good to get better’, and dysgenics, the negative policy of eradicating all those judged to be poor specimens of humanity are explored.

The second part of the book follows four young people who fall under the new eugenics laws and are taken into custody, allegedly for their better care and treatment, at an MoSB facility. There they learn the horrors of what is in store for them. This is not all doom and gloom, however, although admittedly quite harrowing in parts. Grace, Tom and their friends discover a secret war is being waged between two factions, one in favour of eugenics, one opposed. They become unwitting pawns in this struggle that sees them plunged into a dark adventure. Ultimately, it is an uplifting book that demonstrates how the human spirit can sometimes rise to become something quite noble.

Eugenica has proven to be a book that is difficult to get people interested in, but everyone who has read it and spoken to me has said how much they enjoyed it. It was a difficult book for me to write because some of the things that happen to Grace and Tom happened to me and I was not born in the 1930’s!

If you are interested in learning more about Eugneica then please either post a comment here or visit my website and have a look at the further information to be found there;

petercwhitaker.co.uk

Many thanks.

Peter Whitaker

In I discuss the merits of human experimentation, which is far more prevalent than some people realise.