Waldo’s next (and probably last) novel, coming late 2026
E-book release date: TBD — Paperback: TBD
In 1994, two college dropouts on a Florida roadtrip followed a mysterious voice that led them to Key West, and into the heart of a psychedelic drug turf battle that would help shape more than three decades of American politics and culture wars.
What Cottleston Pierce really wanted was to find the lost love of all his lives.
Blending revolutionary fervor and intrigue with spiritual searching and consciousness expansion, with a cast of characters spanning more than one hundred years and at least three lifetimes, The Rise and Fall of the Cielo Republic is an epic historical fantasy grounded in magical realism. It recalls the carefree era just before email and cellphones, and the buoyant times of youth when a person could call in sick forever and hit the road. Most of all, “Cielo” is the story of a love too strong to die, and how it learned to live again.
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The book isn’t ready, but you know the soundtrack is! Or actually, “soundtracks are.” Cielo Republic is too big for just one!
The first one covers the main part of the book. The first 33 tracks (through “Deep Blue Day”), mostly early ’90s shoegaze and dreampop but with some variation, constitute the official motion picture soundtrack. The ten tracks that follow are bonus tracks that didn’t make the cut but were very much part of the story and needed to be included. The last six or seven were all from the early ’90s grunge era and played as background music at The Road’s End, a tavern in Key West much of the action is focused. If I’m mathing right, that’s almost 50 songs altogether to get you in the mood for Cielo!
The second soundtrack came about as I was focusing on the main substory in the middle, which is essentially its own short novel within a novel. It has a very different setting and mood, and called for its own musical rendition, which came together very well once I started it. The first half has a lot of trip-hop, mostly Massive Attack and Portishead, while the second turns more toward post-rock. I don’t want to give a bunch of spoilers here, but this might have been the best soundtrack yet as far as telling the story through music.
WHERE TO PURCHASE (other than Amazon!)
Heretic Asylum 
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