I’m GJ Scobie, a writer who lives and works in cyber security. I have a particular interest in how technology impacts on our everyday lives and how it may evolve in future. My occupation provides ample inspiration for my writing, whether it is contemporary cyber thrillers or speculative science fiction.
I self-published my debut future cyber thriller in February 2022, The Copernicus Coercion, the first in a series featuring body hackers, the manipulation of computer networks via internet-connected implants and rogue Artificial Intelligence. A second novel, The Kill Chain, a contemporary cybercrime thriller published by Darkstroke in July 2022 became an Amazon best seller.
I have managed to find a balance between writing science fiction to speculate where computers may take us, and contemporary cybercrime thrillers rooted firmly around the technology we currently have at our disposal. I find this allows me to work within the confines of what is possible today and project forward to a point in the future where life and computing will be different.
The Copernicus Coercion features a celebrity body hacker Kathryn K, who becomes a government target after being accused of killing three partners by hacking their medical implants. My book was inspired while attending a cyber security conference, which featured research into the hacking of networked connected pacemakers and insulin pumps. I took the idea to its logical conclusion and imagined a world where the ability to carry out such attacks is achieved by individuals with the necessary computer hardware implanted inside themselves. The Copernicus Coercion is set in a future where implant technology is common. This novel is a glimpse into a not-so-distant future. We are connecting anything that could be controlled via a computer to the Internet. The development of smart homes and smart cities is well underway. The next logical step is to move computer processing within our bodies. Some of this work is being carried out for sound medical purposes and exists today. Other research in this area is being carried out for potentially dubious purposes. My novel depicts a world that is not slick or glamorous, but hard and pressurised, with those heavily involved beginning to realize humans are not ready to live on-line twenty-four by seven. This novel explores what it means to be human in such an environment and the need to control technology before it takes over.
My science fiction short stories are published under the title of
Small Print and are my take on different aspects of a dystopian future. These tend to imagine technology much as it is today; imperfect and doesn’t always work the way you would like it to.
Sequels to both The Copernicus Coercion and The Kill Chain are in progress and I hope to see them published later this year.
