Apocalypse Weird

When UFOs Were Real

September 25, 2015 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

One of the niftier bits about growing up in the 1970s was that UFOs were real. Real enough for the U.S. Air Force to carry on with a project known as Project Blue Book. It was, we were told, a concerted effort by the military to quantify reported sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects in an attempt to understand what they were and why they were showing up.

The project was a thing from 1952 to 1970 but even after the military cancelled it, UFOs held the public’s attention in a vise-like grip. Books on the subject were in every major store. There was even a TV show based on it.

In the end, we gave up. Hoaxes were exposed, sightings were attributed to natural phenomena, and repeated screenings of Close Encounters of the Third Kind was as close as any human got to seeing the inside of an alien spaceship.

Until now.

Eric Tozzi has the dirt on the aliens, and let me tell you, it’s not pretty. They are here to kidnap our people for nefarious purposes, break our planet, and trash our stuff. Phoenix Lights, his grand addition to the Apocalypse Weird ‘verse is on sale for another couple of days, meaning you can grab this great bit of UFO-type mayhem for about a buck. You can read a review of the book here to get started. You won’t be sorry!

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What I’m Writing: AW: The Taste Makers

July 29, 2015 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

A while back I wrote what I consider my first story about the end of the world. I’m a comic fan, and while talking to other comic fans, the subject of Christian mythology came up. I wanted to write a sort of buddy cop story set in the old city of Jerusalem, which I’ve always felt a special connection to, although I haven’t visited there recently. The result was a short work titled The Politics of the Apocalypse and it was published in HDWP Books’ Theme-Thology: Real World Unreal. It was a ton of work, and a ton of fun to write.

Then I was pointed toward a much bigger, far more ambitious project: a shared world where each contributor could wreck the world in his own fashion. I was hooked.

I’m a New Yorker. I was born here, I live here, and I’m probably going to die here. I take that reality very seriously. I complain—all New Yorkers do—loudly and frequently about the air, the heat, the cars, cabs, trains and subways, OMG the mayor, because that’s what we do.

But what got me thinking about the end of everything was the food.

Think about it. Americans are obsessed with food. Eat more? Eat less? Organic or non-organic? Vegetarian or vegan? GMO or non-GMO? Real sugar? Sugar substitutes? Canola oil or coconut oil? Only in New York City can a diner enter a restaurant and demand to know if the salmon on the menu is Atlantic or Pacific, without a hint of irony. Only in a foodie’s paradise like Manhattan can one find a dish to tweak any conceivable taste.

Bottom line: some eat to live, others live to eat.

But what if the food were the trap? What if we were so obsessed with the process of eating–who prepares it, how it’s prepared, where do the ingredients come from–that it literally killed us?

AW: The Taste Makers is what I’m writing to find out.

The book isn’t finished–it’s close, but not just yet–and it’s gone through several major revisions so far. I can’t even tell you if “The Taste Makers” will be the final title. But I can show you the pitch I wrote that got the publisher’s attention:

Wall Street crashes for the last time as a Food Network entrepreneur and his crew struggle to survive the unraveling horror of his latest venture.

A rash of murder-suicides ravage daily life as food preparation becomes a devastating weapon that knows no borders or boundaries, under the influence of forces beyond science.

As cursed novelty knives turn foodies into homicidal maniacs and a unknown blight destroys crops, the emerging elite horde supplies as cities become death traps and the countryside starves.

The Wolf of Wall Street meets Friday the 13^th as financial sharks deal with demonic slashers, backstabbing greedheads, and a sea of their past victims in a bloody conflict where only the ruthless can survive.

The action swaps between the financial district and the upper east side, from the upper reaches of the Freedom Tower to Central Park and Chinatown while a NYPD detective comes to terms with what he’s seen done to his beloved city in the name of profit, and whether he can help stop it.

A ton of work to finish, and a ton of fun to write.

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Last Chance for WEIRD Things

May 20, 2015 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

Remember last week when I told you about the Apocalypse Weird fund raiser?

Of course you do. You came here and read about it. Maybe you even clicked on the campaign link and donated. And you did these things because you care about brave new ideas in the world of fiction and about my willingness to be part of it.

So here we are, with 13 hours to go before Indiegogo closes the campaign, tallies up the numbers and your change to be part of something new and awesome disappears.

But . . .

If the campaign makes its goal, then Indiegogo will keep the clock running. That’s added time to donate in exchange for outstanding perks, a heartfelt “Thank you!”, and maybe some mention of the project and books to friends who like to read books about the world ending in wacky and outlandish ways.

So this is it, The Big Push. As I write this the campaign is 66% funded. Another $3,421 puts us over the edge and allows the process to continue, giving you access to perks long after the clock stops as well as many more months of outstanding books.

But for now, the clock is ticking . . .

awcountdown — Donation Clock of Doom Awaits!

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You Can Have WEIRD Things

May 13, 2015 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

(I know, I owe you a post about imagining the “death of the library.” But this is a big deal.)

I recently got into a Facebook thread with a former (now grown up) student over e-book pricing decisions. She’s an avid reader but refuses to buy any e-book that’s more than a dollar or two in price. It was nothing against the authors, or the books themselves, she explained. She just didn’t see why she should ever pay more than that for a book. Neither did her friends.

It’s a fair point, especially if all you’ve ever known about the experience of acquiring books is looking at price lists on Amazon and clicking a button. From the producer’s side of the transaction, it’s more complicated.

There’s the author, who creates a labor of love until the minute someone decides to click that yellow button that says “Buy”. There’s the editor, who toils over the manuscript to make it readable. Some editors will carve out whole chunks of text to achieve that, others will simply correct the grammar, spacing, and spelling, but the effort is the same.

There is the cover artist who brings a point of story from inside the pages of the manuscript into blazing life.

The point, as Kevin G. Summers makes clear here, is that books cost money to make. Considerable amounts of money. In the case of indie publishing, everyone except the author makes money, at least until he or she sells enough copies to recover the costs of the book in question. Speaking as someone who has just started down this road, it’s a steep learning curve.

Indy authors Nick Cole and Michael Bunker, and ThirdScribe creator Rob McClellan have made a thing, called Apocalypse Weird. I’ve mentioned it on Facebook and Twitter, and I’ve reviewed a bunch of the books they’ve released.

To be blunt, they need money to keep the ball rolling, and have built an Indiegogo project to raise it. Three greats ways of donating stand out:

First, just drop a buck into the bucket. It makes no dent in your budget and still helps us out.

Second, you can drop a fiver into the bucket and get a neat perk.

Third–and my favorite option–$20 buys you the first eight AW novels, which have been getting rave reviews across the board for months. Or, for the same $20, you can pre-order the next eight AW novels in the series, which are sure to be every bit as good.

Sixteen outstanding works of End of the World fiction for $40. It doesn’t get better than that.

Actually–it does get better. There are plenty of awesome perks to choose from. But, the sale ends in 8 days, so check out the fund raiser to donate now!

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Reader Advisory: AW: Genesis

April 21, 2015 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

Everyone remembers the day they truly became an adult; some call it the best day of their lives while others think of it as the worst. Kasey Byrne will never make that choice, because it’s just been taken away from her. Her old life has ended along with her world. What remains is an existential comment on the details; her memories, her regrets, her dashed hopes for the future, and the insanely deadly situation which she now navigates on a one way trip to the End of the World.

As the book opens, eight-year-old Kasey is playing on the beach when a stranger hands her an amulet, insisting that he’s sorry. For all the fuss her Mom makes of the encounter, Kasey feels safe when wearing the device, embossed with the figure of a white dragon.

Ten years later, she’s living the life of a million other Long Island girls her age: school is done, and summer approaches. She baby-sits her neighbors’ kids for cash. She has friends, a decent home life, a new car (a birthday present from her Dad to compensate for a bitter divorce), plenty of time to go surfing on the South Shore, and a boy who is interested in her.

All that comes to a screeching halt after she wakes to find thousands of dolphins in the process of beaching themselves, in obvious terror from something looming on the horizon.

That thing is, of course, the Apocalypse, embodied in this case by the Blood Riders and Red Ship minions which hold the people of Babylon, New York, in their bloody grip. Kasey must find other survivors as she and Jack (the boy mentioned previously) weather the death of her mother and murder of the police who answered the call; the kidnapping of Jack and Kasey’s long, hard journey to retrieve him.

She picks up valuable help in her travels: Jennifer Wang, an ex-Marine M.D., Blair, just a professional guy trying to keep it together in the face of his wife’s death, and Aarika, the extremely practical, forward-thinking Indian kid who ran his uncle’s gas station until all hell broke loose.

All this leads to Douglas, the man who gave Kasey the amulet ten years ago. And he is the only one who can train her to weather the rigors to come as the world teeters and tips into oblivion.

Stefan Bolz has given us what he describes as a “very personal” story. It’s a poetic tale that draws readers in by dangling the myth of childhood as an idyllic, perfect, blissful state of being before us, and shatters it (and his characters) by smashing the mythology against the ugly, harsh face of disaster.

Suitable both for adult and YA audiences, my only complaint about Genesis is that the book ends on a cliff hanger: with Kasey taking a literal leap of faith in order to learn what she needs to harness the power of the White Dragon and save the world.

But that’s another (eagerly awaited) book.

Get The Book!

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Reader Advisory: AW: Medium Talent

April 14, 2015 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

Confession time: I just finished Forbes West’s addition to the AW universe, Medium Talent, and oh, does my head hurt. West has a Hemmingway thing going on, and it’s grizzly, ugly, and stressful to read. Forget the facts, the iceberg theory of writing, the Kilimanjaro stuff, or the Spanish civil war. Hell, forget about the old guy alone in the cabin with the shotgun on his lap. Forget all that, because if you don’t, you head will hurt, too.

Medium Talent is the tale of Key West survivors of a world-spanning hurricane three years earlier; the Supply Org (the AW version of FEMA) is the last bit of government around, which gives aid and comfort to the fortress fleet of the rich and powerful, while the denizens of the Florida Keys and most other places scratch what they can out of crappy local economies. Danger is ever present: if it’s not the Supply Org shaking you down, it’s the playboys on their armored yachts, or the sea monsters, or the zombies, or local thugs, or even the infected who are warehoused in the Depository.

Into this sub-tropical hell hole we meet Wendy Wicker, captain of the Medium Talent, who presents herself as a smuggler, artist, wife, adopted mother, and incredibly violent borderline sociopath. Somehow she is all these things, and yet, truly none of them. Trying to give you a linear picture of this distinctly non-linear world and story would be a hopeless gesture, but I can tell you the Wendy is far more complicated than she seems, she does meet Hemmingway back in 1934 Key West, and deep down she really does want to save the world. Or at least her little corner of it.

Anyway, the Hemmingway thing has its advantages; it creates a fascinating thread through a rollicking world that alternately confuses and makes perfect sense. It gets weird, but that’s sort of the name of the game, isn’t it?

Get The Book

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