What I’m Reading: The Next Batch of Apocalypse Weirdness

I’m on a mission to read all the Apocalypse Weird novels. Since these books are coming out at a rate of two a month, I have my work cut out for me.

Next up are the two latest contributions to the canon: Hoodoopocalypse and Phoenix Lights.

The best part about reading all the Apocalypse Weird novels is getting to see how each individual author takes on an end-times scenario. The AW novelist has some guidelines that must be followed, but generally they’re free to craft their own story in their own way.

Take, for example, Kim Wells’ Hoodoopocalpyse, where she takes on (or rather takes apart) New Orleans.

Wells does a deep dive into voodoo and other black arts, writing with an authority that makes me believe she knows what she’s talking about. From the Guede to the voodoo dolls to the moving magic shops, she covers a lot of ground and weaves some great details into her plot. Gladiator matches, anyone?

Having read the preceding novels in the AW canon, I can see that Wells has taken great care to tie her story into other AW novels like The Serenity Strain.

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you realize the Weirdness has just begun. Eric Tozzi turns the world upside down in his novel, Phoenix Lights. Tozzi uses a real event, the March 1997 UFO sighting over Phoenix, as the basis for his novel. Gage Slater, the main character, works in a mysterious underground government facility while his sister, Kristina, is a UFO chaser. We soon find that the estranged siblings are harboring a flood of unresolved emotions about a childhood incident that comes back to haunt them.

In the meantime, let’s just say that Tozzi’s aliens are a lot more Ridley Scott than Steve Speilberg.

As always the Apocalypse Weird covers by Mike Corley are fabulous!

In other news, I was selected as a future Apocalypse Weird novelist with the mission of spreading the weirdness to Singapore. More to follow in future blog posts!

If you're looking for a short apocalyptic read, you might want to give my latest short story, I, Caroline a try. It's a story about love and loss in the age of artificial intelligence.

David Bruns is the creator of the sci-fi series The Dream Guild Chronicles, and one half of the Two Navy Guys and a Novel blog series about co-writing the military thriller, Weapons of Mass Deception, coming in May 2015.