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My Deal with Hachette for HOW TO MAKE A HORROR MOVIE

March 24, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

I could not be happier today to announce I have signed a deal with Orbit, the speculative fiction imprint of Hachette Book Group, to publish my next horror novel, titled HOW TO MAKE A HORROR MOVIE. This is my fifth novel with Hachette, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to work again with my awesome editor and such a great brand.

A slasher film director makes a horror movie with a cursed camera that kills anyone he cares about. The scream queen he loves wants to survive the night. Together, director and Final Girl, they’re about to make movie history.

No details yet on publication date yet, but it will be available pretty much everywhere, bookstores and so on. Get ready for a deep dive into horror movies and in particular the eighties. Can’t wait for all y’all to read this one. Stay tuned for more soon!

Filed Under: APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, Craig at Work, CRAIG'S WORK, How to Make a Horror Movie, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, WRITING LIFE

DEVOLUTION by Max Brooks

February 21, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

An epistolary novel by Max Brooks (WORLD WAR Z), DEVOLUTION tells the story of the Mount Rainier Massacre through interviews peppering the journal entries of one of the people who was there. This one took me a long time to get the motor of engagement started, but once it did, it really roared.

The story begins with a young urban couple moving to a remote eco-community called Greenloop. Here, the residents live close to nature while maintaining all the comforts of the big city. When nearby Mount Rainier erupts, all these comforts evaporate. And worse: The eruption has forced an animal migration, including a particularly monstrous, hungry, and previously hidden type of beast: the thing we call Bigfoot.

The narrative plays out primarily through the wife’s journal. Over time, we get ongoing snippets of interviews from experts, park rangers, and others. The two work together pretty well, with the journal bringing us there as the events unfold and the interviews adding context, background, a look at the bigger picture of the Rainier eruption, and so on.

Not gonna lie: It took me a while to get into this, so much so I put it down a while ago and only recently came back to it. For one, I didn’t find the protagonist particularly likable to a level I could invest. It’s kind of the point, as she’s been pampered by civilization and eventually transforms under the pressure to adapt and survive, but the preamble describing Greenloop and daily life there through her eyes wasn’t particularly engaging for me. Besides that, I have an odd bar for willing suspension of disbelief. As with other epistolary works, I had to get past the mental hurdle that she spent an enormous time writing in her journal so that I could just accept the convention and go with the flow.

Once Rainier blows its top, however, things get very, very interesting. The community slowly realizing its predicament, the transformation to self-reliance, the advance warnings something horrible was coming and all of its reveals, the drive to survive, and the various tactics the residents use to defend themselves against an incredibly powerful and ferocious predator were all pretty much perfect.

By the end, I can’t say I fell in love the way many readers did–the book has more than 8,000 reviews on Amazon with an average 4.4 rating, and I can see why–but I did like this one a lot. It’s a clever, realistic, and informed take on Bigfoot; an excellent thematic view of survival and adaptation; and overall a very strong survival horror story.

Filed Under: APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Reviews of Other Books, The Blog

DESERT CREATURES by Kay Chronister

February 21, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

I recently enjoyed Kay Chronister’s DESERT CREATURES, a novel about a future slow apocalypse due to environmental catastrophe.

In this story, toxic rain has driven humanity into the desert, where clever businessmen have set up a religion based in Las Vegas to establish and maintain their power and wealth. In this dangerous and evolving world, Magdala, a child, struggles to survive and wants to make a pilgrimage so that a saint will heal her clubfoot, a deformity where the foot is turned inward. The novel follows her life in a world that is slowly dying along with a heretic priest who may be able to perform miracles.

This is an odd one, I have to say that first. The environment is hostile but also evolving, developing new strange life forms and imposing escalating pressure on human biology and society until it is barely subsisting and seems ready to simply join the desert itself. There is a lot of religion. The narrative jumps protagonists and then forward in time, with a lot of wandering and frustrated hopes and no clear theme, making the story feel a little disjointed with some readers likely wondering, what’s the story here, and where is this all going?

Yeah, okay, but I liked it. It’s less one thing than a collection of things, and the mosaic they formed caught me. The new desert life in particular was interesting and weird, I liked the adaptation of Christianity to cowboy saints and casinos, the ongoing degradation of society is pretty bleak, and the story drags you through the dirt and dust while maintaining a mythic feel to it, with some fantasy elements as strange as the landscape.

Overall, I admired what Chronister was trying to do here in this ambitious, different novel. It didn’t quite come together for me as a reader to make it a favorite, but I enjoyed the aspiration and what I received, enough to say, hey, take a look and see if this one might be for you.

Filed Under: Apocalyptic, APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Reviews of Other Books, The Blog

THE DRIFT by C.J. Tudor

February 21, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

C.J. Tudor’s THE DRIFT is a terrific apocalyptic thriller with clever construction, a cascade of page-turning thriller elements, and a strong thematic focus on how crisis brings people together and tears them apart.

The story follows three main narratives, each with its own protagonist. Hannah, a student at an elite Academy, awakens on a crashed bus that was evacuating the school to a secure mountaintop facility called The Retreat due to an outbreak of a viciously persistent disease that is slowly destroying the world. Former detective Meg awakens with several strangers on a cable car suspended above a snowstorm; they were on their way to The Retreat, but the power is out and they’re stranded. And Carter, who works at The Retreat, struggles to survive with a small band of other survivors, but there may be a murderer in their midst.

Tudor proves herself a thriller master, as each of these storylines quickly portrays clear, easy-to-remember characters, sets up a locked room and ticking time bomb, and then bombards them with an avalanche of obstacles, problems, and escalating threats. By the end, we get to know their backstories and why they’re here, how the narratives tie together, and what it’s all adding up to.

I liked almost everything about this book. The pandemic is handled in an interesting way, the thriller style keeps the pages turning at a swift pace, there is some engaging reader detective work about how the storylines tie together, and there’s a solid thematic focus on how crisis unites and then breaks societies. As a fan of apocalyptic fiction, I’ve always been interested in how people would react to something like say zombies. I’ve always been a believer that humans are primarily cooperative animals and that this trait helped us reach the top of the food chain. This cooperation, however, is based on the principle of reciprocity–if I do for you, you do for me. Eventually, that principle may break down, and then it’s every person for themselves.

One potential downside for readers, particularly apocalyptic fiction fans, is there isn’t a lot of backstory on the state of the world and the pandemic itself. Almost all the events in the book happen in isolation, with the story’s focus being on these characters and their immediate survival. And if you’re new to thrillers, be prepared for a veritable kitchen sink of sudden obstacles.

Overall, I really enjoyed THE DRIFT and will be keeping an eye out for future works by this author.

Filed Under: Apocalyptic, APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Reviews of Other Books, The Blog

My Interviews with Ginger Nuts of Horror and Paul Semel

February 21, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

With the recent release of EPISODE THIRTEEN, I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Ginger Nuts of Horror and Paul Semel.

In the Ginger Nuts interview, I talk about EPISODE THIRTEEN, the horror genre, and what it’s like as an author to get a bad review. In the Paul Semel interview, I talk about EPISODE THIRTEEN and the opportunities, challenges, and mechanics of writing an epistolary “found footage” book.

Check out the Ginger Nuts of Horror interview here.

Check out the Paul Semel interview here.

Big thanks to both for having me on a guest!

Filed Under: APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, Craig at Work, CRAIG'S WORK, Episode Thirteen, Interviews with Craig, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, The Blog, WRITING LIFE

HorrorBound on EPISODE THIRTEEN: “I Highly Recommend This”

January 27, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

HorrorBound recently reviewed EPISODE THIRTEEN, which released earlier this week, advising readers, “I highly recommend this.”

A snippet:

“Wow wow WOW I LOVED this! Absolutely Craig DiLouie’s best and strongest novel so far… Great for found footage fans, for fans of shows like Ghost Adventures, and for fans of cleverly told ghost stories.”

Check out the complete review here. Thank you for the kind words, HorrorBound!

And click here to learn more about my new horror novel published by Hachette.

Filed Under: APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, CRAIG'S WORK, Episode Thirteen, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, The Blog

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