The apocalypse continues with the launch of Eric Tozzi's Phoenix Lights.

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Apocalypse Weird continues to be a great success: check it out, The Guardian (yes! The Guardian!!) talks about us in this article by Damien Walters. After our big launch on February 23rd, the next two books have already landed, and, we are celebrating with a Facebook launch party tonight. Come to chat with the authors, pitch your Apocalypse Weird story, and for a chance to win some awesome books. We are celebrating the launch of the latest two additions to the Apocalypse Weird universe.

Last week we talked about Kim Wells' Hoodpocalypse book, which launched on March 13. The next book slated for release is Phoenix Lights, by Eric Tozzi:

On March 13, 1997, the incident now known as the Phoenix Lights left thousands of witnesses at a loss to explain the sudden appearance of the massive V-shaped craft that hovered in the skies above Phoenix that day. Now, eighteen years later, the Vs have returned. Bargains will be made with an intelligence beyond our grasp deep within a super-secret government blacksite. Can a crew of TV UFO Busters find out the truth about the visitors or are they going to get far more than they ever bargained for? Whereas once they were blind, now they will see. Welcome to the invasion. Welcome to the Apocalypse Weird.

Eric is here today to tell us all about his new book. Welcome, Eric!

EEG: Tell us about the Phoenix Light incident and how this inspired your book.

ET: The Phoenix Lights incident has become one of the most infamous mass UFO sightings of all time. There were thousands of witnesses that saw, as they described it, a massive V-shaped craft with lights attached that drifted through the skies of central Arizona over the course of several hours. By simply Googling “Phoenix Lights,” one can find a plethora of information and photos about the event. When I was asked to join Apocalypse Weird I knew I wanted to write an alien invasion book and for me, the Phoenix Lights incident was a no-brainer. It was organic to the story and to the central Arizona region where the apocalyptic event was to take place. I’m very excited that I was able to anchor my story in a real event that so many people still talk about. Just last week, the local news here in Phoenix did a number of stories on what was the anniversary of the Phoenix Lights incident, March 13th. It’s exciting that the event is still fresh in people’s minds and I hope it will spur interest in the book.

EEG: Can you tell us a bit about each one of the main characters in Phoenix Lights?

ET: My two main characters are estranged siblings: Gage Slater and younger sister Kristina Slater. Gage works in a secret, government underground facility, ostensibly built as a defensive measure against an alien invasion. Kristina is a reality TV star and documentary filmmaker. Her TV show, UFO Busters, sets out to investigate all kinds of UFO related stories. But there’s a larger story behind it all. Kristina was abducted by a UFO as a child and no one believed her. She fights to prove these occurrences are real, but more importantly she wants the answer to the big question: why was she taken? Gage, on the other hand, feels guilty over his sister’s abduction and is trying to atone for it through his top secret work. But in doing so he’s alienated his sister and now there’s only bad blood between them. When the alien apocalypse explodes, they are thrown back together and must help each other survive. And in the midst of the pressure and the unraveling of the world, they discover even darker secrets from their past that will determine their future.

EEG: Do you have a sequel in mind and if so, can you tell us a bit about it?

ET: I have only just begun to mull a sequel. Up to this point I’ve been consumed with getting Lights finished in time for publication. I can tell you that I intentionally left the story open for another one, but I’ve not

EEG Thanks so much Eric! And to all Apocalypse Weird fans: come to the Facebook the launch party on March 20 to celebrate Eric Tozzi's Phonexi Lights and Kim Well's Hoodoopocalypse!

Apocalypse Weird Books:

The Dark Knight by Nick Cole continues the story begun in The Red King as survivors band together to build a modern-day castle against a tide of dark forces overrunning Southern California. While Frank and Holiday struggle for power, Ash ventures into the night to rescue a lost special needs adult who has unknowingly glimpsed a horrifying future: a future where man is on the verge of extinction and a new predator rules the planet. The Apocalypse Weird is beginning, and it might just be something bigger than anyone ever imagined ... or feared.

Scorched by fire and the longest drought in recorded history, survivors flee the Land of Enchantment to escape a mutated flu virus that turns ordinary people into mass-murderers. In E. E. Giorgi’s Immunity, few resilient scientists remain, gathered in one of the last national laboratories still working on a vaccine. Then the disease starts spreading within the soldiers guarding the laboratory, bloody carnage reigns. Immunologist Anu Sharma pairs up with computer geek David Ashberg to find a cure and escape the massacre. Outbreak meets World War Z in the deserts of Apocalypse Weird.

The Thing meets The Core in Jennifer Ellis’s Reversal, where the isolated International Polar Research Station on Ellesmere Island becomes an incredibly dangerous assignment for Sasha Wood. Stalked by killer polar bears, Sasha and her partner, Soren, search for their missing colleagues in the frozen tundra as their compass reveals an incredible truth: a magnetic pole reversal—fabled and feared in the scientific community for years—has occurred. The North Pole is now the South and vice versa. Psychotic scientists and giant methane-venting craters are just the beginning of a terrible and strange new reality.

Chris Pourteau’s The Serenity Strain finds Houston, Texas, at the epicenter of an apocalypse both natural and unnatural. Three hurricanes wreak unprecedented devastation on the Texas Gulf Coast. Amidst the anarchy left in the wake of the storms, six prisoners—the genetically altered test subjects for a viral strain known as Serenity—escape the state prison in Huntsville. Their hunger for murder and destruction gorges itself on society's survivors. One being of immense power and wanton appetites, a member of the demonic 88 named Id, arrives to oversee the destruction of mankind and morality. The Stand meets 28 Days Later in this epic tale of genetic manipulation gone awry.

Lord of the Flies meets Mad Max in Texocalypse Now by Michael Bunker and Nick Cole. It’s a gritty tale of survival set in the post-Apocalyptic West Texas Badlands. Packs of feral, cannibalistic humans called “hordes” and other psychotic groups threaten a band of children led by Ellis, a boy barely a man. Ellis and the children make a home for themselves in a hidden valley atop a mysterious mesa. But when a member of the 88, a Man in Black simply known as Mayhem, arrives in the Badlands, Ellis and his small “family” of orphans are forced underground to survive.

The apocalypse comes to the south with Kim Wells' Hoodoopocalypse. Kalfu, the ultimate evil-twin and Voodoo Loa of the afterworld and crossroads kicks off his plans for possession of the Southern Mississippi corridor. Dark half of Papa Legba, Kalfu sets off events that cripple New Orleans, tries to take control of the over 9 million visitors to the Big Easy a year, and seeds his Hoodoo mafia, the Guédé, across Louisiana and the world. If the fire, category HUGE hurricane spawned by magical means, and roving mobs of mayhem-inducing zombi astrals don’t get you, the angry goddess and nuclear meltdown might. Laissez the End Times Roulez, y’all.