Behind-the-scenes book talk with a bestselling author and his unicorn. Join 6000+ readers of my 150 books as I share stories behind the stories, unbox the creative process, and lead a disobedient "artisan author" movement to treat readers like rockstars and make the book world suck less.
Suicide Flats
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'Morning! Last week, I told you about a new book that I'm working on right now, called Suicide Flats. Suicide Flats will be published in November (so get your buy-fingers ready), but for now I'm just delighting in the simple act of writing it. Because man: IT'S SO BADASS TO BE WRITING AGAIN! It might surprise you that I'd say that. There's no surprise in the idea of "Johnny is writing a book," right? After all, I'm an author. Me writing books is no big deal, is it? Well, trust me: It's a big deal to me even if it's not to you. I've spent this past year building, learning, and re-launching myself after getting back the rights to most of my books. That's all been great ... but because it's so much work, I haven't been writing very much. Gore Point was written long before I published it, as were both of its sequels. The book I'll launch after this one (called Winter Break) was also written a while ago. (I've got a great story about Winter Break and why I waited to publish it, by the way. I'll tell you all about it after Suicide Flats is out and I'm able to turn my attention to it.) Folks, Suicide Flats is the first I've written in two years. Even before that, I was sort of blocked. I'd overcomplicated the process of writing so completely that writing got a whole lot harder. It also wasn't nearly as fun. This book, however, feels like old times. This book, by contrast to some of my recent others, is a LOT of fun to write. Let's talk details.You don't care about my writing problems. You care about the book and its story, so let's get to that. Let's start with the cover: World and Genre Premise In 1989, after decades of the government quietly covering up signs of inter-planar incursions in the old Zen Element mines, a fissure opens under the mysterious black lake inside once-beautiful Wasatch-Cache National Forest. A demon emerges, enters the town of Fortune, and goes on a rampage … soon followed by other demons. The attack grows out of control, soon enough known as the largest disaster in riftfare history — and the one that led to the creation of Legions, Stitchers, and the Brigades. Characters I ultimately settled on the idea of a minister named Callum MacReady. (I don't know where "Callum" came from, but I chose "MacReady" as his last name because I'd recently re-watched John Carpenter's The Thing and that's the name of Kurt Russell's character. Seemed as good a reason as any.) At the start of the story, Callum is in a crisis of faith. His son Nathan is terminally ill, but Callum has to deal with his pain publicly, reframing it in ways that comfort his parishioners but only make Callum feel worse. The conflict, folks, is real. You might say he's the perfect foil for an attack by the minions of Hell. Once I was underway, I ended up needing a "knowledge-rich" point of view to go with Callum's civilian perspective: a character who knew what was going on so his thoughts and actions could explain things to the reader. I ended up deciding to write a scientist named Eldon Porter into that role. If you read Gore Point (and again, you don't need to have read it), you'll recognize that name. Eldon was the first demon-fighter (called a "Legion") in the official riftfare brigades ... and the father of Gore Point's heroes, Ray and Adrian Porter (a Legion and a Stitcher, respectively, taking after their father). Once I decided to add Eldon, I leaned in hard. Eldon's story hasn't been told before now. Suicide Flats, although it's more properly Callum's story, is also Eldon's origin -- as well as that of the Brigades that fight demons coming from rifts inside the walled-off city of Fortune. Explanatory Lore Anyway, the truth is there's a lot of cool lore in this world. There's the Gore Point itself (a thin spot where portals open up between Earth and Hell), a dead zone called Suicide Flats around it (a morose place where ill feelings take on new life, inspiring the book's title), interplanar rifts (the portals themselves, which are graded on a logarithmic scale like earthquakes, with no upper limit), and Brigades of dedicated fighters in place to deal with the rifts because there's no way to keep them from opening. Brigades include two kinds of specialized workers: Legions (who kill the demons as they emerge) and Stitchers (who close the rifts once the excursions are complete). In addition, though, there are elements I never so much as touched in Gore Point or its sequels. The Rampart -- the huge wall that surrounds the city of Fortune, to keep bad stuff not out but in instead -- was one of them. In this book, the nature of the Rampart became very important. If there's a mass demon outbreak inside Fortune, exactly how the hell is a WALL supposed to keep them inside? There had to be something special about the Rampart ... and now, I know what it is. (As will you, if you read this book.) The development of specialized Legion weapons was another unexplored end. We learn in Gore Point that Legions use different kinds of weapons to battle different "classes" of demons, but not how any of those weapons were created. In Suicide Flats, I explore that, too. Lastly, I discovered while writing where the word "Legion" came from. Here's the relevant excerpt from the story about it: Eldon nodded at the soldier The soldier glanced at the Rollard and nodded back.
“What’s your name?” Eldon asked.
“Weatherby.”
“Your first name.”
“Donnie.”
“You up for this, Donnie?” Eldon asked. He felt newly sorry for the kid. Donnie? The name only made him seem younger, more carefree, and more ill-fitting for what might be coming.
Donnie gave a grim half-smile with no joy in it at all. “Depends what ‘this’ is,” he said. “But I’ll do my best, sir.”
Eldon considered saying more. He thought about telling the soldier more of what he knew and what he thought might be true, and he thought about saying something about himself to reassure him — namely, that Eldon wasn’t entirely a nerdy scientist. He’d worked dual career possibilities for far longer than was sensible, certain until just a few years ago that he still might end up a fireman. He’d done most of the training; he could lug a hundred pounds of five-inch hose up a stairwell and carry a full-grown man over his shoulder. There were times when Eldon actually wished he’d gone that way — that he could be a fighter instead of a thinker: a killer of riftborne threats rather than a studier of them. Today, he supposed, was his chance. He’d just have to think of it that way — and, hopefully, convince Donnie that he was more competent than he’d so-far felt.
In the end, though, Eldon settled on another nod — this time with what he hoped was a devil-may-care smile.
“There’s just one of them, though?” said the kid. “You think there’s just one … demon?”
Eldon allowed the word. “Fiend” was a euphemism anyway. They all knew what the other place was, and what its inhabitants should be called.
“Just one.”
“I just can’t help thinking about my grandfather with his bible, sir,” Donnie said, looking at his feet. “In Mark 5:9, when Jesus performs an exorcism … well, the demon inside that man says it’s not just one. It’s many.”
Eldon nodded. He wasn’t religious himself, but his parents sure had been. “‘I am legion,’” Eldon quoted. “That’s what it says.”
“Yes sir.”
Eldon was watching the young soldier’s eyes when he heard the first scream come from the mall. Then the second. Then the third. It was now or never.
“Well, there’s only one fiend this time, but there’s two of us,” Eldon said, slapping Donnie on the back and turning toward the entrance. “This time, we’re the legions.”
Release Date I'm not willing to put Suicide Flats's release date in stone just yet, but I'm currently shooting for November 12th. It'll be half price for the first week, so put it on your calendar so you don't miss it and wind up paying full price. NOTE: Remember, if you backed my City of Fire Kickstarter campaign, you'll get Suicide Flats for free as your stretch goal reward. (If you want to buy it from Amazon et al anyway to help fire-up the algorithms that'll make those stores show it to more people, though, I'm not going to stop you.) I'm stoked for this one, you guys! I can't wait to put it out there and let you read it! Stay tuned for more next week ... P.S: I've made a big deal about being an "Artisan Author," meaning I believe in taking my time to create the best books I can rather than rushing to write and publish new books as quickly as possible like so many of my peers. Despite this, I'll be publishing three new books over the next three months ... which probably sounds like rushing and quick-publishing after all. There's a reason why, but you won't care about it. Just know that this is a weird, special situation, so ... you know ... don't get used to this pace, okay? Consider it a holiday gift or something. Everyone does weird shit around the holidays. P.P.S: There's no Kickstarter for Suicide Flats, nor for the December release (Winter Break). I'm just releasing them normally, on all bookstores including my own website. If you've ever bought a book online before, getting these two books will be no different. P.P.P.S: If you want to read Gore Point to get ready for Suicide Flats, you can get it here. |
Literary As F**k
Behind-the-scenes book talk with a bestselling author and his unicorn. Join 6000+ readers of my 150 books as I share stories behind the stories, unbox the creative process, and lead a disobedient "artisan author" movement to treat readers like rockstars and make the book world suck less.
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