Chris Panatier is a genre-bending American author whose work ranges across dystopian science fiction, dark fantasy, horror, and speculative short fiction. He burst onto the scene with his 2020 debut The Phlebotomist, a near-future dystopia steeped in blood politics and societal collapse, and quickly earned a reputation for imaginative, boundary-testing storytelling. His 2022 space opera Stringers pairs absurdist humour with interstellar adventure, while The Redemption of Morgan Bright (2024) shifted into psychological horror and gothic mystery. Most recently, last year’s Shitshow pushed further into a more grotesque, darkly comic register, blending the absurd and the macabre with his unmistakable ingenuity. Besides his novels, Panatier has also written short fiction and poetry for various anthologies and literary magazines, further demonstrating the full scope of his speculative vision.
Panatier returns with Daytide, a novel that once again ventures into the strange while keeping a firm focus on the human cost, balancing high-concept ideas with vividly flawed and recognisably human characters.
Pitched as a black metal Wizard of Oz, Daytide takes place in a world ravaged by the Longing, a psychological pandemic that drives its victims to suicide. After losing his friend Kaya to the pandemic, Adam navigates the fallout of a society gripped by despair, crossing paths with a priest who claims to have found a cure. Despite his initial extreme scepticism, Adam is drawn into a disturbing revelation at a cathedral that could offer society’s salvation. Featuring original artwork by Panatier himself, the novel combines a distinctive visual identity with themes of human desire, loss, and responsibility.
Ahead of the book’s February 26 release via Rapture Publishing, CinemaChords spoke with Panatier about creating a pandemic rooted in psychology rather than biology, the meaning behind the novel’s angelic power structures, and how the deluxe edition’s illustrations extend the story’s texture far beyond the page.
The deluxe limited edition hardcover of Daytide is the ultimate collector’s item, limited to just 350 copies, each signed by Chris Panatier and Philip Fracassi. The edition features wrap-around full-color artwork and more than ten interior illustrations by Panatier himself, along with illustrated full-color end sheets and a sewn-in ribbon page marker. Designed for durability and elegance, it boasts high-end cloth binding, hot-foil stamping on the cover and spine, Smythsewn binding, and matching head and tail bands, all printed on acid-free archival-quality paper. A bookmark completes this lavish package, making it an absolute must-have edition for fans and collectors alike.
