Category: apocalyptic stories

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Why The Grapes of Wrath Still Resonates in 2024

Rereading The Grapes of Wrath after many years, it hits differently now that I’m older. The novel hits so hard, it could have been published yesterday, eerily relevant to our world in the present.

John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was originally published in 1939. That is startling given its empathetic allegory about forced immigration and the dangers of unbridled capitalism. This was written long before laypeople had the vocabulary of “late-stage capitalism.” Certain passages are worth reviewing many times.

I was especially taken with how people are transformed into cogs in a machine. When the bank takes their homes, there’s no one to resist. Responsibility falls like a hammer on the most powerless. Evicted from the land they’d worked for generations, the farmers are ground under the weight of an uncaring bureaucracy.

In another passage, car salesmen take advantage of desperate people. The sole focus is money. In pursuit of profit, the salesmen’s contempt for their hapless customers is ferocious. People are dehumanized. The system only serves itself and a select, faceless few. The victims are oppressed, but they don’t understand that which uses and abuses them.

The Grapes of Wrath reflects problems that are easy to see today. You’ve watched the news. The mercilessness of the American health insurance system is evident. A health insurance company denies 32% of claims and becomes startlingly wealthy. It’s an unusual funeral they give their victims, isn’t it? The afflicted are buried in paperwork first, then they die. Kill someone with a gun, and the press goes mad. Kill ill people with paper, and all we get are shrugs of “Well, it’s legal.”

Most frustrating, I still hear media people and pseudo-intellectuals pretend to be mystified when the public shrugs off the assassination of one CEO. They aren’t discussing why people are so fed up they don’t have the spare energy to care. The media isn’t delving into the why of that stance. They aren’t showcasing any of the many cases where people in need are denied tests and treatments they need to survive. Instead, the public’s lack of empathy has become the story. We have twenty-four-hour news channels, but they make no time for the bigger story.

A bunch of pearl-clutching journalists and commentators need to read The Grapes of Wrath. Maybe they’ll glimpse themselves reflected within those pages. Maybe then they’ll better understand our wrath.

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Fall of Empires: The Psychology Behind Apocalyptic Fiction

You know I write novels about apocalyptic events. I’ve always been fascinated by the ways in which empires fall. But what’s at the root of end-of-the-world stories? I saw the seed of it so clearly during the pandemic. Too many fools who failed high school biology and claimed to be big strong patriots were unwilling to suffer the mildest inconvenience of wearing a mask.

That’s how you get this:

And this:

A former CIA agent was asked what will cause the downfall of civilization. He answered, “Sophistry.” Add in a dearth of empathy, and I think he’s right. Too many people figure, “Hey, it’s not happening to me, so I don’t care.” They are too confident they aren’t next on the chopping block. For instance, universal health care doesn’t poll so well with Americans who have not dealt with private health insurance companies. Those must be the same folks who are mystified by the lack of interest in prosecuting the killer of a health insurance CEO.

People who do deal with private health insurance companies understand. There are too many horrific stories out there. The main cause of bankruptcy in the United States is medical debt. That’s a broken system.

The best metaphor I’ve heard comes from the Cognitive Dissonance podcast:

An emergency room doctor was treating a patient. You run in and pin the doctor’s arms to their sides. You’d be responsible for the patient’s death. Stopping doctors from doing their jobs is too often what private health insurers do.

Farther afield:

IDF snipers shoot children in the head. They target children, yet there are barely whispers of objections in the mainstream press. For those who do object to the murder of children are told, “That’s war. Grow up.” Children are conflated with terrorists. Meanwhile, it’s clear Israel’s leaders care nothing for the hostages. If they cared, they wouldn’t bomb Gaza to rubble.

That level of carelessness is how you get this:

Let’s try a little thought experiment:

If a terrorist is using your mum as a human shield, do you shoot, or do you try to find another way?

Sit with that a moment before you answer. It’s a monster test. Are you a monster?

Meanwhile, closer to home:

Donald Trump disrespects Canada and threatens our sovereignty. Too many write it off as a joke. The melon felon also wants to end birthright citizenship and weaken American forces by expelling democrats and transgender people (among a plethora of other offenses to morality and reason).. Many democrats who serve are officers, but damn the consequences so the Dear Leader’s fee-fees aren’t hurt.

The point is not whether DJT can or will do these things. The point is he wants to do these things and is threatening his best ally. He is careless with his words and actions. That is not something anyone sane wants to see from anyone holding the nuclear codes.

I predict a wave of regret much bigger than Brexit. FAFO.

Idolizing elites is how you get this:

My fiction explores the psychology of the underbelly of society. When I watch the news, I’m so often reminded of a Christopher Titus joke:

Civilization is a train. All the doctors, engineers, builders, and scientists are up front in the locomotive. The engine pulls a long train of cars carrying the goofs, the conspiracy theorists, the science-deniers, and flat earthers. One smart person at the back of the engine is looking down at the coupling responsible for hauling all those dumbasses. And he’s thinking, if I pull that pin, we could go so much faster and farther.

Yeah. The only thing saving the smooth brains is our empathy as we desperately try to drag their heavy asses into the future instead of retreating into the dark past.

If you’re looking for hope in the end, there’s this:

And this:



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It’s beginning to look a lot like Book Christmas

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.

Find my author profiles using the links below:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon Canada

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The Year Ahead: How to Deal

Endemic is live on Amazon!

I recently watched Things to Come, a movie from 1936 based on the work of HG Wells. It’s not a great film, but the subtext feels prophetic. The world of the 1930s devolves into a decades-long war that destroys civilization. Warlords take over. Scientific progress is lost. When a movement rises to bring a troubled hellscape back to modernity, those in power resist change. The good guys — in this case, an army of scientists — win. They improve on what came before the apocalypse and build a utopia. However, a hundred years later, angry mobs rise up to bring scientific progress to a halt.

At every tick of history’s clock, some people will try to hold back the hands of time. No matter how good the future might be, they want to return to a time when they thought things were better, perhaps simpler. The worst part is they want to choose for you, not just themselves. I’d prefer to order off the menu myself, thanks. Leave me and that bright, hopeful future alone.



HG Wells never watched a political debate on TikTok at 3 a.m., but he saw the anti-intellectualism coming. That’s been going on for a long time, of course, but the US election year will ramp up the nonsense, and plenty. We have a rough road ahead in 2024. I won’t list all the frets, but you’ve seen the news. You know what piles on the stress. We call it doomscrolling now, but we used to call it “watching the news,” or “being aware of current events.” You’re going to hear a lot more arguing. Don’t expect well-mannered debates on the road to truth, just stubborn parroting of propaganda impenetrable to facts. Motivated reasoning is not reasonable.

You’ll also get exposed to some happy, slappy messages about how everything’s fine or will be. When crises go on too long, misery becomes normalized. The worst is when you point out an injustice and some clod mutters, “That’s nothing new.” Yeah, ya lazy dick! We should have fixed it by now, huh? But we haven’t. I fear we won’t fix much of anything.

Whatever your cause, there’s a good chance some experts are working on it. Just as surely, a bunch of idiots are maintaining the status quo or wrecking the DeLorean’s transmission by throwing Time into reverse.

So, what to do? You’re going to go to bed each night, heave a heavy sigh, and say in a thick Southern accent, “Mama’s had a day.” I say that to my wife each night because we’re going to have to hold on to our sense of humor through it all. I don’t have a solution to the climate crisis, threats of war, or a (legal) way to convince flat earthers they’re wrong. Maybe afflict the comfortable and write letters to whoever’s in charge of the circus? In your off-time, rest and recover.

Here’s my rest and recovery protocol:

  1. Guard your peace from those who would rob you of it.
  2. The usual: Sleep, eat well, and exercise.
  3. Put your phone down more often.
  4. Avoid trying to reason with unreasonable folks. Helping anyone out of ignorance is noble, but fuckwits will just waste your precious time, and time is life.
  5. Watch Stanley Tucci in Searching for Italy. This will reinforce your belief in the hope of a common humanity that is kind, curious, and appreciative.
  6. Binge-watching Modern Family will ease your mind and bring you comfort.
  7. If childhood was a better time for you, revel in nostalgia. I watched an episode of Barney Miller last night.
  8. Read fiction. It will pull you out of the forest fire that is your existence, at least for a while.
  9. Gather with the like-minded and enter the bar back to back, heads on a swivel.
  10. Laugh at determined fools. When reason fails, laughter is often the more effective weapon.

    Finally, and most importantly:

    Read my fiction. Mama’s had a day, and I need money.

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Why Endemic Went Viral

First off, many thanks for all the congratulations that flooded in for Endemic winning its category at the New York Book Festival. I treasured every note and email. I also discovered how often my posts and tweets are utterly ignored. Folks I hadn’t heard from in years popped up to say hi! That was nice. This is also your friendly reminder that I’m a scintillating delight all the time, not just when I win a literary award. (wink!)

Second, I have a fresh interview about Endemic over at Literary Titan. It’s about the demands of writing relatable apocalyptic fiction in the middle of a pandemic. There I was in my blanket fort, masked up and hypervigilant, washing groceries, and as paranoid as a squirrel on cocaine. What to do? What to do? Write the drama and trauma, of course!

An actual viral apocalypse was on like Donkey Kong. Bodies were filling freezer trucks outside my local hospital. In hindsight, it might have been cheerier to try a different genre. Sweet romance might have been easier to sell when readers were looking for a cheerier escape. However, the themes of Endemic run deep. Although I wrote a fictionalized bio of my criminal exploits in New York (Brooklyn in the Mean Time), it is Endemic that claims the prize of being my most personal book.

I wrote Endemic because I had to.

Read the full interview here: https://literarytitan.com/2022/07/31/the-real-demands-of-the-end-of-the-world/

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Our Alien Hours is here!

While Endemic climbs the charts and gathers more and more happy reviews, my newest anthology just launched. Our Alien Hours is now available on Amazon!

mybook.to/OurAlienHours

The alien invasion of Earth has begun.

The Mortchallin watched us for decades, waiting for their time to strike. A global electromagnetic pulse like no human has ever seen marks their beginning and our end. In this anthology of seven connected stories, you will experience the invasion from the point of view of ordinary people facing fate.

When the alien conquistadors arrive, our actions in the face of death and danger reveal everything about what it means to be human.

Available now in ebook, paperback, and hardcover.

Robert Chazz Chute is the award-winning author of This Plague of Days, AFTER Life, Amid Mortal Words, and Endemic. With the publication of Our Alien Hours, he adds new short stories to his readers’ armory of apocalyptic binge-reads. If you enjoy this one, try the first in this anthology series, Our Zombie Hours.

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Guess which apocalypse will kill you

There is an apocalypse coming no one talks about. Try to guess which end of the world scenario I’m not writing about before you get to the end of this post. My books will help you with the process of elimination.

  • Endemic (coming soon) is a nerdy and neurotic person combatting sociopaths while trying to survive a viral apocalypse.
  • Citizen Second Class is about poverty and starvation amid a climate catastrophe and greed.
  • AFTER Life is about artificial intelligence weaponizing medical technology to take over the world.
  • This Plague of Days is a zombie apocalypse (and other species evolving to take over the world).
  • The Night Man is about PTSD, societal failure, family drama, war, poverty, and regret.
  • Wallflower is a time travel novel about second chances after a lot of bad decisions.
  • The Dimension War Series is a coming-of-age story amid a war story.
  • Amid Mortal Words is about the loss of control and taking chances on a better future.
  • Brooklyn in the Mean Time is about vengeance, absolution, and redemption.
  • Robot Planet is about technological revolution and failure versus the human spirit.
  • The Hit Man Series is about violence, vengeance, and escape amid a broken America.
  • All Empires Fall is an anthology of five end-of-the-world stories and the common denominator is dealing with other people while everything falls apart.

Have you guessed the missing apocalypse yet?

Climate wars are a big deal, but I touched on that in Citizen Second Class. We could talk about the Misinformation War or new civil war scenarios, but Endemic has that covered. I dealt with extinction by killer asteroid in All Empires Fall. If you guessed the nuclear threat, Amid Mortal Words has that, too. You might have guessed the looming threat of antibiotic resistance. But, no, I’m thinking of something utterly devastating to the future of humanity. It’s close and almost no one ever talks about even beginning to deal with this extinction-level event.

The apocalypse that haunts me is this: In 60 years, Earth will have insufficient viable topsoil to grow 95% of all crops.

Read that last sentence again and ponder its significance. My kids will be alive for this. Coffee, bananas, and almonds will disappear first. Then everything else.

Sixty years and we aren’t dealing with the threat. There are no massive contingency plans. Unless helpful aliens are waiting to swoop in, no one is coming to rescue us. We’ll probably run out of soil before we run out of usable water, but it feels like it’s all a race to the end, doesn’t it?

So…call me Mr. Sunshine and read my books now, while you still can.

COMING THIS MONTH!

What happens when a pandemic never ends? Find out in Endemic.

Neurotic and nerdy, former book editor Ovid Fairweather is trapped in New York as everything falls apart.

All her life, she’s been a nail. To survive the viral apocalypse, she’ll have to become a hammer.