All That Chazz: Your Brain Tickle Destination
Apocalyptic Epics and Killer Crime Thrillers by Robert Chazz Chute
AFTER was a medical miracle. Researchers weaponized it.
Deep in an underground vault, the weapon is waiting.
It wants out.
Thanks to everyone who downloaded their complimentary copy. If you dig it, please review it and enjoy Purgatory and Paradise!
Or enjoy the AFTER Life Omnibus in paperback.
Kindle Nation Daily’s Thriller of the Day is The Night Man, my novel about a man and his dog trying to make peace with the past in rural Michigan. Ernest “Easy” Jack just wants to be left alone to recover from his war injuries and train guard dogs. Complications ensue when his high school sweetheart shows up and his father is kidnapped. Pulled into a billionaire’s bomb plot, Easy will have to fight back hard.
Get your complimentary copy, available now for a limited time.
My wife, the venerable She Who Must Obeyed, works in the school system. Like all other rational people, we have some concerns. As a guy who has written about killer plagues and various apocalypses for a living, I’m rather focused as I watch my dire predictions come true. Rather than hash all that out with my many, many opinions, I have a suggestion: Listen to the latest episode of This American Life.
Hosted by Ira Glass, the podcast is always well-produced and thoughtful. This may be the best one yet. It’s called Long-awaited Asteroid Finally Hits Earth. Despite the ominous title, not all the news is bad (and it’s all interesting).
From an anti-mask demonstration by outraged parents to anxious teachers working the frontline of the pandemic, this is a thought-provoking story of how people are learning and coping. Students’ reactions to our new reality might leave you a little more hopeful as we tiptoe into the fall and whatever comes next.
Have a listen. You’ll be glad you did!
This American Life
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/715/long-awaited-asteroid-finally-hits-earth
As if mass casualties weren’t enough, 2020 just delivered another kick in the teeth. Chadwick Boseman, dead at 43 of colon cancer. His too-short career comprises much more than Black Panther, but for me, as a creator, a fan of the MCU and a comic book fan, his iconic role as T’Challah was so much more than the sum of its parts.
Hollywood underestimated the film’s saleability and impact, but Black Panther spoke to people. Wakanda is a utopian dream where everyone has dignity. Unlike the world we live in, powerful, intelligent women are not seen as a threat. Instead, they are respected. As many black people around the world have said, representation in a hugely successful franchise allowed them to feel seen for the first time.
Despite Wakanda’s monarchy, there is equality. This is best embodied in what could have been a throw-away scene in which Bruce Banner bows to the king. Chadwick Boseman delivers the line perfectly. “We don’t do that here.”
Imagine a world where someone holding power and authority asks anyone else not to bow. What a contrast to our current reality.
Wakanda forever.
Chadwick Boseman, Rest in Power.
Never ask a writer which is the best book they’ve written. That’s like demanding they choose their favorite child. It’s mean. However, gun to my head, here are my personal top five (and why):
The global pandemic begins with a killer flu that brings down civilization as we know it. You’re shown how our systems collapse in a very real-world scenario. (This is also my most popular series.)
It’s a slow burn as the virus continues to evolve. New species rise and things get weird. The supernatural toys with the survivors of the cull and our champion, Jaimie Spencer, is a radical departure from the usual heroes in the genre. He’s a selective mute on the spectrum whose special interest in dictionaries and Latin proverbs.
As battles between Good and Evil go, this is genre-bending. TPOD is complex and expansive. No red shirts!
Everyone who reads this prodigal son story loves it (but many haven’t read it). On a medical discharge from the Army, Ernest “Easy” Jack returns home to rural Michigan to train German Shepherds with his father. His high school sweetheart needs help. His dad’s on the shady side of a conspiracy involving dirty cops and a murderous real estate mogul.
The Night Man‘s plot is packed with action, but it’s Easy’s complex issues with war wounds, PTSD, and a checkered family history with his hometown which makes the story work on every level. If suspenseful thrillers are your thing, please do read this next.
This makes my top five now because, though it’s set in a near-future dystopia, the story feels too relevant to what’s going on in the United States today. Kismet Beatriz comes from a military family but her nation has forgotten them. Democracy has collapsed and the hyper-wealthy (AKA the Select Few) have turned the Atlanta into a fortress.
Against a backdrop of food shortages, unemployment, secret police, and massive income disparity, Kismet must journey to New Atlanta. All she wants to do is feed her family, but fate has bigger plans for her.
Despite the grim premise, Citizen Second Class has funny and hopeful notes. The book I’m writing now is in the same world, earlier in the timeline. The next novel is darker, more like Crime and Punishment set at the end of the world. I’m often cynical and paranoid. Given the events of 2020, I wasn’t cynical and paranoid enough.
Man, this was fun to write, and it’s fun to read! A powerful book falls into the hands of an Air Force officer. Passages from the book can punish the guilty and work wonders for the innocent. This one book could set the world right. It might also condemn humanity to destruction.
This is twisty and fun, but readers often find it thought-provoking. If you’ve ever dreamed of being king or queen for a day, Amid Mortal Words is your next binge read.
Readers often identify me as a zombie writer, but I only have two zombie trilogies. This Plague of Days was the first. After TPOD, I thought I’d done everything I could do in the genre that would feel fresh. Then along came AFTER, and I received new inspiration.
Artificial Facilitation Therapy for Enhanced Response was supposed to be a medical miracle based in nanotechnology. Weaponized, we get zombies.
The twist: The AI infecting our brains is evolving and wants to understand and improve humans. The action is non-stop, but underneath it all the infected are still conscious humans, horrified at what they are forced to do.
This Plague of Days is a supernatural horror epic. AFTER Life is the journey where science fiction curves right as humanity goes awry. It ends up in a fascinating place at the end of the trilogy. Love it! I hope you will, too.
1. Don’t eat lobster at a restaurant. That’s all butter, no sea lice taste. You get lobster off the boat. You eat the whole lobster, not just the claws and tail. Suck the juice from the legs because you’re a goddamn savage and don’t want anything to go to waste.
Always comment that you ate it all except for the poison sac behind the creature’s brain.
2. Do not wince as you tear into dulce. Don’t call it seaweed if you expect to go undetected. As you chew, always comment that it’s full of iodine.
3. Acceptable banter for any dining occasion: “I’m so hungry, I’d eat the ass out of a skunk.” If in a rural area, you may call the utensils forks and knives, but call them “eatin’ irons” and they’ll never suspect you weren’t born in Caledonia.
4. Don’t say you love fish. Say halibut, trout, or smoked salmon. When someone smokes you a salmon, by law you are required to say, “Tastes like cake!” Do not ask for a Montreal bagel to put under said salmon. It’s not the same thing and you’re in Nova Scotia now.
(Note: It tastes great, but it does not, in fact, taste like cake.)
You will be attending many bean suppers to support your local volunteer fire department. The towns may be small, but they’re decked out with firefighting equipment to rival any major city. The firehall siren will go off each day at noon to (a) test it, and (b) let you know it’s noon.
5. You do not go to the store. You go down to the store or up to the store. Also, locations are not “across the street.” They are always, “right across the street.”
Nova Scotian roads wind, so however long you think any trip will take, it’ll take longer and maybe all day in the winter. In rural areas, you will be required to navigate your route by barns, as in, “Take a left at the old Seliq barn and turn right again before you see the Rawding’s place.”
Yes, getting a direction by a landmark you do *not* see is considered helpful and neighborly. Be careful about asking for directions. You live here. You should already know who everyone is and where everything is, anyway.
6. You go to the woods, not the bush. At a beach party, you will be required to comment that a campfire smells better using driftwood for fuel. If by the Bay of Fundy, you will have to mutter, “highest tides in the world.”
7. Sure is not pronounced “Shur.” It’s pronounced “shore,” with emphasis on the “ore.”
When agreeing with an Acadian, don’t say, “Oui,” as if you’re in Paris. In Acadian French, it’s pronounced more duck-like. “Wheh, wheh, wheh!” Always thrice, and sell it with enthusiasm.
To appear agreeable after any assertion, say, “Yeah,” once or twice, but rising on the in-breath. This takes practice, but you’ll hear it everywhere.
You’re trying it right now, aren’t you?
Note: While always acceptable to appear agreeable, new information is to be treated with suspicion. A good rule is, if you haven’t heard something many times, don’t introduce a new thought. You’ll blow your cover.
8. To throw minor shade: “He’s come from away.” This means, “not a Maritimer for two generations.” You could be born in Toronto and live in the Annapolis Valley for 20 years and you’ll still be “that Tronna fella.”
More shade: Call someone an S.O.B. (*not* son of a bitch). This is never to be said to someone’s face, always behind the back. That would be considered impolite unless they’re family, in which case you can be as cruel as you want and call it “just teasin’.”
Highest compliment, “He did well.” “Did well,” means somebody is an S.O.B., but with money.
9. Speak quickly from the back of your throat. Acceptable topics: The weather and town gossip. Until you die, throw in, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” (This is the height of hilarity.)
That’s about it for topics, though knowing the names of several varieties of apples not commonly found in stores is good. Talk about grafting and you’ll end up marrying someone from Nova Scotia who wears tall rubber boots every day.
10. To really fit in, memorize “Farewell to Nova Scotia.” Sound wistful. Call it God’s Country a lot and enthuse about foghorns. They’re also suckers for Stan Rogers singing “Barret’s Privateers.”
Okay…*everybody* should be a sucker for this song. It’s great!