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.
My coffeemaker died this morning. Usually, this would be an earth-shaking event. Looking for reviews of new hot bean juice dispensers, I went down a rabbit hole and found myself in a hilarious corner of Internet Shopping Hell.
While scanning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, I indulged the whim of searching “Best Retirement Gifts for Men.” I’m not retiring. Writers never retire. We just keep typing until we expire. First thing that pops up? Memorial wind chimes.
MEMORIAL WIND CHIMES?! Really, Amazon? Ah, yes, every time the breeze blows, the gentle tinkling reminds me of dead Papa! He haunts the back patio, demanding entrance to the house. And at night, the demons come.
That’s the gift you want the moment you retire, right? Now that you’ve opted out of producing for capitalism, please die quickly. We will remember you fondly, Gary! (The guy in the memorial wind chime photo looks like a Gary. The other guy looks like a Eugene. Both tragic.)
And then there’s this bullshit.
Wear that anywhere, sure! However, you won’t be able to sit down and rest for a single moment. You’ll be too busy running from jeering children. Women will spit. Men will weep. Grandmas will beat you with umbrellas. Even the village idiot will look away, embarrassed for you. Clergy will throw rocks, urging you on, forever fleeing, banished to wretched solitude in dark, cursed forests. Only there will you be able to finally sit on your contraption to a cold repast of earthworns, pine cones, and regret.
Wearing sweatpants in public used to signal that you’d given up. Welcome to the new sweatpants.
My parents did brave things. Having kids is brave. Starting and running several businesses took courage and ongoing resolve. My mom saved lives as a lifeguard and a nurse. My dad dealt with criminals and physical conflict several times. The hardest thing they dealt with was the end of their lives. Mortality is scary, but they faced the Reaper with grace. (Well, Mom was pretty mad about it, but with her last breath she did wave goodbye.)
I was unfair to my parents.
When I was younger, I thought fear governed them. I felt that whatever I wanted to do, they were there to thwart my ambitions. Mom and Dad seemed to wage a war on fun. I don’t think I fully understood their protective impulses until I had kids of my own. You want to shield your children from harm, and you worry a lot. You also want to prepare them for the world. It’s a difficult balance.
When I said I wanted to be a journalist, my parents were supportive. Working for newspapers and magazines sounded relatively safe to them. Switching my aims to working for book publishers pleased them, too. Later, when I said I was going to be a freelance writer, they got nervous. They were right to be so.
The night I told my parents, “I’m an artist,” I’m sure Mom hurt herself rolling her eyes. I could never make enough money to satisfy my father. They never asked if I was happy, only how much money I was making. With my kids, I’m only concerned if they are not happy. They’re smart and good, so I have confidence everything will work out for them.
Part of what I do is not so different from what my parents did, anyway. They started and ran multiple businesses. I’ve done the same over the years. I am now down to one. Writing is the artistic side, but publishing is a business, and it is not easy.
Too often, authors don’t think of what they do as a business.
If you are writing for a readership greater than one, you’re an author in business. Though putting words to paper can be therapeutic, it is not my therapy or merely a hobby. I write crime thrillers and apocalyptic epics to entertain. Is it profitable? My point is it’s supposed to be. I put movies in my readers’ heads. The story in your head lasts much longer than a trip to the movie theater. My latest thriller took two years to write, and there are many costs involved in bringing a book to market. So, yes, I’d like to get paid so I can continue to write. No shame in that. I love writing, but that doesn’t mean I can do it for free.
With much disapproval in her tone, Mom once told me, “You’re judged by the company you keep.” The company I keep is Ex Parte Press. Please support authors. Read books. Literacy makes everything better, and I’m a big fan of fun.
I added a little scene to my vigilante thriller yesterday, so I thought I’d share it. Here’s what you need to know: Molly Jergins attends Poeticule Bay Consolidated High School. After a fellow student, Barry Graves, is attacked by the school bully, Keith Faun, Molly confronts Keith. After that scene, a teacher shows up. Molly proves that, despite her young age (or perhaps because of her youth), she’s made of sterner stuff.
Oration: Scene fragment / Molly and Mrs. Simmons
Molly’s history teacher, Mrs. Abby Simmons, pushed her way through the crowd. “Hey! People! The bell has rung! Get to class! What’s going on? I’ve got an empty classroom, and I get lonely talking to myself! All of you have somewhere to be!”
Molly, sporting a wide and grateful grin, turned to her. “Sure, Mrs. Simmons!”
Keith turned and walked away, and Molly called after him, “You’re welcome!”
Some students snickered. Mrs. Simmons shushed them and waved them on. The crowd dispersed. A few of the juniors and sophomores touched Molly’s shoulder as a silent gesture of respect as they passed. She was relieved, certain that those witnesses and their phones had saved her from getting a black eye, or worse.
“What are you up to, Molly? Did you just make a bad situation worse?” Mrs. Simmons demanded.
“Me? Nah. That guy is like an ice cream headache. He’s going to get worse before he gets better. Not that anyone cares, but a lot of us don’t feel safe going to this school.”
By her eyes, Molly could tell the teacher didn’t disagree. Mrs. Simmons didn’t feel safe, either.
“You should know,” Mrs. Simmons said, “when you’re young and immature, you’ve got a lot more anger and energy. You look at the state of the world and….” She trailed off. They were alone in the corridor, but the teacher still looked around nervously to make sure no one else was within earshot.
“What is it, ma’am?” Molly prompted.
The teacher’s jaw worked for a moment as she searched for the right words. Finally, Mrs. Simmons said, “I just think you should appreciate that a lot of people around here, not just the students, are appalled by the incident between Keith and the Graves boy. But we’re also tired and just trying to get through our days. The police and the principal were informed. The ball’s in their court now. What’s best is to leave it be. Not our monkeys, not our circus anymore, right?”
Molly cocked her head to one side. “You’re tired?”
“Of this business? Surely and immeasurably.”
“If you’re tired, imagine how exhausted Barry must be. It sounds like you’ve given up, ma’am.”
“You will, too. Everybody does. When you learn the limits of what you can do, it makes sense to set your sights lower.”
“Spoken as a true educator, Mrs. Simmons! You’re an inspiration!”
The teacher shot her a sour look. “Tend to your own knitting, Molly, and get your butt to class.”
“I’ve got a free period in the library, ma’am.”
“Then get to it.”
She’d meant to curb Keith, not shame Mrs. Simmons. “Sorry,” Molly said, “maybe you’re right. I guess a lot of people do give up for whatever reason. I understand you’re trying to help me.”
But Molly couldn’t leave it at that, couldn’t stop herself. “As long as I’m still young and full of energy, though, I think I’ll keep on being angry when it’s right to be angry. Your way, powerless people stay powerless. You taught me that in your history class.”
Molly thought she had earned herself a detention, but Mrs. Simmons said nothing more. The teacher spun on her heel and strode back to her classroom.
Whatever happens, Molly cautioned herself, don’t turn into her. Don’t get so chicken of being wrong that you don’t do right.
Looks like we’ll get our first real snow here tomorrow. The malls are packed with shoppers, but people don’t go into panic-shopping mode until the weather turns and it really looks like Christmas is coming. Now that December 25 is just a few weeks away, it’s time to order your Christmas books.
As my beta readers review my latest manuscript, I’m preparing for my next book launch. Some marketing gurus say authors should start promoting their books at least a year in advance, or the at the moment of conception, whichever comes earliest. That sounds like an exhausting marathon for both of us, but I’m cranking up the hype machine.In the meantime, there’s plenty of books to read while you eagerly await my next masterpiece. Right? Right?
There are many variables with these endeavors.
When I launched Endemic in October 2021, Amazon sabotaged me. Despite multiple calls to customer support, they wouldn’t allow me to run ads. It was obtuse, but my story about how people change and how they don’t was hidden from view. Oh, yeah, and the backdrop was New York, fallen to a pandemic.No doubt, the AI bots at Amazon suffocated my baby because of the title. They thought my sci-fi content could some misleading or controversialstatement about the real world.It was fiction, not misleading, and possibly controversial to some pearl-clutchers.
Happily, Endemic went on to win the prestigious North Street Book Prize in genre fiction, a Literary Titan Award, and first place in science fiction at both the New York Book Festival and the Hollywood Book Festival. Vindication!
Eventually, Amazon lifted the ban, but the experience left me bitter, gun shy, and feeling a deeper sympathy for authors of banned books everywhere. I’m assuming that, because my heroine in Endemic is asexual, the book would get banned if the censors were paying attention. (Looking forward to that! I’d be in good company.)
Given the state of the world, it’s significant that some of the censors’ favorite targets make political points. I’m with Stephen King on this: If they don’t want you to read it, add it to your reading list. Throughout history, the book banners have never been the good guys. Some examples of banned books I’ve read that I consider essential are:
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
This is not a comprehensive list, but if you haven’t read any of the above, I recommend you fill that gap.Or even read this one:
Ovid Fairweather is a neurodivergent book editor in New York when a deadly plague sweeps the United States. Bullied by her father, haunted by her dead therapist, and hunted by marauders, Ovid must find courage amid the chaos to become the person she was always meant to be.
I’m going to be real with you. I love Dream’s Dark Flight, but it’s one of my least-read books. It’s in the Haunting Lessons universe, but it’s a stand-alone only tangentially related to the original trilogy. I’ve tried a couple of different covers. Last night, I settled on this one. Will it suddenly take off and become a bestseller? Not without a huge push, but this cover is better. I hope the new cover encourages a few more readers to give this novel a try (because, still real with you) it’s awesome. 🙂
Have a look at my pitch below the image to see why.
At a resort hotel in Dubai, bodies are found crushed beside their beds. A village in France fills with corpses. Each night, the terror builds. As nightmares become reality, lucid dreaming may be the only way to fight the threat invading our minds.
The doctor doesn’t believe the waking nightmares. The physiotherapist just wants to go back to her normal life. The NSA agent has very little time to solve the mystery that’s killing people around the globe. The stakes are nothing less than human extinction.
From the author of This Plague of Days, AFTER Life, and Endemic comes a unique mix of science fiction and the paranormal. Leave the light on. You’ll be up all night, turning pages, afraid to sleep.
Tired of endless tired movie sequels? Me, too. However, renewed creative energy and inspiration can come from anywhere. Maybe you’ll see it in a sunset or in a lyric from music that fires up your imagination. Today, I found the spark in a comic book store.
My son and I had a grand day out. After shopping for groceries and Christmas presents, he took me to Heroes, London’s largest comics shop. The last time I stepped inside Heroes, it was located across the street a couple of decades ago. I collected in the ’80s. When I bequeath my collection, it won’t amount to much monetarily. In the ’80s, everybody collected comics. But now, in 2024, the indies made me happy and brave.
Recently, I read a graphic novel about Leonard Cohen. I thought I already knew a lot about Cohen, but that graphic novel taught me a lot more. Djuna, by Jon Macy, is about Djuna Barnes, a fascinating literary figure of whom I knew nothing. I probably would not have discovered her biography were it presented in a different medium.
I’m not reading The Flash or Daredevil now. I’m reading inventive and original stories about what happens when Americans flee America and become illegal immigrants, That’s Americatown. Or how about Reckless? It’s a crime thriller by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Any Empire by Nate Powell “presents a vivid examination of war and violence, and their trickle-down effects on Middle America.”
When so much of what’s sold on Amazon begins to look the same, you have more alternatives. Small independent publishers with unique stories told in imaginative ways are waiting.Small indie publishers often do what huge publishers won’t. That applies to novels by independent publishers, too.
You’ll see what I mean when my next novel, Vengeance Is Hers, hits in 2025. Please stand by for that, but in the meantime, check out some graphic novels and see what you think. See things you never imagined you would see.
