Short version: New release is only days away! Cover reveal below! Woo-hoo!

Long version (very): Okay, this requires some set-up. Many good things happened in 2015, but one of the disappointments was my paltry book release output. Normally I would have two or three books out in the course of a year, but last year I didn’t even meet that meager goal. That was not by intention. The year started well enough as I dove into the follow-up to my sci-fi space opera Gods and The City. I loved how this book was shaping up and was eagerly looking forward to a spring release.

But then an opportunity came my way. I was recruited by Michael Bunker to write a book in the Apocalypse Weird series. Michael, Nick Cole and some entrepreneurial partners had formed a new publishing company, Wonderment Media. They were constructing a shared universe of wonderfully bizarre end-of-the-world tales, all linked together by certain common story arcs and demonic characters. It was a bold undertaking, a “Marvel Universe” of post-apocalyptic characters created from the ground up by a cadre of mostly indie writers. It was exciting to be a part of it all as the books started to hit the market in February and March and the momentum began to grow.

I was asked to write a sequel to Texocalypse Now, co-authored by Bunker and Cole. In that novel, they had created a secondary character called “the Baron of the Scraps” that they wanted me to take and run with. I knew signing on with a start-up publisher was a risk, but the potential upside was definitely enticing. The publisher would have a greater market reach than I would on my own, and if one or two of these titles broke through to best-selling fame, we’d all benefit. Plus, Michael is a friend, and who wouldn’t want to be a part of an enterprise that included Bunker, Nick Cole, Eric Tozzi and so many other very talented writers?

So I agreed to do it and set aside my other projects to write the first draft of Fight for the Night over the spring and summer. It was a blast to work with characters created by others, building on the story, filling in the blanks. It was something I’d never done before and found I was enjoying it more than I thought I would.

However, even as I was finishing up the book, not all was well with the apocalypse. As my publication date got closer, the release schedule for the books was cut back. Publishing is a tough business, and it appeared that Wonderment was entering rough waters. My book was originally scheduled for a September release, and then was pushed back to December.

Still, Fight for the Night went through the editing process and feedback was extremely positive. But then the axe fell, with the October announcement that Apocalypse Weird would shut down at the end of November, with all books pulled from the market and the company disincorporated soon after. The month before my book was due out, the Apocalypse shut down.

It was a gut punch, as you can imagine, but that’s just business. Sometimes companies thrive, sometimes they fail, despite the best efforts of those involved. I took a risk and it didn’t pay out. It happens, and all you can do is move on.

So that left me with a completed book in an orphaned series. But Wonderment was treating its authors right, releasing the copyrights and the cover art back to the authors so they could independently publish the books, along with helping them transfer reviews. They freed everyone to use the common characters and the Apocalypse Weird brand, so the books would live on. It looked like there would be a place for my title after all.

Then the other axe fell.

Nick Cole and Michael Bunker decided not to reissue Texocalypse Now independently. It was being shelved, not to return in the foreseeable future. They had their reasons, which I can’t dispute. They both have bigger things on their plates, and if they don’t wish to continue the Tex Now storyline, that is certainly their prerogative.

But now, not only was I was stuck with a book in an orphaned series, but it was a sequel to a title that no longer existed. Krep.

I had to step back from this for a while, and rethink things. I turned to other article and copywriting deadlines in December while I planned the next step, and turned the book over in my mind.

That next step is revealed below. I revised Fight for the Night so it would stand alone, so that even if you had never read Texocalypse Now, it would make sense. I filled in backstory, I explained things that needed explaining. But I went even further than that.

You see, intellectual property is a funny thing. Wonderment went above and beyond what most publishers would do, in releasing rights and freeing up IP concepts and characters for its former writers to use. They handled it all with great integrity and decency, at least from my perspective at the margins. But the funny thing about intellectual property is that it sometimes gets sold, or inherited, or dragged into court in some dispute or another.

I therefore decided to rewrite Fight for the Night so that it truly stood alone—I recast the characters, I invented a new apocalyptic event, I dropped some elements of the original story. The AW villains, the 88, are gone, as is the black dragon. However, if you enjoyed Texocalypse Now I truly believe you will enjoy Fight for the Night. You’ll be able to identify the AW story that almost was. If you liked the Baron, you’ll like the Marshal. Fight for the Night is wild, pulpy, action-packed fun, and it is definitely still weird. But if you never read Tex Now, you’ll have no trouble following and enjoying the story.

And without further ado, the synopsis and cover reveal for Fight for the Night!

It’s been five years since the Doom shook the world to its foundations. Rivers of stars disappeared from the night sky, the sun erupted with an outbreak of flares that scorched the Eastern Hemisphere, and an infestation of previously unknown parasites turned millions of people into mindless roaming hordes of cannibals.

The survivors are scattered, few, and desperate. One band survives in the Texas Badlands behind the walls of a great fortress built from old cars. Led by The Marshal, the denizens of the Big Wreck scrape out a living by salvaging the remains of the old world, staying a step ahead of rival gangs, and avoiding the notice of the hordes.

Survival is tough enough, but when a mysterious otherworldly object alights in their territory, it brings with it creatures spawned from the darkest nightmares. Are these new arrivals aliens? Supernatural demons? Or simply the flesh-and-blood abominations of a post-apocalyptic world? And when a wandering band of Comanche indians shows up at the gates of the fortress, it appears that time itself has been twisted in strange new directions.

Fight for the Night is a novel of a weird apocalypse, a tale of desperate survival camped out at the intersection of where the Road Warrior meets the dark fantasies of H.P. Lovecraft.