All That Chazz: Your Brain Tickle Destination
Apocalyptic Epics and Killer Crime Thrillers by Robert Chazz Chute
People are starving for food and equality across the United States. Jennifer Charles worked in a food bank and puts up posters to call people to demonstrate against her government’s ineptitude and callousness. Her defiance makes her a target.
Listen to this story now, read by the author.
The Face of Victory is a story about how revolutions begin. You’ll find it in my collection, All Empires Fall, Signals from the Apocalypse.
Click the play button to hear the first chapter of Citizen Second Class
America has fallen to fascism. The rich have retreated behind the walls of the fortress they call New Atlanta. They won’t give up their power easily.
Oppression and starvation gave birth to the Resistance, but every rebellion needs a champion. Desperate to save her grandmother from starvation, Kismet Beatriz must make the journey to infiltrate the stronghold of the Select Few.
From the author of This Plague of Days comes a near-future thriller built for fans of Nineteen Eighty-four and The Handmaid’s Tale.
The main character in The Night Man is not your typical hero. Easy Jack returns home to Orion, Michigan, wounded and struggling to recover. A former Army Ranger, he has a scorching case of PTSD. His vision is impaired in bright light and his left knee always hurts.
His dad gets mixed up in some shady criminal activities, but Easy’s got nowhere else to go. His history in Orion leaves him cold as a romance with his high school girlfriend heats up. All he wants to do is forget the past and train dogs for K9 units. He’s got Sophie, a loyal German Shepherd, by his side. Good thing, because some very nasty people keep trying to kill Easy. And what’s with the devious billionaire showing up on his doorstep?
The mystery unfolds with many revelations and twists. If you haven’t checked out The Night Man yet, please do. Here’s the universal link to take you to your country’s Amazon store. It’s available in ebook and paperback.
About the Cover
Several of my covers have evolved over time. Sometimes I experiment. I love this powerful cover image, but I did worry that some may interpret the novel’s presentation as horror instead of a suspenseful action thriller. When my editor, the ever-helpful Gari Strawn (of strawnediting.com) wondered out loud about the same issue, I finally got my butt in gear to do something about it. I added the subtitle “A Killer Crime Thriller”. I tweaked the keywords and the book description, too.
Of all my work, I suspect The Night Man might be among the most underrated, not least because, amid all the soulful mayhem, it’s damn funny.
Have a happy Wednesday, merry reading and enjoy!
This really made my day. Andrew lives 75 minutes away. He’d read AFTER Life Inferno and wanted to dig into the rest of the trilogy, Purgatory and Paradise. He jumped in his car and made the journey to our world headquarters in Other London. Now he’s got them all!
We had a good long chat, too. Of course, we maintained our distance. (This shot was taken through the glass of the door.) I so appreciated that he made the journey to buy books, I mean, 75 minutes to me, 75 minutes to get home? That’s a reader, man!
It’s funny how connections get made. I attended a performance by director Kevin Smith years ago. I came home and wrote a blog post about how inspiring it was. Andrew was in the audience that night and picked up what I was putting down.
Enjoy AFTER Life, Andrew! So glad you made the drive. You’re in for a happy ride.
Andrew Butters is an author, too.
He writes a cool blog called Potato Chip Math.
Here’s a link to his books.
Someone once asked me what my books were about.
“What? You mean…all of them?”
“Yeah. Like, is there a central theme to all your work?”
That put me back on my heels for a moment, but I came up with something. It’s this:
Whether I’m writing science fiction, apocalyptic novels, or crime thrillers, it’s always about the drama of closing the space between how things are and how they ought to be.
This, my friends, is why fiction is better than non-fiction. Fiction has to make more sense than reality. Looking around, much of our new reality fails to make sense. The entire world is under quarantine and the economy is unplugged. Mismanagement abounds. Some policy failures seem indistinguishable from actively trying to kill the disenfranchised. Nope, not kidding. If you count yourself among the disadvantaged, you feel that punch in your heart, head, and guts.
My dad will turn 94 this year. He often says, “I’ve never seen anything like this.” I understand his culture shock, but our existential dread is not unique. The difference now is that more people face existential dread of the same thing simultaneously.
If you’ve ever waited by the phone for test results from a doctor, you recognize this awful sensation. If you’re feeling bored, unproductive, overstimulated, under-stimulated, sad, angry or depressed, you’re not alone. The poor or differently-abled often feel trapped and frustrated, much like this. Many people feel as you do and this is not new to them. Even under normal circumstances, many have difficulty leaving their homes and moving about freely for a variety of reasons. Want to take a ride just to get out of the house? Okay. Lots of people can’t afford cars. A ride on a bus, if there is public transport, can be dangerous.
Vent if you need to do so. Your feelings are valid. Your broken toe doesn’t feel better because someone else gets their leg amputated. I spread my sympathy around everywhere without holding back.
For all of us, each day dealing with COVID-19 is one more straw atop the camel’s back (and that poor camel’s knees are trembling). For me, it’s the helplessness that gets to me. If you aren’t classified as an essential worker, your job in the pandemic is to do nothing but stay home. Doing nothing is very much akin to helplessness. I want it fixed. I want to fix it. I want people to survive and thrive. I’m sure you do, too. For most of us, we are playing a waiting game. Failing to wait can be deadly, so this is a game we don’t want to lose. The stakes are high and, like you, I’m feeling that nervy pain daily.
In stressful situations, we’re biologically programmed to flee, fight or freeze. Those could be more useful responses when our species was hunted by evil clowns riding Bengal tigers through primordial jungles.* That’s probably less helpful here.
To better cope with our stress, we want choices, not automatic and autonomic responses.
In any stressful situation, you choose from the Alter/Avoid/Accept Triad.
And ask for support.
And ask for support.
And ask for support.
I hope you find 3A stress management helpful. This is me, still trying to close the distance between an Ought and an Is, even in non-fiction. If you’re searching for more stress management ideas, check out Do the Thing.
Much love and be well!
Rob
* What? Nobody ever told you about the evil clowns riding Bengal tigers through primordial jungles? Jeez. Read a science book, will ya?!
Mental note: Silly jokes can help, too.
As we get through this pandemic together (and apart), I anticipated a bump in sales of my apocalyptic stuff. I write crime thrillers, too, but I’m better known for the sci-fi about our world’s end. AFTER Life is about a weaponized plague. In This Plague of Days, the first book is about where we are now: governments struggling to cope, systems breaking down, and people sheltering in place.
Though apocalyptical stories strike a chord with many readers, having “plague” in my titles has not boosted sales as expected. Those in isolation have more time to read, but perhaps they’re doing other things. Maybe they’re sleeping and eating more, bingeing Netflix or focusing on feel-good stories. A startling number of people seem to have taken up baking bread. Sure beats watching the news until depression kicks in.
I totally understand the impulse to retreat into comfort food and comfort media. When my kids were little and I was a stay-at-home dad, we watched iCarly together. I have a rather dark worldview. iCarly was a kids’ show with low stakes in which everything would always work out just fine. No threats, no death, no worries. Silliness can be an antidote to bad moods in tough times. A couple of nights ago, we watched Nailed It. It’s a show where amateur bakers are set up to fail with sometimes hilarious results. The show titled “Failure” was great for a laugh. I needed that.
With my palate thus cleansed, I went back to reading Weep by Eoin Brady, a zombie novel set in Ireland. I bought it because (a) I find the disaster genre interesting, and (b) Contagion, the prequel to This Plague of Days I’m writing, is also set in Ireland. Weep is clever. Mr. Brady writes well, with an elegant descriptive power that isn’t overdone. I suspect he’s worked in the hospitality industry for the little details that give his novel such an authentic context. One of the main characters reminds me of a prepper friend of mine, too. If zombies are your thing, I highly recommend Weep.
I wouldn’t enjoy stories of such doom and gloom as a steady diet, of course. (People who know me well would say, “Even Rob wouldn’t enjoy stories of such doom and gloom as a steady diet.”) Variety in all we consume makes for better nutrition for the body and mind.
That’s one of the reasons AFTER Life, Citizen Second Class, Amid Mortal Words and This Plague of Days contain hopeful notes (to varying degrees). I’m not interested in false hope or happily-ever-afters that don’t ring true. I prefer satisfying endings that linger with readers. And jokes. Surprise and defying mundane expectations is key to a good plot. It’s also required for a solid joke. In the brain tickle business, it’s fun to make your reader’s mind bounce around its bone case. Even amid utter mayhem, well-placed wit can take a story up to the next level. That’s a roller coaster ride readers want.
People read what they read for many reasons. Those reasons are often opaque to us. We simply like what we like. Recently, a kind reviewer included this note to her review of This Plague of Days, Season One:
One might ask why am I reading this book at this time. It’s like when I watched the “Exorcist” before going in for a job interview. My reality might have been scary had I not been prepared by scaring myself worse than a job interview. The series I know will be scarier than what I’m prepared to live through, should I survive this pandemic. Stay safe everyone.
If you feel the need to vary your media diet, please do so. It’s okay to protect your psyche and forego the news, for instance. Many of us finally have the time to get to our To-Be-Read piles. There’s plenty of room to enjoy all kinds of inky adventures. If you aren’t into end-of-the-world stories right now, check out The Night Man. Scary cover, sure. However, though it is not an unserious book, I packed a lot of jokes in there, too. Want a funny romp set in New York’s underworld in the ’90s? Try Brooklyn in the Mean TIme. There’s fun to be had in all kinds of escapes and we all need a break from existential dread, right?
Escapism comes in many forms. Enjoy what you enjoy.
Stay inside if you can.
Read what you want.
Love as much as possible.
~ Robert Chazz Chute writes science fiction, horror, and killer crime thrillers.
Aside from planning a vegetable garden to supplement my supply of M&Ms…
I don’t anticipate leaving my blanket fort (where I write and work on audiobooks) until about two weeks post-Vaccination Day. So looking forward to Vaccination Day!
Wee Beasties will kill me if they catch me outside so here’s how I’m spending my days in isolation:
I’m making a concerted effort to drink more water and work out daily. When in need of comfort, I make a mean focaccia. Not too much or too often with the bread. If I do that, why bother with exercise? There’s plenty of ways to get a heavy sweat on without venturing out into the Badlands. These walls are my world.
I figure a lot of dudes go to prison and come out buff. That’s my plan.
How are you spending your time in isolation?
P.S. If you’re looking for something fun to read, AFTER Life: Inferno, the first book in that zombie apocalypse trilogy is free today (April 3, 2020).
