Why I Wrote... Funny Money

By John A. Hopkins

Receiving my paperback copy of Atomic Secrets, my first AH novel, was a thrill. Whilst I had previously self-published a novel, this felt a bit different. Perhaps it was the engagement with the team at Sea Lion Press, the cover coming together, and a date for publishing versus me pressing the button on KDP. Whatever the reason, I opened the package and grinned like an idiot. Then I put it away – I had already read it hundreds of times, either all the way through during the edit, or as bits and pieces as I wrote. Back to ‘work’ – the (difficult?) second album.

I always planned to write a series based around the lead, David Brook, a British agent living and working in an alternate post-war/cold war world in the late 40s and beyond. I had settled on my style – alt-history/espionage/techno thriller – Fatherland meets Craig Thomas. A few people had mentioned Atomic Secrets turned into a bit of police procedural, and someone suggested I bring back the two female protagonists – alas not in this book, but maybe in the future.

Part of the reason I had wanted to create a series was because I enjoyed the world building aspect. I think this is especially true in genres like alternate history and sci-fi. Don’t get me wrong, I love contemporary books and read loads of them, but I suppose for me part of the fun is imagining the setting as well as the characters. And my love of 80s/90s technothriller is in part because of the imagined, near future tech – I’m thinking of Clancy’s F-19 in Red Storm Rising, the Red October, and Craig Thomas’s Firefox.

Getting started on the second book was almost easier because some of the world building was already done – I had my Point of Divergence, a different WW2. This is alluded to in Atomic Secrets and in a bit more, but not much, detail in Funny Money. AH purists would no doubt find a plenty of holes, but I am writing a novel not a timeline. Another reason for not getting into too much detail about the PoD ‘how’ is to give me options in the future. Atomic Secrets was largely set in Dresden, so the focus was Europe – there are hints as to the state of the world, but only hints.

The other key element settled is my lead, David Brook, a Battle of Britain veteran turned spy. He isn’t superman – he had lots of help in Atomic Secrets and has arguable more in Funny Money. For his second appearance, I decided Brook would travel further afield. Whilst I had ideas about how the world might look, I was going to have to be a bit more careful – anything I wrote now was set in stone (at least for my world), as was anything I had already written.

Where was I going to send Brook? I dug into my research notes – a mass of one-line and one paragraph ideas, snippets of articles, news stories and anything else I thought might be of interest. Then it was a case of trying to put some of them together to form a plot. The central premise of Funny Money, like Atomic Secrets, is loosely based on real history. Operation Bernhard was a Nazi plan to forge British banknotes and flood the country with counterfeit money, crippling the economy. The other key element came from an event in the news at the time – I will leave it there as it is a bit of a spoiler.

This modified Operation Bernhard sends Brook to the main location in Funny Money – instead of Britain being the target, it’s Egypt. There are a few reasons for that (explained in hopefully not too much detail), but it’s mainly so Brook isn’t in England. The location means decisions have to be made about the world – specifically the Middle East. Once again one key tenet was to ensure I do not glorify the Nazis, and I hope I managed to stick to this. However, with far less US influence in Europe in this world and no OTL Soviet Union, the Nazis are sure to have stepped into the vacuum and created their own sphere of influence.

And this is where things got a bit harder. My Point of Divergence, the timings of the end of the ATL European War, and the circumstances of it led to certain options. However, whatever choices I made now I was stuck with – I could not have, say, Iran as a Nazi partner today and a friend of Britain in my next book (no spoilers), so to an extent the world building became a bit more complex. I am not hugely political, but I had to think more widely, and this is where the AH community comes into its own – there are lots of timelines on alternate outcomes of WW2, but the conversations are full of views, some expert some… less so. It’s a tremendous way to play out ideas and come up with something that at least does not contradict itself.

Given the feedback I received, I was keen to try to make this more of an espionage thriller – think a poor man’s/woman’s Fleming, le Carre, and Deighton – with a bit of technothriller thrown in. This is probably more a stylistic approach than anything, and once again alternate history offered a broad palette for playing with tech – maybe not as broad as sci-fi, but still wide, and with the advantage of getting ideas from what really happened in the 50s.

As with Atomic Secrets, the broad outline evolved as I wrote. We learn a bit more about the direction of US politics and attitudes, and the Pacific War. There is also mention of the Nazis ongoing war in the east (although not much detail), and the evolving Anglo-Nazi Cold War, similar to the US and USSR Cold War in OTL – proxy fights help avoid full-scale confrontation. A new Royal Navy aircraft carrier makes an appearance – again inspired by a news story about real ones just in services.

It was only when I finished, I realised I had indeed made a ‘mistake’ and written in something that conflicted with Atomic Secrets. I now have a series of notes – the ‘Brook World Canon’ – on what I have written in the first two books, so I don’t accidentally move the Soviet capital or change the name of the US president. I think I stuck to the plan in terms of focusing on the espionage aspects, and hopefully Brook is growing into a becoming a more rounded character.

As I said, I was always going to write a follow-up to Atomic Secrets. Was writing Funny Money harder? Was it the difficult second album? For me, I would say probably not, for the reasons outlined above. The tyranny of the blank page (or Word document) was largely absent. I had a world, a lead, and the main premise. It was a case of sifting through my other research and tying the ideas together. I certainly enjoyed writing Funny Money, and I hope people enjoy reading it.

Next? Well, I have promised David Brook will return in the author’s note, and this is the case. The final draft of book three is done, and it is currently being proofread. I expect a few edits, but I am happy with the story. Without giving too much away, Brook is fighting the Nazis, but not directly, with a backdrop of the bleak conflict in the East, and once again the Middle East.

I am already thinking about book four. Whilst there is plenty for a British Intelligence operative to do in Europe, I am considering taking Brook further afield. The US and/or the Caribbean are one option – I recently read a book about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and it struck me that pre-Castro Cuba might be a place that would interest Berlin. If people have suggestions of where they would like to see Brook, let me know.

Funny Money is available from Amazon and Smashwords now.

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