Apocalyptic Epics and Killer Crime Thrillers by Robert Chazz Chute
Author: rchazzchute
Robert Chazz Chute writes full-time from his blanket fort in Other London. The winner of fifteen writing awards, he pens apocalyptic epics with heart and killer crime thrillers with muscle. A graduate of the University of King's College journalism program, he studied book and magazine publishing at the Banff School of Fine Arts. He has worked as a crime reporter, science journalist, editor, book doctor, speechwriter, and magazine columnist.
Endemic is an apocalyptic novel, but what is it really about?
Ovid Fairweather is a survivor in what remains of New York after the fall of civilization. A pandemic has killed billions worldwide. Many of those who survived their infection have reduced mental capacity. Marauders swarm the city hunting for Ovid because she has a secret garden and survival skills.
That description only addresses the plot, not the theme.
Many apocalyptic scenarios can be shallow. I’m not interested in watching a hyper-prepared former soldier mow down rivals for supplies. I initially enjoyed The Walking Dead, but the story lines became too repetitive and the tone too relentlessly grim, devoid of any humor.
All the protagonists in my books are underdogs. Ovid isn’t a soldier. She’s a bookworm. She’s intelligent, socially awkward, asexual, and on the spectrum. She could flee to the relative safety of her father’s farm in Maine, but her dad doesn’t understand her. She’s too stubborn to leave New York, and doesn’t want to deal with him.
That struggle with her father is where the theme of Endemicemerged.
Through adversity, Ovid grows stronger. Forced out of her shell by circumstance, she helps others. She’s been a nail all her life. The complications she faces will make her a hammer. Eventually, she’s destined to become a queen.
Ovid changes and improves, but in the end, she remains true to herself. She does not flee to safety. She stays to lead and to protect her found family.In the final analysis, Endemic is an action-adventure novel about how gradually people change and how they don’t.
When people ask me where I get my ideas, I have to say, “All around me.” From my impatience in long lines at the grocery store to my anger at an unjust world, there’s plenty to spur my bitter imagination.
Vengeance Is Hers is the origin story for a vigilante. Molly Jergins sees a fellow student at her high school assaulted. The bully receives no real consequences. Molly launches a one-woman campaign get the bully and his awful family banished from Poeticule Bay, Maine. She’s only in high school, but Molly has found her life’s calling.
The novel is about Good versus Evil and where the line between the two blurs. It’s about growing up in a town too small for your big dreams. I also include a lot of ideas on how to get back at people who deserve your wrath.
The manuscript is with the editor. We’ll do three rounds of edits and polishing, plus the excellent work of beta readers. Launching in early 2025! Please stand by!
I repeat: This is not an instruction book! But….
Okay, yes, you can expect a lot of clever ideas of how to exact vengeance upon your many, many enemies. Where do I get those strategies? Mostly from my imagination. A woman on TikTok gave me an idea about how to best plague an enemy with the stench of sour milk. Listening to The Daily Zeitgeist podcast gave me some fresh fun on the helpful dangers of bouncy castles. I thank those influences in the Acknowledgments section at the back of the book.
Mostly, I think a lot about the people who have wronged me or someone else and contemplate what might be a useful weapon I could pick up at any hardware store. You will, too. It’s funfiction
Vengeance Is Hers is still in the editing process. If you can’t wait for an excellent story of vigilante justice, read The Night Man now.
Easy Jack isn’t a bad guy, but to survive, he will have to act like one.
“You’re guaranteed a mighty fine read.” ~ Claude Bouchard, USA Today Bestselling author of the Vigilante Series.
From the author of the Hit Man Series comes a new killer thriller.
Returning home after serving his country, Ernest “Easy” Jack hoped his family’s reputation had been forgotten. No such luck in Lake Orion. Small towns have long memories. Grudges run deep. Worse, his high school sweetheart is trapped in an abusive marriage. Family bonds, love and loyalty will be tested when a sociopathic billionaire and a dirty cop conspire to use Easy in a deadly bomb plot.
When a fellow student is attacked and run out of town, police and the school administration in Poeticule Bay, Maine prove useless. Enraged, Molly Jergins launches a campaign of vigilante justice against the school bully.
As threats and vandalism escalate to a war ending in death, the line between right and wrong blur. Molly tries to be good, but when hunting monsters, she will be safer if she becomes a better monster.
Revenge is the best success.
Robert Chazz Chute is a former crime and science journalist for newspapers and magazines. A graduate of the University of King’s College and the Banff Publishing Workshop, Robert has won fifteen awards for his writing. He pens suspenseful crime fiction with muscle and apocalyptic tales with heart. His hidden headquarters is a blanket fort in Other London. Vengeance is Hers is his twenty-ninth book.
Every exercise, diet, and brain performance guru tells you to prioritize sleep. Where their advice often falls down is the how of it. Last night, I had the best sleep since the womb. I’m going to tell you how. I’m not a doctor. Consult your own. I can only tell you what worked for me.
I have two sleep disorders, so when I went to a sleep specialist, I was hoping for easy answers. He had lots of answers, and they were easy. They just weren’t entirely effective.
Since my sleep apnea was under control, the sleep specialist gave me the same suggestions to improve sleep that you’ll find on any listicle:
Exercise, but not too close to bedtime. When you’re sleepy, go to bed like an adult (or a toddler forced to go to bed). Keep the bedroom cool and dark. Cut off screen time a couple of hours before bed. Avoid excess stimulation in the evening. Wind down with a book. (As a writer, I highly encourage this.) Ditch heavy meals late in the day. Avoid caffeine after noon. Try a warm shower an hour or so before bed. If you can’t sleep, get up, move to another location, and read something until you’re sleepy Reduce stress.
Try again.
I am a hot sleeper, so I’ve tried cooling blankets and all manner of cooling pillows. None of them stay cool for very long. I’ve even tried ice packs in the bed. All to little or no avail.Every morning, two of my four pillows are on the floor, the sheets are twisted into nooses, and it looks like I lost a fight with ghosts and demons.
What worked for me.
I upped my magnesium intake, including a magnesium cream 30 minutes before bed.
I had a CBN edible. (This one has no THC or CBD in it, though I’ve found that can help.)
The newest additions to my sleep strategies were (a) noise-canceling earbuds made of silicone, and (b) silicone tubes in the nostrils.
The noise reduction was significant. All I could hear was my own breathing. I’d tried nose strips before, but they did nothing for me. With the tubes in my nose, my sinuses opened up to nice cool air. I could sleep with my mouth closed, and I slept deeply. I also knocked out for much longer than usual without interruption.
I will grant you, these are not sexy strategies. However, I woke up refreshed and greeted my wife with, “It’s a beautiful world, full of beautiful people doing beautiful things!”And I had a productive day. It was a good day. Good days are sexy, especially when you are unused to good days.
It’s early evening as I write this. I have enough time and energy before bed to go over suggestions from beta readers for my next novel. It’s nice to have more energy for that, too.
Shoveled twice again this morning. It’s beautiful, but the snow on either side of my driveway is beginning to get so high, I’m throwing snow high in the air and getting quite a workout.
My first suggestion is so dead easy, you’ll wonder why you haven’t done it already! In the back matter of your novel, include a list of questions to stimulate discussion. For whom? For book clubs, of course!
In Vengeance Is Hers, I added a list of questions to get book clubbers talking and possibly arguing. The hardest part of getting a book club on track is keeping everyone on task, reading the books, and not devolving into a wine club. (There is nothing wrong with wine clubs, but I’m talking about getting more readers on board.) Make it easy for book club organizers to choose your novel for their next read. When everything else is in order, this is an easy add-on.
The second enhancement is harder to do and not always scalable, but it would entice more readers.
If you’ve spent any time on TikTok’s Booktok, you’ve seen videos of books with spray-painted edges. Some of them are really beautiful. I love gilded edges. Some edges continue or are consistent with the jacket design.
If you have an artistic streak with a paintbrush, you could elevate your game by decorating the edges and shipping special editions directly. There are other options, like using stickers. Most authors will probably try the DIY approach.
A quick Google search reveals a bunch of companies that will pretty up your edges for you. The first time I heard of this, the author added to the print specs so the printer could add edge art or messages. For direct shipping special editions, selling on Etsy, or to enhance your in-person sales, I see the value in artful edges.
Hemingway said, “Write drunk, edit sober.” I say, stop being such a chicken. Take more risks.
In my fiction, I look for opportunities to do innovative and unexpected things. The chapter titles to This Plague of Days trilogy aren’t just numbers. Go to the table of contents, and the chapters form an epic poem that hints at the complex events across the narrative. Is that weird? I don’t care if it’s weird. The clues to the story are there, but it’s actually more fun for the reader to go back to read that poem again after they’ve completed the trilogy. They’ll gain a deeper understanding once they’ve read the story. (In gaming, they call that replay value.)
In my new thriller, every chapter title is one word that ends in -ion, and relates to what’s happening in that chapter. For instance, instead of Copyright, Table of Contents, and About the Author, you get Notification, Configuration, and Confession, respectively. (And yes, there really are that many useful words with the -ion suffix.)
Some publishers would clutch their pearls at such deviations from the norm. Who cares? I am the helmsman on this voyage, and I say we skip the Panama Canal and risk the storms around the Cape of Good Hope. No one remembers a voyage over calm seas.
Have you got anything besides title tricks, Rob?
Sure. Proper editing ensures that we communicate well and do not confuse readers in our efforts to entertain them. I’m not getting in the way of that, but I will deliver the unexpected. Editors make prose clear, not safe. Who said it was supposed to be safe? To quote another sage of our age, Captain James Tiberius Kirk insisted, “Risk is our business.” Put another way: Let’s be interesting. Resurrect old idioms. Come up with new idioms. Experiment with expressions that have never existed in real life. (Not yet, anyway. I’m hoping some of my innovations catch on.)
I look at Papa’s advice with the same dim view as, “Kill your darlings.” That mindset done too broadly will eliminate your most clever stuff. Inside jokes can be okay. That’s the writer writing for themselves and the die-hard fans. As long as you don’t disappear up your own metaphorical butt, it works a treat. “Works a treat” is a dated British expression some beta reads would flag. Leave it in. They are readers, so assume they’re smarter than stale toast. Trust them to pick up context clues.Free yourselves! Break the rusty chains of the Olde Gods!
Readers who aren’t in the know will skip right by sub-references.
In 1985, I met with the great science fiction writer Spider Robinson. I was a fan, but I hadn’t read all of his stuff yet. He sat me down over coffee and spoke of his origins as a writer. He looked very serious as he opined something like, “I was on my bed, naked, with some good tunes on the stereo, a drink in one hand, some hash in the other, and a book in my lap. It occurred to me that I was bored.” So Spider decided to write his own novels instead of just reading them.
Only after I read more of his work did I run across those words in one of his novels. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was quoting himself.Good on him. When you’ve got good words, don’t give the same speech once.
On Black Friday, I visited Villains, the companion shop to Heroes, the best comics shop in Other London. I bypassed the men-in-tights stuff of my youth and went straight to the indie publishers’ offerings. On the hunt for fresh and interesting stories, I found them. Think in terms of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor. Or lush watercolors without a single line of dialogue that still tells a story. I’m a fan of Iron Man, but you can’t say Marvel and DC are taking risks. Their products are dependable, but you won’t experience many new flavors.
Writers, take risks. Readers, please indulge us. We’ll make it more fun for both of us.
Now about those pictures
Last night, I could not sleep. With an appointment to get to this morning, I decided to do battle the snowstorm. The first snowfall has always been a tentative thing, a warning of what’s to come. It’s Motherhumping Nature asking, “Have you got your snow tires yet? Did you remember to pull the snow shovels from the shed?” (Yes, to the first question, negatory on the second, dammit.)No mere warning this time, though. Got a big dump of snow that is still pummeling us as I write this.
At 4:45 a.m., I was out there slinging it, testing my new hip. Worked fine and barely raised my heart rate. I shoveled about a foot of snow. By the time I was done that and had cleaned off the car, I had to shovel again. Dug a fresh six inches at 8:45 a.m. Saints preserve us, winter is here. I prefer palm trees, but I do like how quiet the landscape becomes once the sharp edges and hard surfaces are soundproofed under a thick blanket of snow.
And when it gets very cold — Moon cold — the snow squeaks underfoot. Of course, by then, I’m afraid to go outside and hide in my blanket fort, writing the next novel.
I’m happy to be working on a thriller about vigilante justice. The apocalyptic genre has much cooled. This Plague of Days provides many solid tips for doomsday preppers, but fewer readers are inclined to read end-of-the-world stories when they fear they’re about to actually experience them. Citizen Second Class seems closer to where we’re now headed.
President-elect Trump is threatening 25% tariffs on America’s principal trading partners, Canada, China, and Mexico. Every economist is certain that it will increase prices, slow the global economy, and hurt poor people most. Today, I’m hearing several commentators saying he doesn’t mean it. It’s supposedly an opening negotiation tactic, but how can they know? They’re giving him too much credit. Such tactics suggest there’s a strategy and foresight, but Trump’s history is chaotic. He tends to get his opinion from whoever last spoke to him. Destruction of the economy and punishment of the poor is definitely on the table.
While immunologists worry about H1N1 jumping species to humans, RFK wants to freeze immunization research and remove mandates for common vaccines (which is absolutely not how herd immunity works). He thinks the solution to depression is simply to send the afflicted to farms where they have no access to processed food. While Biden wants to get weight-loss drugs covered by insurance, Kennedy wants to ban them. Amid a long-standing epidemic of dangerous obesity and diabetes, RFK says the answer is simply to eat healthy foods. Gee, why didn’t we think of that? For a former heroin addict, he sure doesn’t understand addiction.
Recently, Bill Maher hosted a Stanford-educated doctor who claims med school taught her nothing valuable and that eliminating processed foods is the answer to all metabolic problems. So, “Doctor,” aside from the problematic classism in that stance, you’re telling me that RFK has all the answers, and Trump supporters everywhere will breathe a sigh of relief when you take away all their hamberders?
There was one powerful person who advocated healthy eating, and they condemned her as a communist and a fascist. Remember? Her name was Michelle Obama.
Everything is unprecedented until it’s not.
This post is not a prediction. This is a warning.
Another commentator suggests that all the stuff about tariffs will prove a distraction from Trump’s real goals. Namely, to persecute minorities, transgender people, and the undocumented. Rather than deport undocumented immigrants, the real money may be in the for-profit prison industry as these people, and the unhoused, are put in camps.Trump even plans to eliminate birthright citizenship. A lot of potential for collateral damage there, even among many of those who voted for the Trump presidency.If he goes through with his stated intentions, expect a rise in crime, stress, chaos, and a recession. A lot of people will definitely get hurt. I can’t say how many will be killed due to malice and recklessness.
I write novels. It’s fiction, but I extrapolate from the state of the world.Citizen Second Class, for instance, relied heavily on the premise that the ultra-rich elite would imprison, disenfranchise, and exploit lower classes. In a new society based on classism, racism, and sexism, the over-privileged Illuminati would enter fortified conclaves to keep the starving masses outside their walls. It was supposed to entertain and provoke thought. It wasn’t supposed to be a prediction or prescription.
So, what’s next?
I’ve never heard leftists speak the way some did after Kamala Harris failed to win the White House. I ran across a vocal minority on social media who had become more interested in self-defense, namely arming up. Others sound like the preppers and doomers I’ve written about in This Plague of Days. At the very least, those who could are stocking up on foodstuffs in anticipation of a rise in the cost of living.
I suspect many people will withdraw from political action if they have that privilege. Some people who were politically active will find solace in sports, music, and whatever else soothes them. Maybe more people will read again, much like they did during the height of the pandemic. Others will be spurred to reorganize to meet the moment when the mid-terms and the next presidential election arrive.
It is silly to say, “He didn’t do it last time, so he won’t this time.” Last time, he had a few people holding him back. Last time, the Supreme Court didn’t make him a king who could do no wrong. This time, he’s surrounded by hateful, sycophantic nuts.
Another favorite: “I like him because he says what he means. Now let me bend your ear on why he doesn’t really mean the bad stuff.” Trump’s stated intentions for changes in tax policy, immigration, deportation, foreign policy, and tariffs comprise a perfect storm of humanitarian and economic disaster.
Petulance is not a policy. It’s the basis for recrimination for his grievances, and it won’t help his constituency. He’s not even interested in serving all Americans.I don’t have to extrapolate into the future to say that. We need only look at his history.
If you are happy Donald Trump was elected, no worries for you. No one listens to my warnings, anyway. What’s making some of his supporters nervous are the voices of liberals saying, “Okay, you won. Now we’ll see if you’ll enjoy what you voted for. You assumed he’d only come for us. Wait. We’ll see how you feel when the melon felon affects you.”
I take no pleasure in this. I prefer disasters described in fiction. It seems that if you want real positive, progressive change, it’s up to the accelerationists now.
