Long after the fall of civilization, fairytale endings are hard to come by, because without anyone left who believes in fairies, their magic is beginning to run out.

All hope seems lost until an adventurous little fairy named Chrys finds a radio distress signal coming from what sounds to be the last living human! There’s just one problem – the signal is coming from a city overrun with automatons – dangerous robots who view fairies as nothing more than a pest to be exterminated!

Together with her friends, Coral Bell, Cory, and Juniper Mim, the fairies set off on a rescue mission into the heart of enemy territory, making new friends (and enemies) along the way as they seek to restore the magic of all fairies!

Book 6 in the Horror Vs. Fantasy series is finally out!

This one took much longer than expected, which is a story in itself.

I had done the 50,000 words in one month, as I always had in the past for my NaNoWriMo projects (every book in the Horror Vs. Fantasy series so far), but in the last couple of days of the challenge, I realized I was nowhere near being able to properly finish the story with the time left. I had always written the draft, edited it, and had the whole book finished by the end of the month, but this time was different.

Once I knew what my project was going to be for 2024, I realized that, ultimately, I was going to be writing it for my mother. My mother loves three things – fairies, gardening, and post-apocolypse.

Okay, not just those three things, but those three things are included in her list.

The Horror Vs. Fantasy series is already post-apocalyptic by default – it has been since the first entry, with Book 5 putting a bit of a twist on it. And as I was looking through my lists of Fantasy and Horror creatures to match up against each other, I was intrigued by the idea of seeing how fairies would fare in a post-apocalyptic world. The idea of pitting them against man-made machines, and that both sides could be fighting for a very different future now that human civilization has crumbled, got me even more excited about this project.

Then came the idea, as I was piecing together my fairy lore, that all fairies would be born from flower blossoms and named after the flower (and colour of flower) that they’re born from. I spent a good chunk of the Spring, Summer, and Fall of last year helping my mother out with her gardening, asking her questions about different flowers, their names and traits, and writing down anything I liked the sound of.

This book is the fruit born from that time together.

This book features more than one twist on the series though. It’s kicking off what I am currently referring to as Phase 2, and there are a few things different about it.

Firstly, as alluded to, the book was not written in its entirety in the month of November. I did do the 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, but there was still a lot more story to go – too much to wrap up even in a rush. And since this ended up being a passion project, I was not willing to rush through it. I continued writing into December, January, and even February – though at that point most of it was editing – with the objective of having a finished manuscript in time for my mother’s birthday. After that, the only additional changes I made were ones she specifically requested.

Secondly, it breaks the chronological order set by the first five books. I had made the decision, since every story was dealing with different conflicts in different parts of the world anyway, to have each book in Phase 1 be set earlier than the book before it, and tell these stories in reverse chronological order. There isn’t a ton of significance to that (until you get to Book 5), it was just a quirk I had decided on to add some unique flavour to the series.

Phase 2 is different though. Fairies Vs. Automatons is the first book in the series set after the events of all previous books, because what is at stake in this conflict is what kind of world we are going to have moving forward. Phase 1 was about looking back – Phase 2 is about looking ahead.

Not only that, but there are some direct sequels that I want to write in the future, and obviously it wouldn’t make sense for them to be set earlier than the original stories (or else they would be prequels). Fairies Vs. Automatons is a good book to kick off that new direction.

Lastly (but not leastly), when I looked at both sides of this conflict, I realized that I was in a rare position with this story to write it kid-friendly. Fairies typically appeal to younger audiences (and young at heart), and robots are not inherently scary (at least to kids). The decision to go with the term ‘automatons’ instead of robots was because I wanted to call back to the old 1960’s horror tropes of automated machine men taking over the planet. They represent more of an existential horror to grown ups than any kind of horror to children.

And so, just because I like a challenge and the opportunity to write different kinds of stories, I made the decision to try and write this book to be kid-friendly. It should be noted that I don’t have kids of my own, and it’s a long time now since I’ve been a kid, so I may not be sufficiently in the loop as far as knowing what qualifies as kid-friendly, but I have done my best.

It should also be noted that this book is unique in that regard, as far as the rest of the series is concerned. I would NOT recommend any other book in the Horror Vs. Fantasy series as reading material for children, nor will any of the future books be kid-friendly unless specifically stated. This is a one-off.

(Unless it sells well enough to change my mind.)

Little did I know this was also going to be my last NaNoWriMo ever – at least officially. As many of you, I was sad to hear that the organization that ran NaNoWriMo would be shutting down. I agree with their assessment that this does not mean that people will stop doing NaNoWriMo entirely, but there will no longer be a dedicated website for keeping track of word counts and supporting each other online.

It’s bitter sweet for me, as I am well aware that the projects I’ve been doing for this series are getting larger in scope (this one is the biggest so far at 264 pages), yet I am also well aware that if not for NaNoWriMo being around in its time, this series would not have started in the first place.

Book 1 – Vampires Vs. Dragons – was a concept that intrigued me, but I didn’t have a context for dedicating my time to such a bizarre project, until I remembered NaNoWriMo. The organization gave me the context I needed to start this series, and for that I am humbly grateful.

All that said, Fairies Vs. Automatons is now available for sale, and until June 9^th, 2025, it’s available at a reduced price – $9.74 USD – with the book returning to its normal price of $12.99 USD on the 9^th. You can find it on Amazon.

Thanks for reading!