APOCALYPSE
ROCK
A novel by Nate Budzinski
A remote island community.
A new age cult.
An ancient secret of mind-bending power.
“A genre-twisting mystery of the Pacific Northwest.”
It’s a decent life out on remote Sternum Island in the placid Pacific Northwest…
But when one of Doug Shasta’s oldest friends disappears, the underemployed slacker falls into an increasingly strange reality lurking just beyond the forest’s edge — ancient spirits, Cold War mind-control experiments, and a new age retreat schilling cryptocurrency and live-streamed enlightenment.
Like an episode of Black Mirror washed up on the shores of The Wicker Man’s Summerisle, this immersive, suspense-filled novel plunges readers into moody landscapes, dubious histories, and glitchy technotopian futurism — telling the story of a slacker teetering on the edge, and a community about to lose its collective mind.
Nate Budzinski’s writing has been published by Frieze, ArtReview, The Wire music magazine, among others. He grew up in the Pacific Northwest and now lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.