Author Archive
Okay, maybe I’m getting slightly ahead of myself here. Joseph and I are about to launch into a series of discussions on the business of writing a novel, from ‘the Idea’ straight through to the final edit. In the journey of the novel the decision about cover design is, if not the last consideration, pretty near the end. However, in the world of modern publishing a book’s cover is almost as important a factor in the finished product as the merit of the book itself. Many highfalutin’, so-called literary writers would balk at what I’ve just told you. They would stand by the age-old adage that one should never judge a book by its cover. They’re the very same folk who are dismissive about the importance of plot and pacing. My answer to that sort of thinking is quite simply: get real! You want to write? Well then you’ve got to write books that people want to buy. Publishing is not (and never should be, in my opinion) a charitable cause in which people with a few bob throw their money at scribblers who simply want to ‘express themselves’ on paper. Publishers are not modern day patrons of the arts: they are businessmen. Sure, the best of them are invested in the quality and integrity of the books they produce, but those books need to make a profit. With this in mind, the decision on a book’s cover is a vital one. Because, and let me make this very clear,
VIRTUALLY EVERYONE JUDGES A BOOK BY ITS COVER!
That may not be fair – I’ve read many excellent books that have appalling artwork slapped on the front. It may not even be very wise on the part of the reading public. But it is the truth. In this helter-skelter, fast-food gobbling, coffee-on-the-run world most people just don’t have the time to hang around in bookshops for hours perusing the shelves. Incidentally, that’s why you see so many blurbs saying ‘the next Dan Brown’ or ‘in the style of John Le Carré’. People know what they like and need a pointer as to what else they might fancy. They just don’t have the time to investigate. The same principle applies when it comes to covers. Remember after The Da Vinci Code came out how many sinister, vaguely monastic covers you saw springing up all over the place? Again, I’m not saying this is right, but it is the commercial reality of publishing today.
Covers are immensely important. They have to grab the reader without being garish – they have to pull you in without assaulting your senses – in their own right, they have to tell at least part of a story. I didn’t realise the importance of covers myself until the artwork came in for Through A Glass, Darkly. Luckily, the design was perfect from the outset – just a little yellowing of the image was required. The email from Bloody Books that contained the artwork had been copied in to a dozen or so other people, asking for advice and opinions. This was a committee decision, as I believe most cover decisions are. Why? Well, without a good cover your book just ain’t gonna sell, baby. With that in mind a publisher will solicit as much advice as possible before he commits.
So what makes a perfect cover? Don’t ask me. It’s like my agent said during the early stages of publication of TAGD – ‘You don’t have any cover ideas? No problem, you’re a writer, not a bloody graphic designer.’ That said, I think I have gained a bit of insight into the art of the process over the past year. I would say that the cover of a modern novel – be it horror or any other genre – needs a simple, bold image. Covers that are too busy tend to confuse rather than engage. Obviously that image needs to have some relevance to the book and yet not be too obvious. For example, you’re writing a story about zombies taking over New York. You’ve called it Undead in the Big Apple (hey, I’m not here to give away cracking title ideas, okay?). If this was my novel, I wouldn’t go for an image of lumbering corpses surrounding the Statue of Liberty. Take another less obvious image from the book – a broken wristwatch with the hint of a reflection in the cracked face, for example (don’t like that? I refer you to my agent’s observation cited earlier!). A strong image that does not bear an obvious relation to the book’s title will engage the reader’s curiosity – start them asking questions about how it fits into the story. With TAGD the cover was deceptively simple – birds in panicked flight, soaring away from the dark fingers of a tree, a shaft of sunlight breaking down upon them. Only when you reach the end of the book do you come to a scene that… ah, well, no spoilers. I loved the idea that, once the reader had finished the book, he or she could flip back to the front and see the significance of the cover image.
Horror covers are becoming less obviously ‘of the genre’. Very rarely do you see fanged spectres and hairy lycanthropes cluttering up the fronts of new horror books. Take, for example, the cover for Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box reproduced here. It is a simple, arty cover, sinister without being grotesque. There are images here from the book – images to intrigue. This kind of cover may have been used because the genre is trying to reinvent itself – to get readers who wouldn’t normally pick up a fright fest to dip their toe. The same thinking is used when publishers employ the term ‘dark fiction’ rather than ‘horror’ – it’s a ‘don’t scare off the punters’ mindset. Some may argue that this is a dishonest tactic but I would suggest that, if the novel has any subtlety to it, then why not employ a defter touch? While our core fanbase is strong, horror deserves (and needs) new readers. A good cover can draw them in. I know this from my own experience of talking to Waterstones book buyers and reading groups. Many people who would never have considered reading horror confessed that they were intrigued by TAGD’s less in-your-face artwork.
The main reason I’m blogging about the cover is because I’ve just received the design for my new book, The Absence. As with TAGD, it is gloriously beautiful: a bold, dark, creepy image, sepia-tinted and full of lurking menace. I think it should pull in the punters. I hope so anyway! This time it takes a central location from the book and conjures up just the right atmosphere.
Finally, if you don’t believe what I’m saying about the importance of the cover, then next time you’re in a bookshop just watch the people browsing. They will pick up the book and glance over the cover. If the artwork sparks their interest they’ll flip to the back cover blurb. Even if the blurb grabs them they will rarely, in my experience, then head straight to the check out. They’ll go back to the cover and take another look. The cover is the hook and a good cover sells.
October 27th, 2008
I’ve always been a fan of good ol’ Rue M
orgue – the magazine, that is, not the French street made famous by Poe’s pesky orang-utan. It’s a real shame that we Limeys have to search high and low to find it, but it’s always worth the hunt. Anyway, I’m absolutely delighted to report that a review of TAGD has appeared in my favourite horror mag.
Here are a few quotes from Justine Warwick’s piece:
‘By blending a supernatural occult storyline with a contemporary detective yarn [Hussey] manages to use familiar genre tropes in an unfamiliar way.’
‘While the novel never becomes a bloodbath, its understated gruesomeness is one of its strengths, along with the best prolonged death-by-birds scene outside of Alfred Hitchcock.’
‘Through A Glass, Darkly marks the arrival of a strong new voice in crime and horror.’
The review is pretty complimentary throughout, with the caveat that perhaps I try to fit in too many ‘diverse instances of the supernatural.’
Also in the issue: an entertaining rundown of the 50 essential Gore Films (I’ve not seen all of those listed but Cannibal Holocaust and Ichi the Killer freaked with my fragile little mind. Didn’t see Society there – maybe a bit tame for the compiler’s tastes), a retrospective on Famous Monsters of Filmland and a beautiful full-colour print that brings together the most iconic figures from 20 years of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman – possibly my favourite comics series ever!
October 22nd, 2008
Bill is a happy horror bunny (horror bunnies… hmm, not a bad idea. Well, James Herbert has his rats, Shaun Hutson has his slugs, why can’t Bill Hussey have his bunnies?). Anyway, my hippety-hoppety happiness comes from the fact that the good folks at Bloody Books have accepted my second horror novel for publication! And so I thought I’d better follow the example set by Diabolical Joe D’Lacey and give you guys a taster of what’s to come…
‘The Absence’ will be published on 2nd April 2009. Here’s what BB say about it on the official website:
‘Bill’s first novel Through a Glass Darkly received very strong reader group support this year. His second novel continues his fascination with ancient myths and religions. Once again, his superb storytelling takes the reader on a terrifying journey into the mythic past, as a present-day family finds itself the subject of an unrelenting evil going back centuries. Something is moving in the attic. It looks and sounds like a little girl, but its eyes are old and its voice runs like water.’
Part of this blurb is taken from a longer piece I put together for the proposed back cover. Here’s an exclusive sneak peek:
‘It was a tragic accident. That is what his family tell Joe Nightingale, but the boy is tormented by visions of his mother’s death.
Now, seven months after the fatal car crash, the Nightingales receive some unexpected news. They have inherited a house from a distant relative – the reclusive Muriel Sutton. Desperate to reforge old bonds, the family decide to spend the summer at Daecher’s Mill. Here they hope to escape the shadows of the past.
But dark mysteries await them. Who are the guests that have been brought here over the years? Why did the late Muriel Sutton murder her strange little sister, Alice? And what is the connection between Joe Nightingale and this lonely Fenland millhouse?
Something is moving in the attic. It looks and sounds like a little girl, but its eyes are old and its voice runs like water.
It is a weaver of shadows.
A creature of Absence…’
Psychological terror and mythic horror are about to meet head on… in the Shadow House.
‘The Absence’ is already available for preorder from Amazon and Waterstones.
October 20th, 2008
I recently wrote a blog about those films that have, over the years, ‘pushed my horror button’, and it got me thinking: why not tell the good people that visit Horror Reanimated about my secret movie passion?
Don’t worry, I’m not about to delve into the darkest reaches of my twisted movie psyche. I am fully aware that the world is not yet prepared for my idea of a remake of Night of the Living Dead starring the cast of Sesame Street (‘They’re coming to get you, Big Bird!’). No, what I’m talking about is a bunch of horror movies that don’t quite make the grade as far as influencing my writing or plaguing my dreams. In short, they don’t push my horror button, baby. Instead, they dance around me wearing cheap, garish clothes and doing their best to pull scary faces. They are as camp as a Butlin’s holiday, with plots so laughable dear old William Castle would have turned his nose up at them. But, in the process of trying their very best to horrify, they show so much darn heart that you end up loving them anyway.
My passion for these poorly stitched monstrosities really began in the summer of 1999. I had been working in London throughout ’98 – long hours in a miserable little office in Whitehall. By Christmas I was starting to feel unwell. Early in the New Year, en route home on the tube, I collapsed. My opinion of Londoners was not improved by the fact that, although the carriage was crowded and I was neatly attired in suit and necktie, I hit the deck at London Bridge and wasn’t helped until we pulled into Clapham North. Cut a long story short, a nice doctor at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases on Tottenham Court Road told me that I probably had malaria. I’d picked it up while traveling through Peru a year or so back and it had incubated in my system. Those Murderous Mozzies of Machu Picchu had come back to haunt me.
After the malaria my immune system was so worn down that I suffered from ME, or post-viral fatigue syndrome, for the next six months. Aside from my mum’s battle with cancer, this experience is just about the worst thing that has ever happened to me. My decline from a relatively healthy lad of twenty to an emaciated invalid was swift. Within weeks of diagnosis, I was so physically drained that shuffling from my bed to the bathroom became impossible. I couldn’t even be carried to the toilet because, if I was touched, every muscle screamed. Eventually I couldn’t even make it to the commode positioned at the end of the bed and was forced to wear a kind of adult nappy. The muscles in my arms and legs atrophied. I lost over two stone in weight, and I was pretty skinny in those days anyway. In later years, my mum admitted that she thought I would be bedridden for the rest of my life. Worse, due to the continued wasting, she didn’t think I would live that long. Her concerns were overly gloomy – I was never in that much danger – but she was terrified. After three months, I was skeletal: a tiny form barely able to move, always cold, always shivering, never hungry, and so confused I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was. Couldn’t even remember the names of friends and family. I hardly noticed this morbid deterioration – my mind just wasn’t playing ball – but when my mum described it to me in later months, it made a big impact. I could then recall bits of it, and I think the experience found echoes in the demise of Peter Malahyde in Through A Glass, Darkly.
I was, in the end, very lucky. ME is a terrible illness which can last a lifetime. I had a course of homeopathic medication prescribed by my doctor and, whether it was due to this or my system finally rallying after the malaria, I began to get better. It took a while though and, due to the over-sleeping induced by the ME, I now found myself awake at all hours of the night. Still not strong enough to concentrate on reading, I watched a horrible amount of late night TV. It was during this time that the BBC started showing a selection of old portmanteau horror movies…
Virtually all of these films came from the 60s and 70s and were produced by Hammer-a-like studio Amicus. The portmanteau horror films of Amicus all followed a similar pattern: there would be a framing story around which five or six tales were incorporated. For example, in Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, directed by genre stalwart Freddie Francis, five men share a railway carriage from London to Bradley. They are joined by Peter Cushing’s Dr Schreck (that’s ‘terror’ in German, get it?), a man promising dark mystery and sporting a pair of unlikely eyebrows. Anyway, ol’ Doc Schreck proceeds to lay out a set of Tarot cards and, in reading the destinies of his fellow passengers, the stories are told. This was the first of a series of movies shown by the Beeb over the summer of ’99, and I was hooked from the get-go. The tales had a wonderful old world charm to them that I found absolutely spellbinding. Sure, even in 1964, stories about deadly trailing plants and voodoo curses were probably old hat, but there was real pleasure to be had in the hammy commitment of the actors (including Roy Castle and, bizarrely, DJ Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman!) and the leisurely pace of the storytelling.
The actors of Amicus were a weird bunch. In the same movie, you could get a clutch of real thesps like Denholm Elliott, Joss Ackland and Charlotte Rampling rubbing shoulders with such familiar genre faces as Cushing, Christopher Lee and Ingrid Pitt. Admittedly, a few of those, shall we say, better-regarded actors were past their prime and slumming it for the pay cheque. Having said that, there are some strong performances throughout. Those that spring to mind include a wonderfully ethereal Rampling in Lucy Comes To Stay, and a creepy turn from Herbert Lom in Mannequins of Horror, both from 1972′s Asylum. That film also boasts a brilliant, if barking, framing device: in order to become the titular asylum’s new head doctor (hee-hee) newcomer Robert Powell must guess which of the inmates is Dr B Starr, the former director of the asylum. The resulting interviews make up the portmanteau’s stories. Although there were a few standout performances throughout the Amicus period, one or two leave something to be desired. Case in point: a woefully miscast Jon Pertwee in The Cloak from The House That Dripped Blood. It’s true to say that Pertwee was not helped by a weak story but, by God, those fangs made him look about as scary as a headless Worzel Gummidge… Wait a minute, that was always scary!
It could be argued that these movies are too cosy to scare anyway. That age has withered and customs staled their potential to horrify. Not true, say I. After all, some of these films were scripted by none other than Robert Bloch, of Psycho fame. Sure, their taglines and posters were ludicrous – Terror Waits For You In Every Room In The House That Dripped Blood! - Death Lives In The Vault Of Horror! - and my personal favourite – Come To The Asylum… To Get Killed! Erm, no thanks – but a few of the tales were genuinely disturbing. The aforementioned Lucy Comes To Stay is a hauntingly-told story of split personality. …And All Through The House is adapted from my beloved Vault of Horror comics and does a fine job of telling a gruesome and ironic tale of a murderous housewife (Joan Collins) getting her just deserts. In Method For Murder, Denholm Elliott is a writer plagued by visions of the psychopathic anti-hero of his latest novel. Wonderful stuff.
Night after night, I devoured these movies. I found them strangely comforting for, although they claimed to be horror stories, they came from a world both predictable and innocent. A world quite like that of childhood, in fact. At the age of twenty, having gone through a crippling illness, I took solace from anything that reminded me of more carefree days.
And so I’d like to thank Amicus. Despite their shoestring budgets, hammy acting, appalling dubbing and dire effects, they really work. Why? Maybe because they show the proper Blitz spirit. Do they grumble about the occasional bad script? Not a bit of it. Do they bemoan the fact that some of their actors are quite obviously phoning-in their performances? Do they heck. They get on with the job and they make do. That’s British horror for you, folks: sometimes unpolished, occasionally risible, but most of the time bloody brilliant!
October 16th, 2008
In response to Joseph’s revelations about those times when he has been seriously freaked out by horror books and movies etc, here are a few of my own experiences (I should just say that there may be one or two spoilers in what follows – you have been warned!):
1. I remember, at the tender age of nine, creeping into the living room to watch a movie the Beeb had trailed earlier that evening. It was one of those 1970s made-for-TV affairs – a real gem, as I remember it, with the same quaint production values, great actors, terrific script and direction that marked out Speilberg’s own movie-of-the-week debut, ‘Duel’. It was well past my bedtime, and so I had the volume turned down low. Huddled in my duvet, I watched this story about a young couple who take a vacation in the hope of rebuilding their marriage. They pitch up at a farmhouse where the wife begins to have weird dreams about the bloody past of this patch of New England. Turns out they sacrificed witches here, don’t you know. Anyway, there’s a scene which haunted me for years afterwards: the young wife is placed beneath a board while the townsfolk, including her now deranged husband, pile rocks on top. Slowly the screaming woman is crushed to death. This kooky old movie must have had a big effect on me because, years later, I reference it twice in ‘Through A Glass, Darkly’. Jamie Howard has seen the movie and discusses it with Jack. And check out the film’s title – ‘Crowhaven Farm’ – ring any bells?
2. Just as the last scene of ‘Crowhaven Farm’ has haunted me, so the final image of ‘The Wicker Man’ continues to chill me to the bone. I heard an interview recently with the comedy group, The League of Gentlemen. Anyone who has seen their work cannot fail to realise the impact ‘The Wicker Man’ has had upon the gents (‘You did it beautifully, Tubs!’). I think it was Reece Shearsmith who pointed out that, even after multiple viewings, you still long for a police helicopter to appear on the horizon and rescue Edward Woodward’s Sergeant Howie from his horrible fate. Of course, getting the cop out would have been a major cop-out! It is a testament to the terrifying, primal power of this film, however, that we want the puritanical and priggish Howie to live. But the crops must not be allowed to fail…
3. MR James is the greatest writer of the ghost story. I will have words with anyone who says I’m wrong (although I’ve always had a soft spot for Robert Aickman’s ‘strange stories’ too). Sir John Betjeman loved MR James, and Betjeman knew his onions when it comes to the creepiness of the East Anglian Fens. I still get goosebumps whenever I read ‘Oh Whistle And I’ll Come To You, My Lad’ – and I know the story backwards. I live on a similar coastline to that described in ‘Oh Whistle…’ and, whenever I walk it alone, I always look back to see if a dark figure is following me – a shadowy presence getting closer, closer…
4. When I was quite young my dad took me up West to see a play. I was an uncouth youth and the idea of sitting through a couple of hours of two actors talking wasn’t my idea of a Saturday night. The play was Susan Hill’s ‘The Woman in Black’, masterfully adapted by Stephen Mallatratt. It is an utterly spellbinding piece of work that reminds us that horror doesn’t have to be all blood and guts. A simple scream echoing across the marshes can instil nightmares Freddie Kruger could only dream of. Seventeen years later the play is still haunting London’s Fortune Theatre.
5. ‘Salem’s Lot’. I read it when I was twelve years old. It is, quite simply, the 20th Century’s ‘Dracula’.
6. Stephen King opens ‘Salems Lot’ with a quotation from Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’. He admires Jackson because ‘she never had to shout’. Hill House is, in my opinion, the greatest haunted house novel ever written. A subtle and psychologically complex horror story that is full of poetry and imagery that lingers in the dark corridors of the mind. Here’s a bit of the opening – get reader to shudder!
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
This was a fun idea. I think I’m going to have to write a Part Two!
October 13th, 2008
Mr Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearthrug and picked up the article our visitor had left behind him the night before. Embossed in crimson upon the calling card was a gothic letter ‘D’.
“Well, Watson, what do you make of it?”
Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation.
“I believe you have eyes in the back of your head,” I remarked.
“I have at least a well-polished, silver-plated coffee pot in front of me,” said he.
As my eyes shifted to the pot, Holmes reacted with lightning speed and threw his napkin over it. Still, I had a fancy that I had glimpsed something curious before the napkin descended. I had the strange idea that, although the chair in which he sat had been reflected, the face of Sherlock Holmes was missing.
“Watson,” he said, dragging me from my reverie, “would you have any objection to drawing the blinds?”
“None at all.” I crossed the room, all the while keeping a concerned eye upon my old friend. “Tell me, Holmes, are you afraid of something?”
“Well, I am.”
“Of what? Not air-guns again?”
“No. I no longer fear air-guns.”
The detective gave a dry chuckle and curled up in his chair. Despite his good humour he was even more gaunt and pale than usual. I crossed the room, took hold of his wrist and attempted to gauge his pulse. I could find none. Similar difficulties had perplexed me when examining him after one of his cocaine binges, the soporific effect of the drug having depressed the rigour of his circulatory system. He did not protest as I rolled up his sleeve and checked for the telltale signs that his miserable addiction had been indulged. Again, I could find nothing. And then I noticed something very strange: there were two puncture wounds, but not upon his arm.
“What have you been doing to yourself, old fellow?” I exclaimed.
“Peace, Watson,” Holmes muttered. “You will be pleased to hear I have no further use for the cocaine bottle.”
“Humph. Well, something very odd has happened since I saw you last. Perhaps it is all to do with your visitor of last night. I am sorry I could not be at your side. My practice is busy of late, you understand. But come, tell me about him.”
Holmes stretched his long legs towards the fire. A great shiver ran the length of his body.
“Can’t get warm for the life of me,” he said. “As to my client: he was a nobleman of eastern extraction. A Count, no less.”
“Indeed? And what did this Count want with you?”
“A trifling business of persecution. He had arrived in Whitby some weeks back and was immediately set upon by a ragtag band made up of a wild frontiersman, an asylum psychiatrist and the eldest son of one of our noble families.”
“Good God, what had the man done to attract the hostility of such an unlikely crew?”
“That is somewhat unclear. He is a foreigner, of course, and that may have been against him from the first. The Count is of the opinion that, as dangerous as these men are, their leader poses a far greater threat to his safety.”
“Who is this other man?”
“A Dutch professor with a very particular idée fixe that borders upon insanity. He is, however, a brilliant man with half the letters in the alphabet after his name.”
“Hmm. Well, it seems a most interesting case. Shall I leave you to ruminate upon it?”
“No, Watson. I should like you to stay and give me your assistance in certain matters.”
Holmes’ eyes glowed with a sudden fire. He rose and slipped across the hearthrug. Within three steps he was at the door of our Baker Street sitting room, turning the key in the lock. Then he span around and, fixing me with a peculiar smile, he said:
“Indeed, I fully expect this to be a three pint problem…”
October 8th, 2008
Garry Charles is a horror writer, interviewer and reviewer. His first novel ‘Heaven’s Falling: Volume 1: Ascension’ was published by Hadesgate Publications in September 2005 and was quickly followed by a sequel entitled ‘Redemption’, and has been compared to the final part of Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’ series. More information about Garry and his writing can be found at his website at www.garrycharles.co.uk
Bill Hussey: Hi Garry – good of you to join the damned and lonesome souls here at Horror Reanimated. Let’s kick off with your earliest memories of the horror genre. Can you trace back to the moment when the horror bug crawled under your skin and laid eggs in your brain?
Garry Charles: Hi Bill, nice of you to ask me over. Now where’s the tea and cakes you promised?
My earliest memories of Horror – at least what I found scary back then – was watching the old sci-fi movies on BBC2. You know, stuff like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, IT CAME FROM OUT OF SPACE and THEM! I was probably only nine or ten, but I loved the aspect of being scared even back then.
Then I moved onto real horror movies, watching DARIO ARGENTO’S INFERNO when I was about eleven. Now that scared the shit of me but I was hooked and followed it up with classics like THE OMEN, HELL NIGHT and BLACK CHRISTMAS (Hell, I still can’t enter an attic without a shiver running down my spine).
I’d always enjoyed reading but only started reading horror as I entered the teenage years. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on from the Library, amazed that a kid could walk out the door with a book that contained graphic depictions of death and sex…. Fucking awesome times!!!
BH: Agreed. Long may librarians continue turning a blind eye! I fear for young horror fans if these dreadful age advisory stickers start appearing on library books. Anyway, I’ll just climb down from my soapbox for a moment. Tell me, when did you start writing, and did you kick-off with dark fiction?
GC: The first thing I ever wrote was in the last year of primary school. I stole an exercise book and filled it from front cover to back with the terror filled tale THE RADIOACTIVE CREAM CAKE. Yes, that cake came alive and began eating people. I wish I still had it knocking about somewhere. Who knows I might write it again for an adult market.
Can you imagine the tagline?
“It will make you cream until you die”
“You won’t want to lick this icing, but it wants to lick you.”
I followed that up with a few short stories over the years and started a novel entitled LOGAN’S LEGACY. I reached about page sixty and just as many people had died. Not the most mature of stories.
All of these went missing during a house move a few years back. Oh well, that’s life.
BH: Have you been tempted by any other genres?
GC: Yes, other genres do interest me. I’m dabbling with sci-fi and I am tempted to try my hand at a real life comedy based around my time working down the coal mines. Not sure if it would work, but one day I’ll give it a go.
BH: Tell me, who were your early horror influences?
GC: Early influences – or, as I prefer to call them inspirations – would include GUY N SMITH, SHAUN HUTSON, RICHARD LAYMON, F. PAUL WILSON, CLIVE BARKER, GRAHAM MASTERTON and JAMES HERBERT.
BH: Do you consider any new horror writers up there with those guys?
GC: There are plenty of new writers emerging on the scene today who should be destined for great things: STEPHEN ROMANO, JEFF STRAND, BRIAN KEENE and FRAN FRIEL from the states are all must reads.
The UK also has its fair share with the likes of C J LINES, RAKIE KEIG, SHAUN JEFFERY and then there’s these two other guys that write a blog on some website or other. God, their debut novels were great, but I’ll be buggered if I can remember their names (laughs).
BH: A related question: you can go back in time and talk to one dead horror/dark fantasy writer. Who would it be and what would you ask?
GC: RICHARD LAYMON and I would ask him to have a word with his estate and allow me to finish off one of his unfinished novels. Just because it would be great to see my name on the cover of the same book as his.
And you were hoping for something deep and meaningful. Well, that’s me… a shallow fucker.
BH: Reading interviews you’ve conducted with other horror writers, I’ve noticed an admirable ability on your part to cut through the BS so often associated with the business of writing. Therefore, at the risk of you telling me to f**k off, what is your attitude to ‘the craft’? How do you go about researching, planning and writing a new project? And can you give us any tricks of the trade you’ve picked up?
GC: Thanks for the compliment. My previous interviews – whether as interviewer or interviewee – have usually caused some people to get riled. It’s usually because my intentions are misconstrued and/or misread. I’ll try to be as clear as I can for the remainder of this interview.
‘THE CRAFT’ I thought it was a great movie. Who can argue with school girls with magic powers?
But, seriously… I would say my attitude is one of laid back calmness. I have fun whilst writing, telling myself a new story for the first time. I don’t plan things out. I have an idea for a start and – most times – an ending. Then I let the rest just tell the tale as I go along. I like to surprise myself.
When it comes to research I’m a real lazy bastard. If I want something in a story I will do a quick Google search. If I can find what I’m looking for and it works then great. If I can’t find it then I tend to think ‘Fuck it. It’s only fiction’.
Though I did do quite a lot of research for Heaven’s Falling. Only problem was I did it after I’d finished writing the bloody thing. Luckily my religious knowledge ain’t too shabby and most of it worked out quite well.
As to tips. Just write what you have in your head. If the seed of a tale is there you’ll find that you can write it. Then you have to grow a thick skin and hope that people like what you’ve done.
BH: Another related question: in your interview with Shaun Hutson (informative and hilarious!) you both profess a dislike for the navel-gazing, self-aggrandising writer. What is it that particularly bugs you about this kind of writer’s attitude to writing, the genre and their position within it?
GC: Self absorbed! The lot of them!
They walk around as if they own the writing world, spouting gobshite about how only literary horror fiction can save the genre and how all these continuously mass released writers are unworthy of being published.
If they could just pull their heads out of their arses and wipe the shit from their eyes they might just see that when they slag off such writers they are – for all intents and purposes – slagging off the thousands of readers who keep those writers in business. This is the horror audience and they are alienating them.
Mass reading audiences want to be entertained when they read. If they are reading horror they want to be entertained, scared and maybe horrified. They want pace and a story line that drags them along and gives them a satisfying conclusion. They don’t want some poncy twat taking up pages and pages describing how foreboding a piece of peeling wallpaper is or just how dark, heavy and pendulous the clouds are only to shy away from the horror just as it’s about to arrive.
Yes, there is a place for literary horror fiction, but it isn’t the be all and end all of the genre. Not by a long shot.
BH: Like you, I’m particularly irritated by those who look down their noses at so-called ‘splatter horror’. To my mind horror should not be judged by its gore content but by the quality of the writing and the merit of the story. In fact, it seems crazy that a genre already under attack from other literary fields should turn on itself. Horror writers should support each other. What are your thoughts on this kind of snobbery?
GC: It’s fucking ridiculous. At the end of the day it’s all about the story. Hell, if you believe the hype from the snobbish types it can’t be about the quality or we wouldn’t see some of the names on the shelves that we do.
You take FILTH KISS by C J LINES. It is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever had the pleasure to read yet, at the same time, it is probably one of the most stomach churning. Because of this it will be sneered upon by others who find this kind of thing degrading to the genre.
I think this kind of snobbery should be ignored. For too long I let it annoy me but now I turn the other cheek and give them a sly finger and chuckle at their schoolyard behaviour.
Some of the newer writers and publishers surfacing at the moment have seen how this snobbery and class divide has damaged the genre and I can see them making different decisions and appearing more open to cooperation. This is a good thing and I take my hat off to them. They are the way forward.
BH: Your books, especially the Heaven’s Falling sequence, have dealt with mythical horrors. Would you consider writing a more domestic kind of horror novel, dealing with more personal terrors?
GC: I find myself drawn more towards the fantastical side of horror, I find it more entertaining. We see enough domestic horror in the news everyday so I feel I don’t need to write about it. I want my fiction to be just that, nothing more and nothing less. If I entertain a few readers, then great. If I scare them, even better. So long as they enjoy the trip.
BH: Horror seemed to be in the publishing doldrums throughout much of the 1990s and early 00s. What are your thoughts on why the genre went through such a bleak period, at least as far as publishers were concerned?
GC: The main argument I see online (kind of brings us back to the arsey types in questions 6 and 7 don’tcha think?) is that when horror boomed the publishers flooded the market with too many poorly written tales of terror. In turn this put the reading public off the genre and they moved elsewhere.
My opinion? I have two.
Number 1: Take the above scenario and turn it on its head. Yes, the publishers flooded the market. But they did so with just as many literary masterpieces. Could it be that the reader got fed up of being conned, of picking up a book with a cool cover only discover that the writing inside was overblown, drawn out and, in conclusion, totally fucking boring.
This isn’t an opinion I hold strong and true, just a way of showing that the argument can go each way.
Number 2: Surveys always showed that the majority of readers were women aged between 18 and 35 (the ages maybe wrong, but you get the idea). Well this is the problem. Times are changing and women have moved on. They no longer stay at home, repressed by the male. They have taken life by the balls and are riding high. More women are out working during the day, not stuck at home feeling pissed off and undervalued.
This demographic no longer has as much time to read and this will have affected not just the horror genre, but fiction across the board.
Then we have the younger generation. Not quite as interested in reading as we may once have been. If they can’t watch it on a screen or have a control pad in their hand then it’s old news. What do they care for books?
In 2006 book sales across the board in Waterstone’s were down. All, that is, except for horror and this was only because Stephen King had quite a few releases that year and the book stores did very well with DAVID WELLINGTON’S modern classic MONSTER ISLAND.
We moan about the genre fiction suffering when it’s printed fiction in general we should be worrying about. Horror was a niche market to start with so obviously it appears to have almost disappeared. In terms relative to the market as a whole it’s probably still the same size it’s always has been.
BH: What are your impressions of the modern horror market? Is it undergoing a renaissance or is that wishful thinking?
GC: In all honesty… neither. We are nowhere close to having a renaissance of horror fiction. But, at the same time its not quite wishful thinking.
A renaissance can only happen if more publishers get books on shelves. It’s no good turning up at small conventions and selling books to the people you hook up with each and every year and convincing yourself that it makes you well read.
Bill, I know you attended a convention recently. Be honest, what was the ratio of readers to writers?
BH: Admittedly, there were a lot of writers there…
GC: See, that kind of bullshit thinking will get the genre absolutely nowhere pretty fucking quick. Go to conventions with nothing more than the intention of having fun, but don’t kid yourself that it’s the book-selling event of the year.
If books are in bookshops they will sell. If those books are actually any good they will sell more as word of mouth grows amongst the true reading public.
Any small press that has moved into the realms of the independent press will tell you the same thing.
BH: There are lots of new trends in horror publishing: zombie books, young adult horror, gothic romance, issue-led horror, even a bit of a return to the so-called ‘literary horror novel’. But which of these trends will survive? Where do you see the future of the horror novel?
GC: As I’ve said above. As long as it entertains the reader it should do well. Most importantly it needs to be original. The market needs new ideas, or at least a few old ones that haven’t been seen for a while given a brand new twist.
I think the zombie novel will soon have run its course. Unless someone comes up with something originally amazing I doubt tales of shambling corpses have much life left in them (pun intended).
The young adult market will probably die out as this generation of young adults move onto bigger and better things. It would be nice to see a next generation of young readers, but it’s going to get harder to find them. I can only cross my fingers and hope for the best.
Gothic romance… I don’t know enough about this particular sub-genre, but I would expect that people will soon tire of vampires fucking and sucking. Just my opinion.
And the so called ‘Literary horror novel’. It has a very small niche audience, mainly derived from writers who do the same thing. I just don’t think (with one exception) it is entertaining enough to entice the few new readers wanting horror.
No, I won’t give you the one exception, as I will not be accused of liking his work.
BH: What are your current/future projects?
GC: I’m currently reworking a novel entitled BOOKEND. It’s taking some time but might, one day, see the light of day.
Due to the high level of emails insisting on a HF3 I am working on it and it will be finished for late next year.
HOTEL HOLLYWOOD is another dark fantasy novel I am slogging away at whilst also churning out DEATH TIDE, which has just been picked up by GHOSTWRITER PUBLICATIONS as part of their GUY N SMITH SIGNITURE SERIES. The people behind this new press are amongst the ones to watch with some good ideas on how to take the genre forward.
I have spent this summer completing screenplays for a sci-fi TV series I am hoping to get picked up. I have an executive producer onboard and now it’s just a case of playing the waiting game.
I should have news on a project entitled STRAWMAN very soon. I’m very excited about this one for reasons people will realise next year.
SLAVIS, co-written with US author ERIC ENK should see the light of day soon and, if it goes down well may well be followed up by STONE COLD SNAKE EYES.
I think that’s most of it.
BH: Wow. That’s what I call busy! Okay, it’s time for Horror Reanimated’s innovative stock questions. First off, it is within your power to award ONE work of horror, in any medium, The Sword of Ultimate Darkness. This is an example of horror that you consider to be the most outstanding in the history of the genre.
GC: Jesus, do I deserve such an honour, can I wield such power?
I could go for ASSASSIN by SHAUN HUTSON because that was the first novel to make me do a little bit of sick in my mouth.
Or I could hand it over to CLIVE BARKER for WEAVEWORLD because it showed me that fantasy could be horrific.
Then there’s always NIGHT OF THE CRABS by GUY N SMITH just for being so much bloody fun.
I know what I’ll do. I have the power and you can’t stop me. Plus I just love breaking the rules.
Shaun gets the blade, Guy gets the jewel encrusted handle and Clive gets the handsomely embossed leather scabbard.
BH: Secondly, you must consign to The Plague Pits the worst example of horror fiction you have ever come across.
GC: This is so unfair, but seeing as I got away with sharing out the sword I will be forced to make a choice.
INCARNATE by RAMSEY CAMPELL. The biggest waste of 20p at a car boot sale ever. I spent a week on nights in the bowels of the earth reading this one when I could have been getting some shuteye.
And now I feel I should justify my choice. I just found it to be a vacuous, over long story that never really did anything for me as a reader. I wasn’t entertained and I wasn’t scared. Sorry RC!
BH: Cheers, Garry – just as entertaining, interesting and controversial as I’d hoped! Those of you visiting this infernal region – keep your peepers out – more horror writer interviews are on the way!
October 2nd, 2008
My love of all things grisly and ghastly can be traced back to one glorious summer day in 1984. I even know the date – 15th July – the time of day – mid-morning – and can have a pretty good stab at the exact time: it was 10.30… ish. How do I recollect these details with such precision? Well, it was my birthday for starters – how portentous is that, guys and ghouls? – and my treat for the day was to be dragged along to one of the thousands of car boot sales which clog up Lincolnshire’s car parks during the summer months. Holidaymakers, wending their way to Skegness in a never-ending caravan of, well, caravans, like nowt better than spending their Sunday mornings picking through other people’s God-awful tat. But, hands up, my family take an unhealthy delight in just the same hunt for bargains – a hunt, I feel, which is as illusory as any Grail quest, no matter what gappy-toothed and perma-tanned daytime antique dealers would have you believe.
I was miserable, scuffing my trainers across the gravel, grunt-answering questions, giving my poor little sister endless and pretty lethal Indian burns. Hey, I was only seven – and I believe that particular defence still holds water in a court of law today. Anyway, suffice to say I was being, in the words of my long-suffering old man, ‘a right little sod’. Still, it was my birthday and so punishment had to be my parents’ last resort. A bribe was the way forward. And so my dad suggested we check out a stall selling comic books.
Right, here’s where my writer’s instinct wants to take over and embellish the tale. I could tell you that the stallholder was an aged Chinese gentleman with rheumy eyes and bird-like talons for fingernails. I could say that he chuckled dryly as my dad asked if he had anything to keep a snot-nosed brat quiet for an hour or two. I could describe how that creaky-boned, cadaverous character handed over a monkey’s paw, winked with a knowing malevolence (something which my old man would not have noticed, of course) and told us this was ‘just the thing to entertain a wilful child.’ And, as we trotted away, I might have glanced back to find… litter swirling in the empty space where the old guy’s stall had been…
Sherlock Holmes once said that reality was far more interesting than anything the mind of man can conceive… not so here. The stallholder was a stout Yorkshireman with vaguely pornographic tattoos and a beard which could have served as an aviary for a pack of undiscriminating starlings. His line in sales patter – barked prices followed by a steely-eyed stare – might have made Genghis Khan ferret about nervously in his pocket for the correct change. All in all, he was the kind of guy Geoffrey Boycott would call ‘salt of the earth’. He informed us that he was selling his son’s comic books because ‘the lad’s of an age when he shouldn’t be reading such stuff.’ I look back now at that statement, from the point-of-view of a thirty-one year old comic book geek, and my heart bleeds for Beardy’s boy. Still, his loss was my gain.
I picked through dozens of stacks of well-kept comics. These were treasured things but, as a self-centred creature of seven, I felt nothing for the previous owner. I flicked through old issues of Green Lantern, Spiderman, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Superman, even a few newer Ghost Riders.
And then I saw it and stopped dead.
At first I thought I must be seeing things. Surely the company’s logo was the more familiar ‘DC’ – not ‘EC’. But no, this was something called ‘Entertainment Comics’. And then I took in the cover – THE COVER, PEOPLE! – a thing of beauty and of teeth-chattering horror! I held it out at arm’s length and, I kid you not, shuddered!
‘TERROR’ screaming down the side banner.
Portraits of three creepy ghouls – our hosts of horrible – running down the page.
And that stunning and beautifully rendered full colour cover illustration –
A terrified man, locked in the embrace of a decomposing corpse, being sucked into a pit of quicksand.
This was TALES FROM THE CRYPT – issue 24 – and, by way of its disgusting, despicable host, THE CRYPT-KEEPER, I was introduced to the genre I would come to love. I walked away from the comic stall with an armful of Tales… and it was the beginning of a lifelong love affair, not just with the horror genre but with horror comics. I went on to collect beautifully bound copies of Tales, the Haunt of Fear, the Vault of Horror and Weird Science. After gobbling down the staples of the genre years later, I still maintain that the best of these trashy old comics are the equal of the masterpieces of the form. Indeed, Ray Bradbury had several of his first-class short horror stories adapted by EC for Tales. These artists and writers (underrated luminaries like Jack Davis, Feldstein, Jack Kamen etc), directed by a comics publishing genius called William M Gaines, fired my imagination as much as HP Lovecraft, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson and, dare I say it, MR James. Their creeping corpses, vicious vampires and double-crossing, murderous business partners stirred my writer’s juices, while their busty femme fatales caused other stirrings I’d rather not discuss here! These stories, admittedly not all works of genius, were full-bodied, scream-in-your-face horrors, and I loved their boldness. In this day and age of shy literary terrors, I often think that a good dose of EC could liven up some of the feebler horror novels we find in Waterstones and Borders. The clarion call of EC could have been: let the flesh rot, let the blood flow! Hear hear, say I!
I tucked myself up in bed that night and gave myself a good creep out. I found that thrill an addictive drug and have been chasing the dragon ever since. I hope I never tire of it.
So I say – thank you, Crypt-Keeper, you grotty old schlock-meister! Thank you for visiting me at bedtime and disturbing my night’s slumbers. Thank you for encouraging me to write my own stories. Without you and Kamen and Feldstein and the others I wouldn’t be a writer.
And now – my question to you, lovers of the lycanthrope, devotees of the demonic arts, necrophiles all – can YOU pinpoint the time when your passion for horror was ignited? Was it a particular writer? A movie? A TV series? A tale told by your evil old granny as you sat trembling at her knee?
Add your tale to this collection…
September 15th, 2008
Next Posts
