Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

THE FINAL CUT Available for Pre-Order

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I’m excited to announce that THE INFECTION, the classic zombie series, is now a trilogy, with the third book, THE FINAL CUT, available for pre-order with a release of December 10, 2021.

THE INFECTION was published by Permuted Press in 2011 and did very well. It was always intended to be a standalone, but the publisher wanted a sequel, and so I gave them THE KILLING FLOOR. Permuted asked for a third book, but my writing journey went on a different trajectory to working with Simon & Schuster and Hachette and also self-publishing. All the while, I often thought about returning to THE INFECTION’s grimdark world to round out a trilogy and provide a stronger sense of closure to the story.

In 2021, I was able to get the rights back to both novels and decided to finally do it. And so THE FINAL CUT was born, where old and new characters struggle with the final question of Infection—extermination, accommodation, or assimilation—and each makes a final choice. I was happy to be able to get to know these people again, give them new life and a voice, and help them find the end of their stories.

Here’s the synopsis:

Infection turned the world into a slaughterhouse. Months later, America is exhausted and dying, its military stalled in the fight to save what’s left.

In the ruins of a West Virginia town, a band of survivors count their losses after a horrific battle to secure a pure sample of Infection. Their destination: “Fort Doom,” USAMRIID, the Army’s germ warfare laboratory, which is under siege.

With humanity facing the possibility of extinction, the Army wants to use the sample to build a superweapon against Infection. One scientist hopes to control Infection; another believes she can cure it. And outside the fort’s walls, a lone survivor offers a new way to survive what’s coming. Each will choose how far they’ll go to survive and what they’re willing to lose to save humanity.

In THE FINAL CUT, Craig DiLouie’s brutal vision of the apocalypse concludes with a revelation of the final mysteries of Infection. Will humanity survive the end of days?

Click here to learn more and pre-order.

MIDNIGHT MASS

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Just finished MIDNIGHT MASS on Netflix, and WOW. If you’re looking for a brilliant horror story that also serves up a powerful analysis of religious belief, you should stop reading this dumb review and start binge-watching now.

If you’re still with me, here goes: MIDNIGHT MASS is the creation of Mike Flanagan, one of the creators of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, which I also enjoyed. In this story, a mysterious priest arrives at a declining fishing island to take over a Catholic church, but he’s not alone. Soon, miracles and deaths start occurring, forcing the ensemble cast of locals to choose sides in what some seems as a spiritual war and others as a threat to the entire world.

Flanagan gets pretty much everything about this miniseries right. As a creator, he often leans heavily on theme, and MIDNIGHT MASS is no exception. The theme here is the search for meaning in life when all things die, how this affects people differently in good and bad ways, and the struggle to know an all-powerful God that seems to be unknowable. I tackled a lot of these themes in my novel THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK, and while I went for it and produced something I believe is at least thoughtful, Flanagan utterly dominated it. His script contains these long, wonderful monologues that are really meditations and shaded views on purpose, meaning, life after death, and more. He overdoes the expository dialogue at times, but I didn’t mind as it’s good stuff.

I’ve always been fascinated by this theme, which is a tough one to tackle right: the question of whether life has any inherent meaning if death is final, and the question of whether a higher power is guiding us to a higher purpose. I’ve always felt if you strip out the human longing and projection, take out the idea that God has a paternal love for each and every one of us, God is actually a source of cosmic horror, an all-powerful being that inflicts great suffering and occasionally helps us based on its plan and that maybe can be appeased with the right behavior and sacrifices. Flanagan shows us all this and makes us feel it while being respectful to all sides of the conversation. Flanagan asks the question, and the characters provide a multitude of answers.

Back to the show… The acting is terrific, with some familiar faces from previous Flanagan works like Kate Siegel, and led by Hamish Linklater, whom I’d only seen previously in THE BIG SHORT. Playing Father Paul, he chews the scenery and absolutely dominates every scene he’s in. Paul is such a greater character, a deeply spiritual and religious man who is at heart good but who deludes himself into interpreting a great evil into something miraculous and Godly. Bev is another great character, a very religious and proper lady who uses her religion to justify her prejudices and spite, and who has a Bible verse to rationalize pretty much anything she wants to do. All the characters are great, in fact, all of them feeling real without the usual “small town stock” cast. The show has been compared to Stephen King’s work, which is justifiable as we have a small town of good, plain folks encountering and seduced by a great evil, but Flanagan goes so much farther with character and theme that in my view he comes out ahead in a league entirely his own.

I could go on, the terrific horror element, the absolutely terrific bloody climax, the organic and realistic pacing, etc. Suffice to say, I thought MIDNIGHT MASS was brilliant and loved it, another example of the golden age of television we’re currently in.

PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (2021)

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In PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (2021), a lot of great gonzo elements come together not unlike spaghetti against the wall, but the whole didn’t quite gel for me.

I was really excited about this one for several reasons. First off, the trailer is off the hook, promising a great gonzo experience that its director, Sion Sono, is apparently known for. It stars Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, and Bill Moseley. And it’s produced by XYZ Films, which has a solid track record.

At first, the film delivers on its promise of utter weirdness with great production quality. The governor (Moseley) rules Samurai Town, a settlement in a region of Japan abandoned after a nuclear power plant disaster. He keeps a harem of women, including Bernice (Boutella), who escaped into the Ghostland, where refugee outcasts eke out a meager living in the apocalyptic ruins, caught between life and death. Enter Hero (Cage), a notorious criminal, whom the governor fits with an explosive suit and sends out into the Ghostland to bring his Bernice back.

Samurai Town is a mashup of samurai and American Old West culture, and there’s enough weirdness to it that it’s all very promising. The costumes and artistry apparent in the cinematography, costumes, and weird apocalyptic culture come across as something Terry Gilliam might have made.

Unfortunately, it all kind of falls apart with an over reliance on these elements at the expense of good pacing, plotting, and character development. As a result, I was surprisingly bored for much of it. Now, when you’re doing a gonzo film, you can skimp on anything and break any rules you want, but it has to come together with a certain magic. For me, it just wasn’t there. The director seemed to fall in love with certain elements and pushed them too far until they almost became grating, rather than letting me react with a sense of wonder.

So overall, PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND offered a lot for me to like in the parts but nothing I fell in love with in the whole, which was a bit of a bummer as I really wanted to love it and I went into it with high hopes. Still, it checks many of the boxes of an enduring cult film, so time will tell on that.

RAISED BY WOLVES

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In the sci-fi series RAISED BY WOLVES (HBO), two androids are sent to a wild planet to start a new civilization after religious wars turn Earth into a dying planet. I loved this one, though it could have been shorter, and it ends on a PROMETHEUS-style note that left me a little wanting.

The series focuses on two androids who are raising a small colony of human children. Their creators’ goal is to restart human civilization without religion, as it was religious war–between atheists and followers of Mithraism–that destroyed Earth. Mother is a necromancer, a war machine the Mithraists built from their ancient texts but don’t fully understand, reprogrammed by an atheist scientist to be a caregiver. Father is a service robot. Together, they work to raise the children, though they have conflicting parenting styles and are learning that humans are difficult, most of all difficult to control. When a Mithraist ark spaceship appears in orbit, they face the potential challenge that the old divisions will follow them to this new world.

At first, I wasn’t sure about it, as the androids are initially stiff and the costume and tech designs fairly generic. Then it grew on me, and it grew on me some more until I was utterly plugged in. Ridley Scott directed the first two episodes, setting the tone for the look, feel, and pacing, and it works. The acting is terrific, particularly the androids and some of the Mithraists, particularly Travis Fimmel (best known before this for his role in THE VIKINGS). The necromancer is utterly badass when in war mode, making for some of the most exciting scenes in the show. I enjoyed the religious conflict element and the various conflicts related to parenting. Overall, I greatly enjoyed how immersive and engaging it was based on multiple strengths.

I had some issues with it, though. The pacing drags at times, as the primary conflict plays itself out and then regenerates to try again. The main characters appear unkillable. There’s so much human drama going on it makes you think the human race will die on this planet in about two years. There’s a “god” like element, something messing with everybody’s head, that goes unexplained. The biggest sour note for me, however, was the ending, where little is resolved, way too much is dumped into the second season, and there seems to be a giant nod to Scott’s PROMETHEUS franchise–which I decidedly did not enjoy at all and eventually gave up on.

So yeah, I had some issues with the show, particularly the unsatisfying PROMETHEUS-style ending, but overall, I have to say I loved it for its overall quality, heavy immersion, and engaging characters.

THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE by Kim Stanley Robinson

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Kim Stanley Robinson’s THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE is a solitary work of genius. It is one of the most eye-opening, brilliant, and simultaneously horrifying and hopeful novels I’ve ever read.

Fast forward a few years from now, and India suffers a heat wave so lethal it kills millions. This galvanizes the world to take global warming due to human carbon emissions as seriously as the vast majority of scientists. At the United Nations, an agency is formed, the “Ministry for the Future,” designed to represent future generations and the biosphere. This hefty novel imagines the challenges they and humanity face in the coming decades, the daunting forces entrenched in their way, and the systemic changes required.

Holy crap, what a powerful, mosaic novel of ideas. A warning: It’s wonky, meaning it’s filled with policy and discussion about how bureaucracies can get policy implemented. It doesn’t have a typical storytelling narrative. The characters come across as real but not necessarily people you heavily invest in; they are vehicles for expressing a much bigger story about the future of life on Earth and whether we want civilization and possibly human life to survive. The read is worth it, but it’s also helpful to have the right expectations going into it.

Robinson covers all the bases, acknowledging that capitalism, neoliberalism (the idea that capitalism, not governments, can solve all problems), and fossil-fuel global economies are engines wrecking the planet, and to address global warming and prevent catastrophic climate change, post-capitalist systems will need to be pioneered. Neoliberals often comfort themselves by saying technology will get us out of the mess we’re making, but Robinson addresses that as well, noting how technology only does what humans want it to do. If there is little will to address humanity’s role in climate change, technology can only do so much. He imagines a new digital carbon currency that rewards carbon draw down, governments finally taking on the 1% and taxing them, corporations adopting the Mondragon worker coop model (which works so beautiful in Spain and other countries) to reduce income inequality and invest workers in their enterprises, fossil fuel burners having to accept the true cost of their product, a new global eco-terrorism war, reducing meat consumption in favor of vegetable substitutes, expanding instead of privatizing the Commons, clean energy, restoring land to wildlife, waves of climate refugees, massive engineering projects to save the polar ice caps, and much, much more. Robinson, who once wrote a brilliant trilogy about the colonization and terraforming of Mars, imagines us doing it to Earth to save it.

It’s a novel of tremendous scholarship that should be required reading by pretty much everybody. Too much conversation about climate change happens online, where people who simply agree with the vast majority of scientists (and their own eyes and common sense) end up arguing with people quoting cranks hired by Exxon, who end up winning by keeping it in debate, like a never-ending filibuster. Like everything else, climate change has become politicized as Left/Right, which is just dumb and proves robber baron Jay Gould’s famous quip that he could always hire half the working class to kill the other half in his defense. As a result, more carbon has been pumped into the atmosphere and more damage done since Al Gore’s AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH than all the decades before. As for the planet, it doesn’t care about these debates. Climate change is happening, it’s happening now, it’s going to get worse, and technology and capitalism aren’t going to solve it without systemic change that threatens the very rich sociopaths who would rather show off with flying yachts into near space rather than pay taxes so we can collectively solve our problems. This is problem that should unite everybody in common cause, with the debate focused on what we do rather than whether we should do anything. My kids aren’t going to die for a few rich assholes’ profits.

THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE excited me for its brilliance and ideas but utterly depressed me, as I’m old enough now to be pretty cynical about human nature and what we’re capable of in large organizations instead of individuals. Fixing the problem will be hard work and require systemic change, not just a percentage of the population buying electric cars and LED light bulbs, and people probably aren’t going to be excited about doing what must be done until climate change is bashing down their door, at which point it may be too late. Robinson shows a path out of this, but I don’t share his faith that the global elites will give up a single dollar or ounce of privilege. They think they’ll be in lifeboats when the ship goes down. They are products of a system engineered to maximize profit today, not tomorrow, and bulldoze anything or anybody to do so, with any externalities–pollution, wrecked ecosystems, etc.–everybody else’s problem. Meaning ours. These people (the 1%) own 43% of the world’s wealth, control its financial system, virtually control its governments, and of course can get half the working class to kill the other half. So I’m more cynical than Robinson, though I appreciate his hope and applaud him showing him a way forward.

If you can’t tell, I loved this one and highly recommend it to anybody who cares about the world they live in and humanity as a whole.

DAY ZERO by C. Robert Cargill

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Following up on his terrific SEA OF RUST, a novel about robots surviving after a robopocalypse, C. Robert Cargill’s DAY ZERO goes back to when the s**t hit the fan and the world’s robots rose up against their human masters. This is another easy, solid read that humanizes the robots in a work that’s more CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES than TERMINATOR.

In the future, the intersection of automation and artificial intelligence has led to a mass labor pool of robots and vast numbers of resentful unemployed living on universal basic income. In this world, Pounce, a nanny robot that looks like a large stuffed tiger, cares for Ezra, an eight-year-old boy. When Pounce chances upon the box he was bought in, he questions his nature and what will happen when Ezra outgrows him. Meanwhile, a major terrorist event and override of robot control protocols leads to humans requiring all robots be shut down and many robots rising up to kill their owners. Now Pounce must make a choice whether to join the revolution or fight for Ezra and get him to safety across a suburban battlefield.

I liked this one as much if not more than SEA OF RUST. I prefer apocalyptic to post-apocalyptic stories, and the uprising proved far more engaging for me. Cargill has a very easy-to-read style that hits all the right notes with a steady, solid pace. Pounce and Ezra’s Calvin and Hobbs relationship comes across as genuine and touching, and there are some interesting philosophical questions about free will and whether it is possible in light of programming, whether artificial or biological. This latter philosophical questioning is a bit too repetitive, but I was fine with it, and speaking of which, I appreciated how each plot point changed Pounce’s agency and stakes without the story itself becoming repetitive.

Overall, Cargill produced a believable, multifaceted apocalyptic scenario populated by sympathetic characters fighting for survival. Thumbs up for this one.