Indies 2015 BOOK AWARD WINNER, HORROR

Born from humanity - destined to destroy it

Allegory-laden horror-satire in which Stanley, one of the 'ordinary', is so evil his touch alone freezes girls' minds with fear; caught up in porn, in their teens, he captures and keeps them as trophies.

While, the 'ordinary' feed from humanity's rot intent on bringing about the next phase for the human race.

Amid this dark descent humanity's fight for survival, as with retired policeman Rob, his son Jez and girlfriend Maria, seems doomed by its own dark, arrogant dehumanising of women.

FLUX magazine interview, July 10 2015: "Christopher Ritchie has marked himself out as a rising star in fiction.

The ordinary, plugs straight into the zeitgeist. Indeed, with the main theme being the viral spreading of fear via the media in a world where pornography has become commonplace, it's not all that far-fetched for a horror story." "I find the real horror is there for all to see," Ritchie says. "The news now compared to five or 10 years ago is really so much more aggressive and depressing. We're fed large helpings of gruesome discovery every day and that's just not good for the mind."

"That's primarily what The ordinary is about, dressed up in horror-satire as a man takes on a crusade to punish girls who willingly go into porn.

My story sets up a reality not so unlike ours, where porn is becoming more acceptable and it's driving a really seedy industry where on the fringes we're seeing human trafficking, effectively sex slavery, girls being lost to the world, hooked on hard drugs... to me that's just so awful and, troublingly, so likely.

Ritchie describes it as a virus and reckons it's spreading worryingly fast. "It is! You've got 10-year-olds with smart phones exchanging this stuff in playgrounds. They're growing up with this mass exposure to what is essentially dehumanising women, making sex something dark rather than enjoyable, and they're indirectly feeding an industry which is purely and simply exploitative. I'm fascinated but absolutely disgusted by that world.

There is some light in the darkness though. The ordinary is an allegory-laden satire, with impressive character development, twists, and a hefty dose of black comedy."