I didn’t set out to do it, but music is woven through Cascade like a spell. From Lucy’s opera to Ian’s fiddle, music is the backdrop of my characters’ lives—and of my own writing process.

I went from always listening to music when I wrote, to never listening to it, to a particular ritual during the pandemic where most of my drafting happened while listening to The Friday Night Parkdale Special. (At least the ending of Cascade was written to Motown, Tipper Gore’s Filthy 15, and hair metal. FNPS—and I— contain musical multitudes.) 

But there’s also the songs that I listen to when I’m imagining my world and my characters and the soundtrack to their story, and those are the songs I’m going to talk about in this post. I’ve put the whole playlist on Spotify, but I’ll share some highlights below.

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Cascade (the Kindle edition) is now available for pre-order. You can get it here:

Other formats are coming soon. There’s also still time to back the Kickstarter for limited edition offers and multiple formats.

Advance praise for Cascade

• “Finally, an urban fantasy that kills the cop—and the rest of the  government—in your head. Relentlessly radical and often hilarious, Cascade will change the way you look at magic, and the state,  forever.” — Nick Mamatas, author of The Second Shooter.
• “Cascade is an excellent introduction to the imaginative prose of Rachel A. Rosen. Her debut novel takes us to a futuristic North America filled with vividly realized characters surrounded by magic and the possible end of the world. One of the few novels I’ve read recently in a single weekend. Sharp and thought-provoking, with thrilling moments and crackling with compelling ideas, I wouldn’t miss this one. I’m looking forward to her next instalment!”— Bryan Thao Worra, author of BEFORE WE REMEMBER WE DREAM.
• “Rachel A. Rosen’s Cascade is one of the best books I’ve read this year. She brings a unique blend of magic environmentalism, Canadian politicking, and indigenous and queer rights to the table. I never thought I would be so interested in the near-futuristic Canadian political process!” — Marsha Altman, author of The Darcys and the Bingleys
• “Full of magic and social commentary, Cascade is never so witty that it hides its anger or so angry that it sacrifices wit. This is a brilliant exciting debut by an author that will have a long and fruitful career if there’s any justice in the world.” — Tim Lieder, author of Sugarplum Zombie Motherfuckers

It all started as a joke. Zilla posted a reverse Manuscript Wishlist tweet, inviting agents to query her instead of the reverse.

Dear Agents,
I am currently open to queries asking to represent my novella, Query. Please include a biography, three books you've read that made you feel feelings, and a photo of your cat.
Love Always,
Zilla
P.S. Format the letter in Comic Sans

— zillanovikov is open to queries from agents (@zillanovikov) April 6, 2022

The Night Beats community piled in on the joke, and pretty soon we’d invented our own (fictional) Twitter Pitch Party, #FlipPit. We wrote some copy, Madame made a graphic, and Rohan tweeted out the event.

Are you bored of the same old pitching events? This May 1st the tables will be turned. #FlipPit is an event where agents fight over likes from authors. Any agent with a complete and edited #MSWL can pitch, and they might just find their dream author. 🙌🙌 pic.twitter.com/2QvBlxuAFz

— Rohan O'Duill sci-fi writer 🇮🇪 (@rohan_oduill) April 9, 2022

The only problem was…everyone loved the idea. Writers thought it was a great way to find new agents and presses to query. An agent said they’d love an event to get their manuscript wishlist seen by authors. We had somehow accidentally stumbled on a winner.

Back to the drawing board (writing board?) and we turned the rules for #FlipPit into something a bit less absurd. Though hopefully still with a taste of the original fun!

See our next post for the real rules for #FlipPit. We hope that the writing community enjoys this version of #FlipPit as much as we loved making it!

What does magic want?

When Vasai Singh resurrected drowned Mumbai and raised it into the clouds, the world reacted with awe and wonder – and no small amount of fear. As with the climate crisis believed to have caused the Cascade, resurgent magic proved lucky for some, a disaster for many others, and a source of hope and dread for everyone else.

A generation has passed since the Cascade transformed the world, smashing the tectonic plates of the political landscape and infesting the wilderness with demons and shriekgrass.

In Ottawa, a scandal-plagued government clings to power, kept afloat by the manipulations of its precognitive political rainman, Ian Mallory. But when his predictions signal only catastrophe ahead, the magic-loathing photojournalist Tobias Fletcher, land rights activist Jonah Augustine, his ex-wife, climate scientist Blythe Augustine, and emoji-spell wielding intern Sujay Krishnamurthy must overcome ideology and bureaucracy to save a future from a present whose agenda spells only doom.

Rachel A. Rosen’s debut novel, Cascade, has been variously described as magic realism, climate fantasy and, as its publisher prefers, fantasy that feels like science fiction.

Set in a terrifying but all-too believable near future and leavened with a dry wit, Cascade features a cast of fully-realized characters drawn into conflict with each other as they each strive to do the right thing.

But who can know what the right thing is, when every choice leads to catastrophe?

The Cascade Kickstarter is now fully funded, but you can still back it, receive a copy in the format of your choice, and get rewards, including postcards, limited edition chapbooks, and resin koi. Cascade has been named as a Project We Love by Kickstarter. Get in while supplies last!

We’ve gone truly cross-media, with two TTRPG games inspired by Night Beats lore and works. We can’t wait to play them.

Check out Headcanon and Disaster Wizards, both by the amazing Julian Gunn, available for download at itch.io, along with his many other delightful, humorous, and startlingly poignant games.

Headcanon:

All the apocalypses have begun to blur together, but this one could be something special.

In Headcanon, the two of you – friends, enemies, allies, all of the above – play out the final episode of the Eternal Show, a nearly infinite low-budget horror-speculative-fiction-suspense-medical-drama-police-procedural-apocalyptic TV series.

In this low-prep ttrpg, players create collaborative poker hands to determine their characters’ actions and the success or failure of the scene.

Disaster Wizards

You, a wizard, are competing in the most prestigious magical tournament in the multiverse.

Two things.

One: this is an elite contest of skill, wits, and laser-like focus.

Two: you are a f*cking disaster.

This game is a Honey Heist hack.

Nicole Northwood is running a pre-order campaign for her new book (under pen name Nicole Bea) Beneath the Starlit Sea. If you pre-order the eBook and send proof of purchase to her on Instagram or Twitter, she will mail you a copy of an exclusive print with a secret letter written on the back.

Beneath the Starlit Sea is a new adult / adult fantasy romance comparable to The Witcher, with lush worlds, sweet scenes between the main character and her love interest, and a fox who helps save the day.

Sorceress Illyse prefers to isolate herself from the age-old conflict between her coven and the humans of Sjökanten, but not at the expense of her own life. Captured by the king’s men, she is threatened with the ultimate demise for sorceresses—being forever imprisoned in ore—unless she manages to put an end to the gruesome murders of human citizens at the hands of a mysterious sea creature.

Bound by an iron band that limits her power, Illyse, and her fox familiar, join with Garit Darling, a medical practitioner and an enigma unto himself. Together, they delve deep into forgotten lore and forbidden romantic entanglements, despite a ban on relationships between sorceresses and humans. However, when it is discovered that Garit’s past is more closely tied to their investigation than either initially realizes, soon their passion and distraction from the crimes may just be at the cost of Illyse’s potential freedom… and Garit’s life.

Copies can be pre-ordered here.