Hawks Pass – calobannon.com

2/21/26

I am happy to say that The Bad Things is now out and available for purchase (Kindle edition on Amazon and paperbacks via Amazon or IngramSpark and affiliates). It took a bit longer to get over the line than I was anticipating, but alas, sometimes that’s just how it goes. In light of the new release, I figured I would write a bit about the book, the series it will ultimately belong to and why I opted to publish it a few short months after releasing Hawks Pass.

Let’s start with a bit of background. I completed the rough cuts of both Hawks Pass and The Bad Things some time ago. I wrote the first draft of Hawks Pass from 2021-2022 and shelved it, and over the ensuing years I dusted it off, revised it and reshelved it multiple times. The same was true of The Bad Things to a lesser degree (2023-2024), though the tale of how this story came about is a bit more interesting.

I had been trying to write a story involving the types of antagonists in The Bad Things for years, and each of those attempts keeled over and died somewhere along the way. I kept at it, reworking the settings and characters and exposition and so on, and eventually I landed on an idea I liked. I hit a roadblock there, so I started writing something else, and about 40,000 words into that something else, I realized it was an extension of what I had already been trying to write.

But that extension did not evolve into The Bad Things. I hit another roadblock with that one and began working on a different project, and—once again—after writing a good chunk of the story, I realized that effort could be tied to the two others I’d set aside. With that understanding in mind, I was able to plow straight through to the end of the first draft without hitting the same miserable obstacles, and that story—the 3^rd attempt, if you want—ultimately wound up as the first installment in the series. The final revisions that took me so damned long to complete were to ensure The Bad Things could function as book one of a trilogy, that I was properly securing any loose knots, that I was not giving too much away, et cetera.

As for the two stories on the shelf, I will be releasing them as the 2^nd and 3^rd installments in the series in due time. I know the 2^nd book will be titled Relics, and, seeing a good chunk of that story has already been set down, I would cautiously estimate it will be completed no later than the end of 2026. As for the third—my first genuine attempt at establishing this world and the one I originally set out to write—there is plenty of work to be done. As the old saying goes, we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

I thought it appropriate to write a bit about the process here due to the seedy environment modern-day writers are forced to navigate. One might assume an author releasing two books within a few months of each other is using AI in some capacity, and I want state firmly and for the record: NO, I do not use AI in my work in any form, not for ideas or drafting, not for editing or revisions, not for artwork, nothing, not a stitch. I could dedicate post upon post to the sordid nature of generative AI and its masters, but for now, I will limit it to a few parting thoughts:

If you fed an idea into a construct and it spat out a narrative, not only did you not write it, but it is no longer your idea. If you used a chatbot or similar program to rework problematic prose, those fixes are not your revisions. If you are generating and uploading AI slop to platforms for any purpose at all, for the love of God or whatever you might hold dear, knock it off.

Perhaps if Congress passed a law where profits generated by materials created or improved by AI went straight to the manufacturers of the program, creators would stop polluting the waters.

Just something to think about.

Until next time,

Cal

Hawks Pass

11/4/2025

To all who have found their way to this site, I extend my greetings.

This is my initial blog post, and seeing my new book Hawks Pass will be available shortly, I think it only makes sense to write about something related to the story. I don’t want to venture too far into the contents of the book, but I think it is safe to say the setting represents one of the many possible results of technological dependence. This condition is not new to society at large—think of what happens whenever the power goes out—but internet-based services have taken technological dependency to another level.

Companies and institutions not only assume everyone has easy and reliable access to the internet, but that we all have phones capable of scanning the barcodes they insist on using to replace basic information. I have recently encountered scenarios where the barcode was the only way to continue the activity in question, and in one such scenario, I was using my laptop and did not have my phone on hand. I find it hard to believe this practice would hold up in court if challenged, but I am not a lawyer and have neither the time nor the patience to search out that rabbit hole and squeeze myself into it.

Is this technology necessary? Is it actually more convenient than clicking on a web address or, God forbid, typing one in?

The barcodes are a symptom of a larger issue, one that is far too deep and multifaceted to cover in a single blog post, though technological dependency is at the heart of it. For now, let’s keep it simple. A character in Hawks Pass poses the following question to his readership in the years before the events of the story take place: If society elects to give itself entirely over to technology, what will happen when that technology fails?

Well, that depends, but whatever the outcome, it is unlikely to be a good one.

I mentioned power outages above, and for all the things that could potentially go wrong with web-based systems and networks—and there are many—we might pay a thought to the foundation the entire infrastructure was built on. It won’t matter how advanced and impenetrable a building’s security systems are if an earthquake takes out the ground beneath it. That building will still come crashing down. If you can’t power your phone on, you won’t be able to scan the barcodes, nor will you be able to access your digital currencies, your web-based bank accounts, your cloud-stored content, and so on.

Yet the powers-that-be seem increasingly willing to tie all aspects of daily life, from the arbitrary to the critical, to technological and web-based systems that will only function when the servers supporting them are adequately powered (not to mention operating properly). Is this going to benefit society in the long run? And more importantly, is it safe?

It the setting Hawks Pass takes place in, the answer is no, it was not.

Until next time,

Cal