All That Chazz: Your Brain Tickle Destination
Apocalyptic Epics and Killer Crime Thrillers by Robert Chazz Chute
Deliver it to your kindle Christmas Day so you don’t have to look your relatives in the eye.
Lifeās not fair. Itās our job to make it that way.Ā
In an eerily familiar near-future, America has fallen to fascism. Citizenship is attainable only through military service or immense wealth. The Resistance is broke and broken. Amid this dystopian landscape, New Atlanta has become a fortress reserved for the billionaire elite.Ā
HopesĀ toĀ saveĀ the nation haveĀ faded but Kismet Beatriz remainsĀ defiant. The intrepid young survivor embarks on a desperate missionĀ to storm the castle of the Select Few. To win, she must face the future without flinching.
Donāt hope. Do.
CITIZEN SECOND CLASSĀ WILL SOON BE AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER.
OFFICIAL LAUNCH IS SET FOR DEC 26, 2019.
Having to write this post tears me up.
As I prepare Citizen Second Class for publication, one of the themes that emerged was: Life’s not fair. It’s up to us to make it that way. Here’s our chance.
Ryder is the grandchild of one of my most cherished readers, a fan who supported my work from early on. This sweet little girl lent her name to a character in Fierce Lessons. She’s eight years old and she’s been diagnosed with cancer. Needless to say, we are in shock. This sucks. Let’s ease some stress and help Ryder kick cancer’s ass.
Here’s the link to find out more, and how we can help this family.
Please donate to Ryder’s GoFundMe if you can.
Thank you.
~RCC
Sometime Soon Somewhere Close allows you to enter the minds of several criminals in this collection of dark crimes. Some will succeed. Some will fail. They’re all interesting, though I have a special affinity for the tales of revenge. Free now!
Explore several compelling doomsday scenarios in All Empires Fall. How do you think the end of the world will come? Meteor strike? Pandemic? Check out these possibilities, choose your hero, and see if your avatar survives.
Both these books are free for you right now (but the giveaway won’t last long). Grab your ebooks now!
Easy thought his war was over. When his father is kidnapped, a dirty cop pulls Easy back into what he does best.
Sometimes vengeance is justice. He is the Night Man.
Jesus Diaz wants to escape New York with stolen mob money and the lovely Lily Vasquez. He’ll be lucky to escape with his life.
The storytelling is unconventional. The pain feels real. The story is unforgettable. The jokes are pretty good.
There is something about a wounded warrior that is appealing in fiction. Anti-heroes who have dark pasts, who know disappointment and failure, are much more interesting to me than the uncomplicated square-jawed hero.
I relate more to failure than anyone who has it too easy. Batman’s billionaire life would fall apart if someone pulled off his mask just once. To me, Superman’s personal stakes aren’t high enough. Superman’s basically a god. Batman is a rich guy who spent years training his body and mind to be the world’s greatest detective (or a fairly psychotic badass, depending on which vintage of the comics you favor.)
On my very first night away at university, I found myself in Frosh Week activities. It wasn’t my scene but that first night was special because we watched Casablanca. (No, I’m not that old. It was a retro movie night.) Fun fact: The movie’s original title was Everybody Comes to Rick’s.
There’s a great moment in that movie. Someone asks Rick how he came to find himself in Casablanca. Rick replies, “My health. I came for the waters.”
“The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.”
“I was misinformed.”
Isn’t that a great bit of dialogue? And Bogart delivered the lines so laconically, it’s hilarious. My other favorite exchange is:
“You despise me, don’t you?”
“If I gave you any thought, I suppose I would,”
Ha!
Anyway, we find out about Rick’s romance in Paris in a flashback but he’s kind of a blank slate at first. He’s not going to tell you what you don’t need to know. He’s damaged and flawed but somewhere underneath all that baggage, there’s a person trying to do the right thing. That’s why I love Easy Jack in The Night Man.
Ernest “Easy” Jack has been estranged from his father and he’s a pariah in his home town of Orion, Michigan. On a medical discharge from the army, Easy really just wants to be left alone to train German Shepherds and recover. His eyes are sensitive to sunlight. He’s got a bum knee. He’s weary but when he comes home, he finds his war is not over. An ex-girlfriend in trouble shows up. His dad is a smuggler who gets mixed up with a dirty cop’s dirty business. Complications ensue.
Easy could walk away from trouble but trouble keeps finding him. The truth is, Easy can’t bring himself to walk away. Deep down, he’s not a bad guy but he has to deal with a lot of really bad guys. Dealing with evil on its own terms, you might end up doing things that are beyond the law. Easy doesn’t have a lot of money or resources. He’s got a lot of experience, some cleverness, and a German Shepherd. That’s all he brings to battle. Gotta love an underdog paired up with a dog named Sophie.
That’s why I love The Night Man. I hope you will, too.
You can pick it up in ebook and paperback on Amazon. Please do and if you dig it, please review it.
Click any of the links to the right or hit this universal Amazon link.
Enjoy!
~ RCC
I’m working feverishly on my new novel, Citizen Second Class.
We workshopped the title a bit within our Facebook group, Fans of Robert Chazz Chute. Originally, I thought about calling it Citizen: Second-Class. However, search engines can be hampered by punctuation. After consulting the group, I was assured going without was fine, hence the pared-down title.
A good title is important and many variables go into those decisions. I thought about calling Amid Mortal Words something else. The Murder Words or The Murdering Words was catchy. However, it was less on point for the novel’s genre. Amid Mortal Words is apocalyptic sci-fi, not a murder mystery.
Citizen Second Class is about a young woman trying to survive in a dystopian society where the American empire has fallen. Corporations have taken over from politicians. Militia groups have been absorbed into the military. The rich hide in oases and bunkers behind high walls and the rest of us are living a Third World subsistence.
I know that “Third World” is dated. The preferred term now is “developing world.” However, the problem is regression, not progression. The gears that make the republic work are broken and Kismet Beatriz, our young heroine, is trying to find a way to a better life. She may seem meek and unsure at first but underneath? Oh, yeah, you bet she’s badass.
The villains are cool, too. My policy is that no villain thinks they’re really bad. They all think their awful deeds are necessary. Their rationalizations run deep. That’s what makes villains so interesting.
For instance, in This Plague of Days, Season One, the Lady in Red seems a bit over the top, maybe even cartoonish, at first. Many readers were shocked to discover the reasoning and power behind Shiva’s evil plans when they got to Season Three. No apologies. The payoffs were worth the wait.
Exploration of motivations and longer arcs make for deeper character development, too. In the Dimension War Series, Tamara Smythe goes from country girl to city girl to demon/alien slayer. Some readers thought she was too naive and too concerned with her dead boyfriend in the first book. They wanted her to be a fully developed adult from page one. You know what? No.
I love how Tam changes into a warrior who finds her way. I write novels, not quick summaries catering to your private and peculiar proclivities, Carl from the Midwest! That’s right, I’m talking to you, Carl, you dick!
Heh.
This week I sent out a newsletter seeking advance reviewers for Citizen Second Class. For any novel to succeed in today’s marketplace, it really needs a lot of reviews at launch. If the story behind Citizen Second Class intrigues you and you want to find out what happens to America and the world before anyone else, thank you and welcome to the Advance Review Copy Team
Join the ARC group, please email me at expartepress@gmail.com with the subject line: CSC Review Team.
ARC readers will have two to three weeks prior to publication before it’s up on Amazon. If all goes according to plan, the manuscript should be ready sometime in the third week of November, if not before.
And now, back to the blanket fort where I stir the word cauldron and do keyboard alchemy.
Cheers!
~ RCC