Dark Texas: the novel.
A winter storm takes down the Texas grid and it doesn't come back. Four ordinary people, and an analyst who knows why it failed. His first novel, published February 10, 2026 by Stoney Creek Publishing. Everything on this page is from the publisher's page; nothing is added.
About the book
A brutal winter storm pushes Texas to the brink in Dark Texas, a gripping near-future thriller about power loss, resilience, and survival. Through the stories of four ordinary Texans, Charles Petrie, Jr. explores what happens when modern systems fail and community becomes the last line of defense. Inspired by real events, this is a tense, timely novel for readers drawn to disaster fiction with heart and realism.
The publisher's page follows Mac, a retired teacher; Laurie, a yoga teacher; Jake, a newly widowed father; and Chas, a power company analyst, through a cascading infrastructure failure during a historic winter storm inspired by the events of February 2021.
- Author
- Charles Petrie, Jr.
- Publisher
- Stoney Creek Publishing
- Published
- February 10, 2026
- Genre
- Science fiction (near-future thriller)
- Formats
- Paperback and ebook
- Pages
- 314, 5.5 x 8.5 in
- ISBN
- Paperback 978-1-965766-38-5
Ebook 978-1-965766-39-2
Where to buy it
The links the publisher lists. No affiliate codes; prices are not stated on the publisher's page, so none are shown here.
Praise, as quoted by the publisher
Petrie's novel conjures a future that almost was and still could be when bad weather and bad policy collide.
Terrifyingly plausible. Terrifically entertaining.
A chilling reminder of civility's dependence on fragile foundations.
The author, in his publisher's words
Charles J Petrie, Jr. holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UT Austin and is retired from Stanford University where he was an Associate Professor and Senior Research Scientist. He built an off-grid home in Texas and worked at Burning Man, retiring as airport manager. Dark Texas is his first novel.
Why a grid novel from him is no surprise
He spent his research life on what happens when a system's assumptions fail and the dependencies have to be re-examined: truth maintenance at MCC, coordination of distributed engineers at Stanford, and a 2010 paper arguing that the future of the Internet is coordination. He also, by his own account, spent ten years living off the grid on solar power. Dark Texas takes the same question, what fails when the power fails, and tells it through four people. His ideas, his timeline.