The Bad Things – 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

The Bad Things

1/5/2026

I haven’t added anything to this page for over a month, which is admittedly longer than I would like, though I was thinking I’d pair the next post with the release of my second offering, The Bad Things. The plan was for the book to be available shortly after New Year’s, though it looks like the release is going to be pushed back a bit. The revision process can throw you curveballs, a reality to which I expect anyone who has endeavored to write a book of any ilk can sympathize. Sometimes it maroons you at the plate, fouling endless strings of balls into the stands as the onlookers roll their eyes. I am guessing the delay is unlikely to be more than a few weeks, and I figured I would post something related to the story in the interim.

There are myriad ghost-hunting shows packing the streaming services these days, and they seem to follow one of two formulas: either a building is known to be haunted and a team of experts sets out to investigate, or entities of some form are making the lives of one-or-more people markedly unpleasant. The investigators in such shows are equipped with roughly the same set of gadgets and varying degrees of skepticism, attitudes I suspect are tailored to match up with whomever they believe their primary audience to be. At home, the viewer hears playback of sounds and voices on recording devices that were positively not manipulated, and the same is invariably claimed for slowly floating smudges of light, for the little demonic stick figures that only advanced technology can expose.

I am not trying to disparage the efforts of these investigators or imply that they are frauds (although some undoubtedly are—every profession has its charlatans), but rather suggesting that one should consider how easy it is to manufacture such proof in the modern world. I don’t imagine it would require any more than the proper application for the little computer you carry around in your pocket these days, along with a little know-how.

But what if there was something there, and what if that something was not at all what the experts have determined it to be? What if the ghosts and demons of the paranormalsphere were fabrications initiated by none other than the entities responsible for making the trouble? What if the standard supernatural roster—ghosts and demons and angels and spirits and all the goes bump in the night—was invented and subsequently reinforced to prevent the human race from discovering the true nature of those behind it?

The next time you curl up on the couch to watch a ghost-hunting show, you might consider this: are the ghosts and demons not the ones telling the mediums that they are, in fact, ghosts and demons?

If you find this idea intrigues you, then The Bad Things may fall within your wheelhouse. There is currently an elevator pitch for the story on the “News” page of this website (I will see that it stays up until the book—along with its own dedicated page—is made available).

Until next time,

Cal