This is a big one, folks.
Bloodshot was a small, intimate portrait of a young family in crisis. Its sequel, Day’s End, was a haunted house story that forced Will and Megan Stevenson to confront their painful pasts. The third and final installment, Night Fire: A Manic Expression Story, is something else entirely: a sprawling, apocalyptic epic with a scale that rivals Lord of the Rings.
Easily the longest story found in Manic Expression: A Collection, Night Fire serves as both the thunderous conclusion to the Bloodshot trilogy and the culmination of the first half of the entire Manic Expression cosmology. Nothing will ever be the same after this story.
SPOILER WARNING GOING FORWARD!
What Night Fire Is About: Picking up immediately after the events of Day’s End, the world has descended into chaos. Riots erupt across the globe as people are consumed by emotions they cannot control. Cities burn. World leaders threaten nuclear annihilation. The end of humanity appears imminent.
Megan Stevenson races home through streets running red with blood, only to discover that her husband, Will, has surrendered to the darkness. Having taken on the mantle of Fear itself, Will now marches with the dark army sweeping over the world. Even worse, the forces of light reveal that the only person who can stop the coming apocalypse is their young daughter, Joy.
The long, strange road to this release: Day’s End and Night Fire were written like one massive story that I split in two. At the time, I was in the middle of a brutal divorce, the sole caregiver for my young child, and it genuinely felt like the world was burning down around me. The U.S. had just invaded Iraq, the country was bitterly divided, and everything felt unstable and unsafe.
Will Stevenson is obviously a version of me. Having him turn to the dark side and become a villain was my way of owning my own complicity in the mess the world had become. It felt like the natural evolution of his character — the anger and rage I carried inside finally given form. Writing his fall from grace helped me come to terms with the part I played in the state of my own world. It’s easy to judge from above; much harder to admit we all help turn the wheel.
Night Fire is the closest thing I’ve ever written to a true epic — grand battles, larger-than-life characters, and world-ending stakes. The Manic Expression universe is forever changed after this story.
Grab your copy today!
I’d love to hear your thoughts — what’s your favorite final chapter in a trilogy?
Join me next week for a look back at a heroic real-world event from World War II.
James Daniel Walsh
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