Rest In Peace Cormac McCarthy
Rest In Peace John Steinbeck
Rest In Peace Ernest Hemingway

The American canon has its authors who are obvious, stable additions to its pantheon.

Fitzgerald.
Twain.
Poe.
Faulkner.
Steinbeck.

But then there are those who forge their own path who use America as the occasional backdrop, giving life to a new form of writing that can't be integrated into its canon due to their destructive essences.

Hemingway wrote with a blank slate and wrote to go far beyond the frontier, far beyond where anyone could help him, writing something truly new, truly authentic.

McCarthy wrote with red colored glasses, seeing fire, bloodshed, and vice color every being of all his characters within fictional, American borders. 

Add these to the open questions rooted in America asked by Steinbeck and you have the mind and style of an author writing new, not so shiny science fiction.

The first of these is "Automaton," a story of decay, the war of two ideas for America's future, the ugly truths of the martial way, and rugged individualism for better or for worse. 

The Blood & Rain Podcast 

Episode 73

"Automaton" 

Featuring: TR Hudson

Enjoy.