As a result, London has received an outpouring of fan mail from young people seeking advice. London also pushes cultural boundaries: Proxy and Guardian's main character, Syd, is gay, which makes him unusual as the star of a science fiction series geared for young adults. Proxy explores what would happen if wealthy transgressors rigged a system of debt and credit to avoid punishment for their crimes and instead made the poor (known as proxies) receive the punishment instead. Like any good science fiction writer, London seeks to push boundaries. Alexander London, he continues to write for middle-grade readers about real-life war experiences and fantastical adventures involving squids and dragons. But as Charles London, he's published adult non-fiction about war and the survival of beleaguered Jewish communities around the world. Proxy and Guardian, which are aimed at young adults, bear the name Alex London.

For one thing, he writes under three names. London himself is brimming with possibility.

The marketing department also shies away from the science fiction tag, fearing it's too narrow.

'They call it a 'futuristic thriller,'' London says. dystopia is not some kind of fantasy but the day-to-day reality of how they are living,' he tells me.Īlthough the books portray a dark future, the publisher avoids the word 'dystopia' in its marketing of Proxy and Guardian. 'For a lot of children all over the world caught up in wars and poverty and natural disaster. The sequel, Guardian, is set in a crumbling Detroit exponentially more decrepit than the Motor City of today.Īs London explains, the horrors of the Valve are his 'futuristic re-imagining' of slums outside of Nairobi, which he witnessed while researching one of his non-fiction books, One Day the Soldiers Came, about children affected by armed conflict. A significant portion of Proxy takes place in a city where the poorest citizens dwell in a violent shantytown known as the Valve while the wealthy thrive in well-guarded neighborhoods of private speedways, luxury homes, and high-tech toys. London's novels about class conflict, debt, and rebellion are set in a grim future. I found it liberating to be unchained from an Internet connection, which has been known to fail mid-conversation, but the price of having a barista nearby is boisterous background noise. Rather than record the conversation with author Alex London over Skype, I decided to take the subway to Brooklyn and meet with him face-to-face in a coffee shop.

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