The Atrocity Engine
My next novel, The Atrocity Engine,is the first in a series of horror/urban fantasy novels for Aethon Books calledThe Custodians of the Cosmos. It’ll be out April 30th, and it’savailable for preorder now. Advance reviews in trade publications, on NetGalley,and on Goodreads have been great so far, and I can’t wait for everyone meet theagents of Maintenance, the hardest-working heroes in horror!
Thebook is currently available for review on NetGalley, so if you want to snag acopy early, here’s your chance! https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/318185
TheMaintenance novels take place in the mythos I’ve been developing since my novelThe Harmony Society came out in 2003. If you want to learn more about mymythos, you can check out this previous blog entry: https://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/2022/12/twenty-years-of-waggoner-mythos.html
(Don’tworry, though. You can read the Maintenance novels without having read any ofmy other work.)
What’sThe Atrocity Engine about? Glad you asked!
Publisher’sSynopsis
Menin Blackmeets Hellraiser in this rollicking mash-up of urban fantasy and cosmichorror from four-time Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Tim Waggoner.
Creaturesfrom dark dimensions infesting your home? Demonic beings trying to drive youinsane? Alien gods attempting to destroy your universe?
Justcall Maintenance.
Thisunderpaid and overworked secret organization is dedicated to battling forcesthat seek to speed up Entropy and hasten the Omniverse’s inevitable death.
NealHudson is a twenty-year veteran of Maintenance. A surveyor who drives throughthe streets of Ash Creek, Ohio constantly scanning for the deadly energy knownas Corruption. Since the death of his previous partner, Neal prefers to workalone, and he’s not happy when he’s assigned to mentor a rookie.
Butthey better learn to get along fast.
TheMultitude, a group of godlike beings who seek to increase Entropy at everyopportunity, are creating an Atrocity Engine. This foul magical device candestroy the Earth, and they don’t care how many innocent lives it takes tobuild it. (Spoiler alert: It’s a lot!)
Justanother day on the job. . .
Praise for The Atrocity Engine
Here are some fantastic blurbs The Atrocity Engine has received sofar!
“Waggoner offers a fresh variation on the trope of acovert agency combating evil in his blood-drenched Custodians of the Cosmosseries opener.” – Publishers Weekly
“This gripping dark fantasy boasts an indelible castand an unwavering pace.” – Kirkus Reviews
"THE ATROCITY ENGINE is a wild ride full ofentertaining scenarios and scary monsters!" – Booklist
“THE ATROCITY ENGINE is a kick-ass cross-genrethrill ride of a novel! Holy moly! Tim Waggoner is easily one of today’s besthorror writers.” – Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of CAVE 13 andNECROTEK
"This is edge-of-your-seat Horror Fantasy. It'sas if Stephen King wrote MEN IN BLACK!" —Scott Sigler, #1 NYT Bestsellingauthor of EARTHCORE
“Fast-paced, cleverly thought-through, and deeplyunnerving in all the right places—urban horror fantasy with a decidedly creepydifference. Don't read it in the dark!” – Diane Duane, New York Timesbestselling author of TALES OF THE FIVE: THE LIBRARIAN
“A brutal, dark, and disturbing novel that will livein your nightmares. It’s so good!” – Horror Reads
WritingThe Atrocity Engine
TheAtrocity Engineis the first in a series featuring the entropy battling organization ofMaintenance. This novel is a combination of horror, science fiction, fantasy,action-adventure, and humor with strong characters. The next two novels are Bookof Madness and The Desolation War.
Nomatter how weird my novels get, I keep them grounded by giving them realistic,relatable characters and sharp description.
Ioriginally created Maintenance for a horror/dark fantasy novel called Eatthe Night, which came out several years ago. During the COVID lockdown Ihad extra time on my hands, and I decided to take my brand of weird horror andblend it with urban fantasy, just to see what happened. I wrote ninety pages,then deadlines for other projects reared their ugly heads, and I had to turn myattention to them. After a while, Idecided to write an outline for a full novel and send the completed pages to myagent, who sold a three-book series to Aethon.
AlthoughI had to work on other projects after writing part of The Atrocity Engine,the characters and their world refused to leave me alone. I knew I had tofinish their story one day, so I was very glad that Aethon Books gave me thechance!
Icame up with the tagline I use for the book – Men in Black Meets Hellraiser– early on, and I used that as my focus while writing. I also thought of howthe crew in Ghostbusters were portrayed as everyday working schlubs whowere tired and unimpressed by the bizarre things they encountered. I wanted togive my Maintenance agents that same kind of attitude.
NealHudson is one of two main characters in the novel. The other is his new partner, Gina Sandoval.Neal is in his mid-forties and on the verge of burn-out, and Gina is in herearly twenties and embarking on her first real posting with Maintenance. I'm amiddle-aged guy, and I wanted to use someone around my age as the protagonist.I also wanted to depict a professional relationship between a man and a womanthat, while it eventually becomes a deep friendship, is not a romantic one.
Oneof the major themes in my work is the question of how do humans live with theknowledge that they – and the universe itself – will die. It's a question theagents of Maintenance have to wrestle with constantly, and while the book is ahardly a philosophical treatise, I hope readers might ponder the questions itraises, at least a little.
Wantto learn even more about the writing of The Atrocity Engine? Check outthis in-depth interview with me about the book on Cemetery Dance Online:
https://www.cemeterydance.com/extras/what-screams-may-come-tim-waggoner/
Wantto preorder the novel? I got you covered!
PurchaseLinks
AmazonHardback: https://www.amazon.com/Atrocity-Engine-Tim-Waggoner/dp/1949890899/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1699124447&sr=1-2
B&NHardcover: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/book/1144299910?ean=9781949890891
Bookof Madness and The Desolation War
Thesecond and third books in the series are finished, but I don’t have releasedates for them yet. I do have covers that I can share with you, though!
Ihope you’ll check out The Atrocity Engine and ride along with Neal andGina as they fight to give all of creation a little more time before the finaldarkness closes in.
