The Atrocity Engine

by Tim Waggoner

Overview

Men in Black meets Hellraiser in this rollicking mash-up of urban fantasy and cosmic horror from four-time Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Tim Waggoner.

Creatures from dark dimensions infesting your home? Demonic beings trying to drive you insane? Alien gods attempting to destroy your universe?

Just call Maintenance.

This underpaid and overworked secret organization is dedicated to battling forces that seek to speed up Entropy and hasten the Omniverse's inevitable death.

Neal Hudson is a twenty-year veteran of Maintenance. A surveyor who drives through the streets of Ash Creek, Ohio constantly scanning for the deadly energy known as Corruption. Since the death of his previous partner, Neal prefers to work alone, and he's not happy when he's assigned to mentor a rookie.

But they better learn to get alone fast.

The Multitude, a group of godlike beings who seek to increase Entropy at every opportunity, are creating an Atrocity Engine. This foul magical device can destroy the Earth, and they don't care how many innocent lives it takes to build it. (Spoiler alert: It's a lot!)

Just another day on the job...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781949890891
Publisher:	Aethon Books, LLC
Publication date:	04/30/2024
Pages:	314
Sales rank:	422,923
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.88(d)

Editorial Reviews

01/29/2024

Waggoner (A Hunter Called Night) offers a fresh variation on the trope of a covert agency combating evil in his blood-drenched Custodians of the Cosmos series opener. Neal Hudson is an agent of Maintenance Control, an organization seeking to delay the entire Omniverse from being drained by the Gyre, a “great emptiness” at its center. Opposing Maintenance are the Multitude, dark demigods who spread Corruption, a force that creates monsters. Neal is thrown into the thick of the action upon witnessing a bizarre scene at an Ash Creek, Ohio, playground: a bully dizzy from the merry-go-round vomits Corruption on another child’s mother, erasing her facial features. Neal intervenes, but not before the regurgitated Corruption animates three sculptures that turn violent and butcher other parkgoers. After the tragedy, Hudson must work with his new partner, Gina Sandoval, whose parents have a history with Maintenance, to track down the source of the bully’s infection. The investigation leads them to a member of the Multitude who’s seeking to magnify her powers by building an Atrocity Engine, which would “increase her strength a thousandfold.” Waggoner’s writing is crisp, and his worldbuilding creative, but the gory violence will put off some readers. For those with strong stomachs, however, this promises good things from the series to come. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

2024-01-02
Agents of a clandestine, evil-combating organization struggle to counter an apocalyptic threat in Waggoner’s supernatural thriller.

Neal Hudson is a 20-year veteran of Maintenance, a company that protects Earth from monsters that pass through “dimensional tears in space.” Tormented by the still-fresh loss of his cherished partner, Neal is saddled with unwanted rookie Gina Sandoval. They’re both Surveyors in the small American town of Ash Creek, keeping their eyes out for entropic energy surges, a sign that something or someone has been “Corrupted” by an interdimensional interloper. A recent run-in with Corruption convinces Neal that an ultra-evil group, the Multitude, has a plan brewing. Indeed, Multitude apprentice Rachel is recruiting people she’s Corrupted to gather essential supplies; she’s constructing a machine that could bring her immeasurable power, although there’s a chance it could obliterate the entire planet and a sizable portion of the solar system. In either case, Neal and Gina, who aren’t even allowed to carry weapons, must thwart her wicked scheme. Waggoner masterfully builds a series-worthy narrative, sprinkling exposition throughout without decelerating the narrative’s brisk momentum. Various characters and pertinent jargon are gradually and deftly introduced, from Rachel’s potential victims to such things as the Corruption-defying chemical Expugent and the extradimensional realm Shadow. The brightest elements of the book are the characterizations of Neal, Gina, and Rachel. Gina is especially intriguing—she’s an ambitious new agent who comes from a wealthy family, and, since her parents and siblings all work at Maintenance, she’s eager to prove herself. At the same time, Neal’s surprising history with Gina’s father invigorates the new partners’ developing relationship. Despite this first installment’s gratifying ending, there’s plenty of material left for sequels to flesh out.

This gripping dark fantasy boasts an indelible cast and an unwavering pace.

Kirkus Reviews