Mark Alpert's "The Coming Storm"

Mark Alpert is an internationally bestselling author of science thrillers. His first novel, Final Theory (2008), was published in 24 languages and optioned for film. He says his latest thriller, The Coming Storm, is a cautionary tale that President Trump will probably savage on Twitter.

Here Alpert dreamcasts an adaptation of the new novel:

My latest science thriller, The Coming Storm, is set in a dystopian near-future in which global warming has swamped New York City and a brutal White House has forced immigrants and the poor into the flooded detention zones. The novel’s heroine, Jenna Khan, is a brilliant geneticist who quits her laboratory after the government uses her genetic-engineering research for its ruthless campaign of repression.

Jenna is a Muslim woman in her thirties, a daughter of Pakistani immigrants. A good actress to portray her would Sofia Boutella, who appeared in Atomic Blonde and Star Trek Beyond. Boutella has done plenty of physically demanding roles, and that talent would definitely come in handy for playing Jenna, who has to race across Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens to stay ahead of the militarized federal police.

Jenna’s companion at the start of the novel is Derek Powell, a former soldier victimized by the government’s experiments. He’s an ambiguous character, part hero and part villain, so my choice for this role would be Michael B. Jordan, the hero of Creed and the villain of Black Panther.

A more purely villainous character in the book is Lieutenant Rick Frazier, who is a queasy combination of badass and psychopath. I see someone like Chris Hemsworth in the role, assuming the Thor actor is willing to venture into darker places.

Last but not least is the character of the U.S. president, who roughly resembles the current occupant of the office but is even farther gone. (Which is hard to imagine, right?) It would be wonderful if the director of The Coming Storm movie could find a real politician to play the role. Maybe it could be arranged as part of a community-service sentence, a plea deal negotiated between the Special Counsel and the indicted co-conspirators? We shall wait and see.