Interviewing SJ Groenewegen

Helloooo!

I reviewed recently the intriguing dystopian tale The Disinformation War by SJ Groenewegen a tale of  UK under the grip of a cruel ultra-right wing government with disturbing agendas (as if that could eveeerrrr happen)  and a small group of people who start to resists. I was delighted to get the chance to ask SJ some question on the novel.

How do you like to booktempt The Disinformation War?

For too long, the world has been gripped in a struggle between democracy and populist authoritarianism. The internet promised improved communication and greater access to information globally, but recently it has weaponised disinformation designed to destabilise democratic political systems—as imperfect as they are—and to dehumanise entire groups of people. Dehumanisation is one of the main steps on the path to genocide. Any lessons we may have learned from the twentieth century have been disregarded, and it’s easy to sink into despair at the incessant “culture wars”.

Ultimately a hopeful novel, The Disinformation War unfolds in a near future Britain where a government, in concert with private enterprise, is increasingly oppressing segments of its population. Through the actions of a few unlikely allies from a variety of backgrounds, the novel explores ways in which people can fight back.

The way the UK falls into dystopia here feels both terrifyingly subtle and plausible – how did you go about creating this world and also its weaknesses?

I “rage-wrote” what became the first draft of The Disinformation War during 2013. At that time I went to see an exhibition about Victorian poor laws and workhouses and it didn’t take much to re-envision them with modern surveillance technology. Then Prime Minister David Cameron made a few chilling statements about poverty and charity around that time, too, and my subconsciousness joined those ideas up. Back then, I was a civil servant. The various ways in which the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government was running set alarm bells ringing about lots of things, too many of which happened. If you recall, during the London Olympics in 2012 a private company with connections to senior government figures was contracted to handle security but pulled out and the army was drafted in at the last minute.

Later, when I was preparing the novel for publication with GoldSF, the news was full of stories about Conservative Party figures involved with various big money contracts that didn’t deliver—especially galling were those connected with PPE for medical workers during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. I drew on facets of all these examples and adapted them to my fictional government and private enterprises, and how they might play out. Importantly, each real-world example featured in-built flaws due to monumental incompetence born of arrogance.

We have characters on the receiving end and also the technically governmental end of the spectrum joining forces. What led to those types of characters?

Unusually for me, Kayla—the main point of view character—turned up fully formed in my subconsciousness back in 2013 and demanded her story be told. The original draft of the novel was written in the first person; elements of that survive in the published novel in extracts from her journal. While she is her own character, I was influenced by a few different people I know who lived through poverty in their youth during the 1970s and 1980s. They were furious about where the 21st century UK government was taking the economy and supportive welfare structures.

Libby the activist civil servant is a bit of an amalgamation of several people I used to work with—in terms of mannerisms and determination for justice. Of course, her actual character is entirely herself. A large part of my civil service career was devoted to improving diversity, equality and inclusion for LGBTQIA people, but in effect I worked across the Equality Act’s protected characteristics so I learned a lot from many colleagues in both public and private sectors. I was also an intelligence analyst for many years, which is Libby’s profession, albeit I worked in criminal justice rather than the military.

Derek Hallett, the career soldier and senior army officer, was inspired in part by several honourable straight white men who strove to do the right thing when confronted with injustice and who I had the good fortune to work with at times. They included senior police officers and military officers, not only in the UK. As with the others, Derek is wholly his own character.

Both Libby and Derek became points of view characters to provide different insights from Kayla’s, and also to show how dystopias affect different people at different stages. Further, an important element of The Disinformation War is to explore how to combat the slide into authoritarianism, and recognising that resistance can happen in different ways.

How do you that technology and resistance influence each other?

I am old enough to recall when the internet and social media were used to help social justice movements resist capitalism’s excesses. The rise of disinformation used as a weapon of war in the real-world is alarming. While it’s tempting to think of online disinformation as having a technological solution, it isn’t as simple as that. However, I am heartened by people finding creative ways to find each other and to organise resistance.

Which novels or non fiction pieces in this sub-genre have influenced your way of thinking on these subjects?

How long have you got? [laughter emoji] I’ve long been drawn to dystopian political science fiction like Orwell’s 1984, Attwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, numerous Vonda N. McIntyre short stories, etc., etc. Because I also read a lot of Ursula Le Guin, Nicola Griffith, Pat Cadigan, Kameron Hurley, and Justina Robson, and love television shows like Blake’s 7, the diversity of paths to resistance interest me, too.

As for non-fiction, I read a few books about the British army during the 21st century and their role in conflicts. That was to flesh out some of the experiences of the soldiers in the novel. I also read a few books about present politics in Russia (Masha Gessen’s The Future is History is excellent) and also revisited a few books about resistance movements (Tim Harper’s Underground Asia was fascinating).

What are you working on at the moment and where can we find out more in this weird world of social media?

Last year I was invited to a workshop at IdeaSquare at CERN in Geneva. A group of various people including SF authors like me put forward various scenarios to help the physicists think about applications of their work and also how to explain what they’re doing to the general public. The theme last year was “post-truth”. I’m presently working on the first of hopefully three loosely connected SF novels based on a few of the ideas I presented at the workshop.

I’m on Bluesky, Tumblr and Ko-fi, and can be contacted through my website: https://www.sjgroenewegen.co.uk

Which novel, not your own, would you like to get everyone to read and why?

Ooh, so many to choose from. I’ll go with Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory, which is up for a Hugo Award this year. I liked how the start lures you in with one type of novel and then it flips to something different, and yet is true to itself. It’s about realising that the world you grew up in isn’t what it seems, and that it’s imperative to fight back against the lies and violence.