Endemic by Robert Chazz Chute follows Ovid Fairweather as she tries to navigate a world ravaged by a disease that turns people essentially braindead. As with any collapse of society, a power vacuum develops, and various individuals group together to seize that power….Can Ovid find a way to survive in a world that aims to take whatever she has left? And can she do it while reconciling with her troubled past?
Ovid endures a great deal in her past and present life. The author does a fantastic job incorporating her past experiences into the main plot points, thus keeping readers guessing and gasping as they read. I would be happy to read more from this setting, and its characters in the future, so here’s hoping there’s a sequel on the way soon.
Endemic is a suspenseful and thrilling science fiction novel with a dystopian twist. Readers will be drawn into the world that at times is almost too real and plausible and left with an eerie feeling of could this happen to me.
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!
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.
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.
“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.
Okay, okay! We get it, Rob! Things are bad. What’s your point?
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.
My point is not that you shouldn’t complain.
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.
I want to make a more subtle point:
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.
So it’s time to revisit something from Do the Thing.
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.
Here are your choices using 3A Stress Management
In any stressful situation, you choose from the Alter/Avoid/Accept Triad.
Alter: Change the frame and circumstance if and where you can. Make isolation more pleasant. Find helpful, happy and healthy distractions.
And ask for support.
Avoid: Get away from threats to your physical and mental health where possible (i.e. masks, physical distancing, isolation, etc.)
And ask for support.
Accept: Don’t try to control that which is beyond your control.
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?!
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 Dayscontain 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.
In writing a novel, my first priority is to weave a compelling story with interesting characters with fun twists and solid jokes amid the action. The theme emerges eventually, it does not come first. Now that I’ve written several apocalyptic books, here’s what came out of the subtext of the following works:
This Plague of Days: The right person in the right place at the right time can make all the difference in the world and the two most powerful words are “Begin again.”
Life’s not fair. It’s our job to make it that way.
In an eerily familiar near-future, America has fallen to fascism. Citizenship is attainable only through military service or immense wealth. The Resistance is broke and broken. Amid this dystopian landscape, New Atlanta has become a fortress reserved for the billionaire elite.
Hopes to save the nation have faded but Kismet Beatriz remains defiant. The intrepid young survivor embarks on a desperate mission to storm the castle of the Select Few. To win, she must face the future without flinching.
Don’t hope. Do.
CITIZEN SECOND CLASS WILL SOON BE AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER.
