The Blissful Plague by Brady Koch

Twelve-year-old Maggie, her mother, and their loyal dog, Penny, traverse desolate cities, guided by a well-worn travel book. A chance encounter with a solitary boy, entangles them in the perils of Plantation Oaks, a seemingly safe haven.

As secrets unravel, revealing the reasons behind their endless voyage, Maggie and her mother grapple with their complex past. This poignant tale speaks to survival, resilience, and the unbreakable bond between a mother and daughter, emphasizing the strength it takes to navigate a shattered world.

This is the fourth and final book in Koch's All Our Forgotten Futures series.

Efforts to contain the plague have failed. No cure has been found, and now there's no one left that can do anything about it. In this quiet world, Maggie and her mother are on a roadtrip, visiting all of the landmarks and museums of a world Maggie has never known and her mother can't forget. It isn't much of a childhood for Maggie, but she knows that her mother is trying her best even when she doesn't understand why she does things the way she does.

When they meet Henry, a boy unharmed by the plague, living with his feral family members and neighbors in the woods, everything changes. For her entire life, Maggie has only really known her mother. She had no friends growing up, so Henry is someone special to her right off the bat. Maggie wants him to come with them, but her mother tells her that he belongs with his family, no matter what condition they're in.

The people at Plantation Oaks are familiar to anyone who's read or viewed post-apocalyptic fiction. They're survivors, and their methods are cruel because that's how you survive. As someone who still has a heart, Maggie does what she can to protect Henry and his family from them. And Momma does what she can to protect her daughter.

Koch does a great job portraying his characters. Maggie is what I'd expect from a twelve-year-old girl (having had a daughter of my own), seeking her own space in the world, rebelling just a bit from her mother's rules. And Momma is caught up being a single mom in the apocalypse, carrying a ton of guilt for not being able to give her daughter a normal childhood but putting on a brave face to make sure she has the skills to survive and carry forward.

The Blissful Plague is a heartfelt story, focused on the relationship of a mother and her daughter in difficult times, facing long odds, trying to do the right thing in a world that has forgotten compassion.

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Full Disclosure: I was hired by the author to proofread/edit this book. While you might think I'm biased, I suggest heading over to Goodreads for other opinions.

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The Hotline at the End of the World by Brady Koch

In a world paralyzed by an unprecedented outbreak, Clint mans the CDC hotline, a solitary beacon of dwindling hope. Then, one fateful day, a call comes in. Clint finds himself navigating a delicate situation involving a mysterious woman, hinted at in classified files, who may possess the coveted cure. As the world remains under a suffocating lockdown, Clint's every word, every choice, holds the weight of untold futures.

This is the third book in Koch's All Our Forgotten Futures series. And this one might give you Covid-19 flashbacks.

Years later, events at the slaughterhouse have boiled over to the country at large, and everyone is desperate. Social order is breaking down as people are becoming infected, and those who aren't infected are willing to do whatever it takes to avoid getting sick or find the mystery woman.

Clint is taking over the CDC's tip hotline. The current occupant, D'Angelo, has had his fill of the job. With the country in lockdown and people isolating themselves, he's watched as his team has been reduced to just him—the volume of calls no longer warrants a full-time staff. D'Angelo trains Clint, who has experience working other hotlines dedicated to assisting people with the virus or who have family members with it. The training and the off-duty conversations reveal a lot about the men. After the training ends and D'Angelo departs, it's just Clint and the occasional caller on the phone. It's a lonely life, and Clint has too much time on his hands.

Clint learns from D'Angelo that the standard approach to the calls is that the caller has not found the mystery woman with the cure. None of them are. There's just no way it can be her after all these years. Clint is to treat each call as if it were a hostage situation. There's a manual which Clint is instructed to follow. It's a de-escalation procedure that never fails. Clint has to stall for time so that he can track down the caller and alert the police to free the hostage before she gets hurt. It isn't easy on Clint, and Koch does a great job keeping the tension high. Eventually though, Clint gets that one call where abiding by the manual doesn't work, forcing Clint to think of a new way to rescue a woman a thousand miles away.

Despite the lack of action, The Hotline at the End of the World is a suspenseful thriller with an engaging protagonist. It doesn't matter that he's cooped up by himself, quarantined from the world. He's agonizing over the fate of this woman, unable to physically rescue her, relying solely on his intellect to outwit her kidnapper. Koch has skillfully developed his character so that you're right there beside Clint, rooting for him to succeed.

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Full Disclosure: I was hired by the author to proofread/edit this book. While you might think I'm biased, I suggest heading over to Goodreads for other opinions.

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The Forgotten Sons of Wyoming by Brady Koch

In the frozen heart of Wyoming, the Trinity Meat Processors stands as a beacon of rehabilitation. Here, men with no pasts and blank slates find purpose under the watchful eye of Pastor Isiah. Asher, unsettled by the sudden disappearance of his friend after a confrontation with a mysterious intruder, races against time, battling forgotten truths and moral dilemmas.

This is the second book in Koch's All Our Forgotten Futures series. And it's probably my favorite.

Asher is one of several men who work at the Trinity Meat Processors slaughterhouse. Koch pulls no punches when he describes the brutal work that the men do. There's a cold detachment from the process, stripping away each layer of the animal until there's nothing left. It's unsettling. It parallels the counseling sessions and church sermons that the men are required to attend as part of their therapy. They strip away the layers, trying to find the man underneath, but it's the same result: an empty shell.

Each man suffers from memory loss, unable to remember what happened before they came to work at the slaughterhouse. The "mysterious intruder," referred to in the blurb, knows. His presence disturbs the men. He accuses them of things they have no memory of. But Sonny, Asher's friend and the lead on the kill floor, has some idea, but he'll be damned if he's going to let this guy get to them. Of all the men, he's the least docile, which is unacceptable.

Asher desperately wants to remember his past and what his counselor won't tell him. It has to be something terrible, right? It seems that Sonny has the answers, which might explain why he's the most boisterous of the bunch. Events build to a head, and Asher comes to realize that things are terribly wrong. A character shows up from The Negotiated Death of Sara Glen which will cinch it for the reader. At this point, Asher and the men at the slaughterhouse are in mortal peril.

As I mentioned earlier, this story was my favorite in the series. Between Koch's descriptions of the men's lives, their work environment, and the surroundings, plus the way he builds dramatic tension, The Forgotten Sons of Wyoming makes for a solid thriller. But there's a scene towards the end of the book that really did it for me. Asher is standing in the middle of a road with the snow coming down. He needs to make an important decision. The imagery of the scene, coupled with how he comes to make that decision, is the cherry on top of a thrilling sundae.

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Full Disclosure: I was hired by the author to proofread/edit this book. While you might think I'm biased, I suggest heading over to Goodreads for other opinions.

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The Negotiated Death of Sara Glen by Brady Koch

Sara makes a startling discovery through an at-home ancestry kit: She possesses a unique immunity to the elusive Jessica Kitner Syndrome. This revelation doesn't go unnoticed. OriginPoints, the DNA test company, approaches her with a proposition that might demand the ultimate sacrifice.

Caught in the maelstrom of genetic intrigue and moral dilemmas, Sara stands torn. With a profound sense of duty on one hand and the weight of her own life on the other, she grapples with choices where clarity is elusive.

This is the first book in Koch's All Our Forgotten Futures series.

As stated in the blurb, Sara learns that she carries a cure for a disease that reverses the cognitive development of children. The problem is that in order to extract it, she must undergo a procedure that will kill her. She leans this at an engagement party for her sister. Over the course of the book, she goes back and forth between sacrificing her life to choosing to live.

While Sara attempts to keep the news of this to herself, the CEO at OriginPoints is eager to promote the technology that led to the discovery. It could lead to billions, which would make stockholders very happy and he'd wind up rich and famous. The pressure is on him to deliver.

So what's in it for Sara? Well OriginPoints will fully take care of her, pay for her to travel and see the world, memorialize her legacy, basically anything to make her out to be a hero.

The rest of the story, told completely from Sara's POV, has her debating her choice with herself. She volunteers to work at a daycare specializing in the care of kids with JKS to get the parents' perspective. She helps plan her sister's wedding; she even starts dating a guy. Sara goes back and forth until Koch throws in a couple of plot twists that change the stakes.

While Koch does a great job at developing Sara, he also does a solid job of developing all of the other characters that Sara interacts with as she tries to make her decision.

All-in-all, this story is a solid start to a great series. In the hands of a lesser author this could've been treated as a maudlin morality tale. Instead, Koch has crafted a fine dramatic thriller.

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Full Disclosure: I was hired by the author to proofread/edit this book. While you might think I'm biased, I suggest heading over to Goodreads for other opinions.

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Guns, Gods & Robots by Brady Koch

Brady Koch's Guns, Gods & Robots is a short story collection whose tales fall into one of those three categories. Three out of the seven stories had been released as standalones, but now they've been combined into one collection.

The collection opens with "Numbers 16:32", which was originally released as a standalone story, and I reviewed it here. The original blurb: Joseph's Sunday morning routine of church, beer and solitude is interrupted by a ragged screaming coming from the far side of his farm land. What he finds there will challenge his resolve in ways he hasn't faced since losing his wife or facing the horrors of the Korean War. I re-read the story and discovered that it had been slightly re-worked and edited. There was a definite improvement which increased my enjoyment of the tale. It makes for a solid opening to the collection.

"X-mas for a Half-Life": The story starts off with a typical "Dear Santa" letter, but the kicker is that it was written by a little girl living in an underground bunker after a nuclear war. So how do you make a child's Christmas wish come true when day-to-day survival is a struggle? A charming story in the face of grim circumstances.

"Popular Mechanics for Young Widows": A dying engineer builds a robot butler for his wife. Years later, she struggles to cope with his death and what the robot represents. I wasn't sure where this one was headed, but I suspected it would end tragically. Koch deftly resolves the situation.

"Fighting Weight": A son reflects upon the ritual of his mother cutting his hair. That doesn't sound like much of a story, but it actually provides a window into a destructive co-dependent relationship. I was so focused on the obvious developments that Koch presented that I didn't see the end coming.

"Sangrimal": A girl’s birthday wish comes true when she gets to spend an afternoon on a manhunt with her lawman father. I found this one to be the weakest in the group. The story is told from Katie's POV, so when events transpired, I didn't understand why. I don't recall there being any clues that the reader should've picked up on that Katie wouldn't because of her age.

"Timothy": In a world beset by a plague, human missionaries of all faiths have been replaced by robots. Something goes wrong with a robot named Timothy, and it is up to a pair of human engineers to figure it out before its malady spreads to the other robots. It's a story that explores faith in an interesting way. Tied with "X-mas for a Half-Life" for favorite story in this collection.

"3rd Flight": A marathon runner sets out for the third run of his life—tradition says it will be last. To say anything more would give too much away.

There's a Bradbury current running through the sci-fi stories. I don't know if the author is a fan, but I sense the vibe in his writing, enough to say there's an influence. The horror feels a bit more like King (short story King, not bloated novel King). He lacks Bradbury's poetic flourish, but Koch definitely has his own voice, which I imagine will grow stronger over time. But it's how everyday people deal with extraordinary circumstances, be they wonderful or horrific.

Unfortunately, I found a bunch of typos. I didn't let them distract me from my enjoyment of the stories, but they could've easily been caught by a proofreader. Other than that, the composition of the stories was sound.

Guns, Gods & Robots is a delightful collection of short stories by an author who's truly emerging in his own right. Any of these stories could've been sold to a zine for publication (after some tweaking for length). If you appreciate older sci-fi (and horror) that focuses on upheavals in the lives of everyday people (rather than grand galactic sagas or dystopian dramas), then check out Guns, Gods & Robots.

For more information, please visit the author's website.

Numbers 16:32 by Brady Koch

Joseph's Sunday morning routine of church, beer and solitude is interrupted by a ragged screaming coming from the far side of his farm land. What he finds there will challenge his resolve in ways he hasn't faced since losing his wife or facing the horrors of the Korean War.

Numbers 16:32 is a long short story (25 pages), which makes it a novelette. It gets off to a slow start as Koch focuses on character building. I stuck with it as Koch successfully forged a connection between this reader and Joseph, the protagonist. Once Joseph sets out to find the source of the screaming, the pace of the story picks up and stays steady right up to the end.

Joseph's actions and dialogue ring true. As a Korean War veteran and widower living out his remaining years on a farm out in the Midwest, you really get a sense for the loneliness that he keeps bottled up. There's no self-pity with this man. He's seen far too much to bother with any of that.

Once the reader's connection with Joseph is made, Koch leads Joseph out into the fields to face the peril. I can't say too much more without spoiling it. Joseph's military training kicks in. No, I'm not talking about his combat skills. He assesses the problem, comes up with a plan, and acts on it. He's the "cool under fire" type. As the situation changes and the stakes escalate, Joseph adapts.

Unfortunately, the story is marred—for me—by typos: many missing commas, some capitalization issues, and several misspelled words. If Mr. Koch had sent the manuscript to a proofreader before publishing, 95% of these would've been caught (A cheaper alternative would be to have had it peer reviewed in a writer's group). It takes away from the experience for me. To be fair, even traditionally published books have typos. I'm also reading Moving Mars by Greg Bear. There's a scene where they talk about eating cheesecake for dessert, but it's misspelled as "desert".

Numbers 16:32 is a finely crafted story. The plot and characterization are solid. Despite my grumblings over typos, I enjoyed Numbers 16:32 and would recommend it for the character of Joseph alone. I hope that Mr. Koch will continue to hone his craft.

Stop by the author's website to find out where you can get a copy.