The future is a popular place for writers to set their stories because in the future anything can happen and that is a brilliant starting point for them to unleash their imaginations.
In The Hunted, Alex Shearer depicts a future that could be just around the corner. Shearer's imagined world could well be the next step that we take, and it's a very frightening step.
Think of a world where people live to be over 150 years old and never suffer any illness or disease. There are only two major killers in the world now: accidents and the body's final collapse when the vital organs cease to function.
It all began with gradual improvements in medicine and then, one by one, all human killer diseases were eliminated. An anti-ageing pill was invented and people stopped growing old at around the age of 40. Now, on the surface, no one gets any older than what had been known as middle-age, but the years do still tick by and death does eventually come.
The human race has, however, had to pay a price for this healthy new world. Human beings are no longer as fertile as they used to be and very few children are born.
When something is in short supply, its value sky-rockets and this is how things are with children. The younger the child is, the more it is worth. Buying and selling children has become a lucrative market and when the mega-rich buy themselves a child, they protect it at all costs because it is the most valuable thing in their possession.
Unable to have children of their own, the nearest most people get to being a parent is to rent a child for a day. This is how the unscrupulous Deet earns his living. Some time ago, he won a child in a card game and now he rents out this valuable commodity to childless couples. Deet's child is a young boy called Tarrin.