Category: This Plague of Days

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Hours and Hours of Cheap Entertainment

I know! I know! I should say “inexpensive” entertainment, but 99 cents is really cheap for great novels that can take years to create. For the next couple of days, I’ve got This Plague of Days in a Black Friday promotion along with a bunch of other horror books.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/black_horrorfriday/u3fmi96fzsOne of many to check out!

If you haven’t taken a chance on an author who is unfamiliar to you, this is your opportunity to jump in and find something to love.

Here’s the landing page for the Black Friday sale:

https://books.bookfunnel.com/black_horrorfriday/u3fmi96fzs

Click a cover, get a book, enjoy!

Posted on

Hollywood Book Festival Winners!

Four new book awards in one day!
BUY NOW
BUY NOW
BUY NOW
BUY NOW

Happy News!

I was pleased to be informed today that the Hollywood Book Festival chose four of my books for awards and recognition! Endemic took first place in the science fiction category (just as it had at the New York Book Festival) while the This Plague of Days Omnibus won runner-up. The Night Man placed first in the genre category and Amid Mortal Words received honorable mention in sci-fi.

Writers work long hours in solitude and obscurity. Novelists toil away at keyboards making shit up, often not knowing where we’re going and doubting what we’re doing. Reviews and fan letters fuel our fervor. Recognition of our work by book contests gives a rare and wonderful boost.

We celebrated the wins with a feast of Chinese food. The shrimp har gow and sweet butter coconut buns were delicious.

Posted on

Happy Endings and Cover Reveals

http://author.to/RobertChazzChute

I write a lot about the end of the world.

I remember reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy and thinking, wow, this is relentlessly grim. However, there is a tiny crack of light at the end of the tale. The only apocalyptic tale that really bothered me was the end of The Mist, the movie that was based on a Stephen King story. The film concludes on a very sad note that is not in King’s original story. In print, the ending was more ambiguous but left the reader thinking there might yet be a future for the survivors..

After writing the final book of the This Plague of Days trilogy, I was contacted by a reader asking if I would write a happier ending in the future. No spoilers for the uninitiated, but I will say this: There is a high note of hope at the end of the journey of This Plague of Days. However, I would never make it my policy to finish any story with a mandatory Happily Ever After. You’re not supposed to pound jigsaw pieces into the puzzle to make them fit.

I strive to write satisfying and surprising endings. Sometimes there’s hope, like with Citizen Second Class. Sometimes the ending is a bit more ambiguous and left to the reader to draw their own conclusions, as with Amid Mortal Words. The conclusions you draw there will depend on your view of humanity’s potential. Whatever happens, the conclusion must not betray the logical advancement of the narrative.

I always want an ending that sticks with the reader long after they finish the book. I hope you’ll find that in all my novels and short stories. The ending probably won’t be expected, but you will think, BOOM! Oh, yeah!

I’m very proud of Citizen Second Class and Amid Mortal Words. The reviews are few, but the readers who find these novels enjoy them.

In Citizen Second Class, a young woman finds herself in the middle of a rebellion against the last of the ruling class, holed up in a fortress of the Select Few in New Atlanta.

In Amid Mortal Words, an Air Force officer meets a stranger on a train who leaves him with a book that could end the world or save it. All he has to do is read passages from the book and bad people die. But that’s not all the book can do.

To help browsers become readers, in the last couple of days I changed the covers hoping to better meet reader expectations (translation: seduce you and make you tremble in shivering anticipation as you hit the buy button.)

If you haven’t read these books yet, I’d start with Citizen Second Class. It’s a novel that is ripe for this moment in American history. As the new cover quote suggests:

“An all-too plausible vision of a near-future nightmare.” ~ Philip Harris, author of The Leah King Trilogy.

Or heck, buy ’em both. Buy ’em all. There you go.

Posted on

What good & bad people have in common

In research for several of my books, I’ve soaked in prepper culture. I warned in This Plague of Days that the apocalypse would be boring, especially at first. In This Plague of Days, Season One, I spent a lot of time on the effects of quarantine on an average American family. My zombie apocalypse wasn’t all about having a castle with unlimited ammo and shooting zees all day for fun and freedom.

Besides gathering food and whatnot, one of the Spencer family’s first trips is to a library to stock up on books to keep them entertained. (Jaimie’s father was a librarian so they really stock up!) The Spencers prepared for the siege pretty well. Turns out, some of prepper culture is full of shit. They enjoyed their paranoid fantasies and stocked up on guns and ammo but maybe not enough on toilet paper and seeds. After a short time in isolation, many are crying to be let out way too early. They may have lots of MREs, but no heart. (Buckle up, by the way. This pandemic is just getting started, but that’s a topic for another post.)

Protests versus terrorism

The people who are protesting that their states need to open up so they can get a haircut are horribly misguided. I would have more sympathy if they maintained physical distancing and wore masks while they screamed about house arrest.

(Hint: You’re not really under house arrest. You’re not being oppressed. The well-informed authorities are trying to save you from yourselves and protect us from you.) 

I know folks are hurting financially. Many do have genuine and valid concerns about how to get money coming in to feed their families. However, these armed Covidiots aren’t peacefully protesting to receive UBI, food relief, and governmental supports for healthcare efforts. They aren’t demanding moratoriums on rent and mortgage payments. Instead, murdering irony forever, they have “My body, my choice” on their signs and car windows.

Newsflash: You aren’t pro-life, after all. You’re pro-selfishness and all for short-term thinking that will result in a greater economic collapse and more mass graves.

Some even call the pandemic a hoax. Gee whiz, guys! If it’s a hoax, it’s the most elaborate one in history and I’m not sure what the aim might be. We all live in the same economy. No one wants to trash it. We all have at least a few loved ones we’d like to see survive. It takes heavy Alex Jones-level mental gymnastics to achieve that kind of confirmation bias. You do know Italy exists, right? No? How about New York? Did New Yorkers make up slammed hospitals because they’re a blue state? If so, damn, those ambulance sirens wailing all day and night sure were a nice touch to the massive deception.

The Defining Moment

The most pathetic thing I’ve seen in these armed terrorist gatherings is a big guy in a stare-down with a nurse. She’s in her mask and scrubs, arms crossed, not budging. He’s desperate to intimidate her. Dude, with the amount of death she witnesses in one shift, you aren’t going to scare her in your Army Surplus camo and beret. You’re emboldened by a president who tweets about “liberating” democratically elected states from the tyranny of saving lives. That nurse and all the healthcare professionals like her are trying to save civilization. If called upon, she’d even try to save your dumb ass. Screw you, Beret Guy. Go home. Stay home. If you have concerns, write a letter to your government officials while you still have a post office.

There’s the moral fulcrum: Beret Guy doesn’t care who dies as long as he gets to fire up the grinder of capitalism and enjoy him some waffles that ain’t take-out. Healthcare workers suffer in an attempt to stall death and end suffering.

If anyone’s having trouble identifying who’s who:

Beret Guy is a terrified terrorist.

The nurse standing her ground is the brave protester.

 

 

Closer to home

No one is immune to poor decision-making skills. I used to work in healthcare and still watch a professional forum where the issues of the day are discussed. In one thread, a manual therapist whose husband was in pain from tennis elbow asked about recommendations for a brace. Applying cross-fiber frictions to lateral epicondylitis isn’t that big a deal for professionals trained in assessment and treatment protocols. Isolate the tissue, treat, and follow up with hydrotherapy and remedial exercise. It takes just a few minutes and there is no great danger. The therapist only asked for an equipment recommendation. It shouldn’t have gone south. It sure did.

And then the Deluge

Self-styled gurus and pedants descended upon her, burning up the comment threads with the same bullying comments, over and over. “Treating your spouse is illegal!” they cried. “You could lose your license!”

Those colleagues valued appearing virtuous more than true empathy and compassion for people in pain. They may have technical skills, but I have a rule: Don’t consent to treatment from self-aggrandizing sociopaths. (That’s a good guideline for people to avoid when you vote, too.)

Consider the alternative for a moment: The therapist’s spouse is in pain. She can help him quickly, easily and safely or he can try to get an appointment at a clinic for a non-emergent issue. Good luck with that, sure, but if he succeeded, then what? He risks going to a doctor’s office, possibly getting infected with COVID-19 or bringing the virus to the office? In other words, these so-called experts would rather people risk death than defy a bad law in these extraordinary circumstances. Spoken as true healers, guys, Good job, you goddamn defects.

I am so glad I am retired from manual therapy so I can write for a living. I loved my patients, yes, but my provincial regulators and administrators couldn’t be trusted to exercise good judgment and discretion. The job didn’t pay enough for the stress headaches it gave me. I’m healthier now for having let that career go.

Guidelines for defiance

If you are desperate for income, I understand that all too well. Carrying guns, attempting to intimidate frontline workers, and opening up too soon is not the answer. Most people can’t make $1200 last ten weeks unless they’re already homeless and sleeping under a bridge. Demanding more of a federal response and societal supports would make sense.

Those screaming to be let out so they can freshen up their spray tan are a threat to themselves and many innocent people. If they were minorities acting like that, I fear the next response would come from the National Guard.

Don’t block ambulances. Don’t be a dick for a bad cause. I know you’re scared. We all are. Masking your fear by carrying an AR-15 to a protest doesn’t make you look braver. Your protest signs don’t tell me you are a patriot speaking truth to power. Your empty slogans advertise your disrespect for science and spelling. (I misspell sometimes, too. It’s no grave sin. Please don’t make it a way of life that defines your character.)

What do good and bad people have in common? Defying the law.

Bad people defy good laws designed for public safety because they’re criminals. They have bad wiring, lack skills and opportunity, are stupid and selfish (or a combination thereof).

Good people defy bad laws because sometimes laws defy reason. Why? Because we’re trying to have a civilization here! Let’s work together to survive and thrive in mutual respect and compassion.

I recommend changing bad laws by working peacefully from within the system. Vote. Run for office or campaign for your candidate. Demonstrate peacefully. If you must be a dick, dare to be a dick for a good cause. There are rare times when defying laws makes sense. When you do it, make sure it makes sense.

Make sure a reasonable person would suspect you’re one of the good guys.

Posted on

What to Read in the Apocalypse

THE NIGHT MAN COVER

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. cropped-Photo-Credit-to-David-Redding.jpg