Bats of the Republic
Bats of the Republic
an illuminated novel by Zachary Thomas Dodson
Available for presale now: COming december 2026!
“A glorious demonstration of what old-fashioned paper can still do in the hands of a creative genius…. Dodson has quite brilliantly exposed the gears and cogs whirring in the novelist’s imagination. It is a mad and beautiful thing.”
The full-color featherproof edition of illuminated novel Bats of the Republic features hand-drawn maps and natural history illustrations, subversive pamphlets and science-fictional diagrams, and even a nineteenth-century novel-within-a-novel, all designed by the author, with a new introduction.
In 1843, fragile naturalist Zadock Thomas must leave his beloved in Chicago to deliver a secret letter to an infamous general on the front lines of the war over Texas. The fate of the volatile republic, along with Zadock’s future, depends on his mission. When a cloud of bats leads him off the trail, he happens upon something impossible...
Three hundred years later, the world has collapsed and the remnants of humanity cling to a strange society of paranoia. Zeke Thomas has inherited a sealed envelope from his grandfather, an esteemed senator. When that letter goes missing, Zeke engages a fomenting rebellion that could free him—if it doesn’t destroy his relationship, his family legacy, and the entire republic first.
As their stories overlap and history itself begins to unravel, a war in time erupts between a lost civilization, a forgotten future, and the chaos of the wild. Bats of the Republic is a masterful novel of adventure and science fiction, of elliptical history and dystopian struggle, and, at its riveting core, of love.
Read an excerpt
Size: 6.125” x 9.125”
Pages: 464
ISBN: 978-1-943888-36-8
Publication date: Dec 8, 2026
Spanish-language edition by Duomo Ediciones | Original soundtrack by Brad Hoyt
Praise for Bats of the Republic
“Bats of the Republic is a waking dream of America gone sideways: it’s familiar, enchanting, and just pretty damned weird in the most beguiling possible ways. Zachary Thomas Dodson has made a magnificent book.”
“A richly textured, deeply felt, magical trove of a book.”
“You want a taste of epic Western machinations filtered through epistles and transcripts and stories-within-stories? You want an arcane tapestry of weird fantasy enhanced by transgenerational mysteries and their possible solutions? You want a character-rich and treacherous journey through the ancient Republic of Texas with a reluctant, heartsick emissary from the Museum of Flying, and with his beleaguered blood relative hundreds of years in the mechanically surveilled future? Then you want to experience this thickly threaded wonderment, citizen – you really, really do.”
“With its ornate design, Zachary Thomas Dodson’s narrative features books within books, eccentric characters and intriguing parallel story lines... It’s hard not to admire the author’s meticulous effort and ambition.”
“Amazing. Actually amazing. Zachary Thomas Dodson has created a new form to tell his story, and in so doing, he has found a way to fuse adventure to love, weld science fiction to sorrow, and encircle everything in a winsome, mystifying experience of art, illustration, and design. Like the living secrets its hero finds in the deep, forgotten caves of Texas, Bats of the Republic is itself a hidden, undiscovered beauty.”
“In Bats of the Republic, even the surprises are full of surprises.”
“Dodson’s ambitious literary debut combines elements of a Wild West adventure with aspects of a dystopian sci-fi thriller … Extravagant and mesmerizing, Dodson’s complex, evocative tale gradually reveals a mythos surrounding love, adventure, and the natural world”
“A fantastical adventure that stretches from revolutionary-era Texas to twenty-second-century Texas, is festooned with technical diagrams, animal portraiture, and newspaper clippings that somehow never overwhelm the story.”
“A most imaginative book – ambitious in design and presentation … Fans of David Mitchell and Mark Z. Danielewski will rejoice.”
“Honestly, this is the most beautiful book I’ve ever seen.”
About the author
ZACHARY THOMAS DODSON is the author of the illuminated novel Bats of the Republic, the hybrid typo/graphic novel boring boring boring boring boring boring boring, and co-founder of featherproof books. He also founded the Visual Narrative Lab and a video game studio called Interactive Tragedy, Limited. He authored the game Sub-Verge and is currently at work on KUU, a graphic cosmogony. A selection of similar experiments can be seen at zachdodson.com.
