Interview with author JAMES ROBERT SMITH

James Robert Smith is a man of numerous impressive literary accomplishments. He has written comic scripts for Marvel Comics, Kitchen Sink, Spyderbabies Grafix, and others. He was co-editor of the  anthology Evermore, from Arkham House. His short stories have appeared in such anthologies as HORROR FOR THE HOLIDAY, THE DEVIL’S COATTAILS, THE BLEEDING EDGE, WHITLEY STRIEBER’S ALIENS, SINGERS OF STRANGE SONGS, RETURN TO LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, and CHILDREN OF CTHULHU. His first novel, THE FLOCK, was published in 2006 by Five Star, and a later edition from Tor-Forge appeared in 2010. His zombie novel THE LIVING END appeared in 2011 from Severed Press. His latest novel is HISSMELINA. Let’s ask James about all this and more.

Jeffrey Thomas: James, as an author of comic scripts, short stories, and novels, do you have a preference for one of these forms — is one more rewarding for you than the others?

James Robert Smith: Novels. No contest. After I started concentrating on novel-length manuscripts, it was years before I went back to the short story form. The past couple of years have been the first in a long time for creating short stories. Comic scripts have always been more of a purely for-the-money kind of work for me. There are things that you can only do with comics, but as I have to rely heavily on another creator’s interpretation of my ideas and that person’s own vision, it’s not my favorite form in which to work.

JET: What’s your writing process like? Do you have certain times in which you write, any idiosyncratic writerly rituals? Music or no music while you write?

JRS: I pretty much have to have peace and quiet and a certain amount of solitude when I write. I’d never be able to write in a shop window as Harlan Ellison so famously did. Also, I cannot write when music is being played. I’ve tried writing when playing music and it stops me in my tracks. Any kind of music just disturbs me. It doesn’t matter what kind—I have to shut it off. As for the time of day—I used to write mainly late at night, but now I write early in the evening because that’s when it’s most convenient to write. Unfortunately, my day job dictates when and where I can write.

JET: Tell us about your first novel, THE FLOCK. I love the premise but I want to hear you describe it!

JRS: THE FLOCK was a huge departure for me. It is neither fantasy nor horror but was instead inspired by a number of subjects close to my psyche: environmentalism and paleontology. Some years back it was theorized that the North American predatory ground bird, Titanis walleri had re-evolved arms in place of its rudimentary wings. This meant that it would have truly resembled the extinct theropods of tens of millions of years before. Around the same time there was an erroneous discovery that would have put the last of these creatures on the North American continent at the same time as the early Native Americans (roughly 15K years ago). These discoveries started swirling in my head and wouldn’t leave me alone. Thus, I ended up writing THE FLOCK, my first non-horror novel which proved to be my first novel sale.

JET: You sold the film rights for THE FLOCK; how did such an exciting development occur?

JRS: When the book came out and was a modest success in hardcover, I had a couple of inquiries for the movie rights. These were from East Coast sources and nothing ever really panned out. Then, one day on an old comic book artist’s website I accidentally insulted one of Don Murphy’s films (FROM HELL). I didn’t know the guy frequented the board and he was there and took offense to my criticism. So he went out and bought a copy of THE FLOCK, intending to read it and thereby authoritatively shred it in public. Instead, he loved the book so much that he teamed up with John (WEST WING) Wells and they optioned the novel through Warner Brothers.

JET: I hear there’s a sequel novel to THE FLOCK forthcoming?

JRS: I sold the sequel to THE FLOCK. It’s called THE CLAN and we rejoin most of the human characters from THE FLOCK in a new adventure. I’m not sure when Tor-Forge is going to release that one. They have the manuscript and I’m waiting for it to be scheduled.

JET: What other work do you have in the pipeline?

JRS: Next up should be FOUR FROM MANGROVE, a four-story fantasy collection set in my mythical nation of Mangrove, an Iron Age city-state. Over the years I’ve sold a number of my Mangrove stories to various publications and figured I’d collect them into one volume.

Tor-Forge has first refusal rights to my novel THE LOST CHILD, so I’m waiting to hear what they’re going to do. That one is a supernatural horror novel featuring a kind of werewolf. I’m also working on a Young Adult book my agent and I want to pitch as a trilogy—ISAAC’S QUEST.

JET: What’s your new novel, HISSMELINA, about?

JRS: HISSMELINA is a horror novel based on Lovecraftian themes. It’s not Mythos related, but does use some of the tropes we all pick up from reading HP Lovecraft in our youth. I wrote it partly because I got tired of reading horror novels with villains who were so evil that one had to laugh at them, and with heroes so good that they make you want to puke. So I created likable antagonists and mildly disreputable heroes. It’s my favorite novel and had the most near-misses at the major publishing houses of anything I wrote. It was past time for it to see print.

JET: How did you get into comic writing, and for Marvel no less?

JRS: I started writing for comics when I sold a couple of scripts to Steve Bissette for his infamous TABOO title. The TABOO stories led to other offers, including Marvel (CLIVE BARKER’S HELLRAISER) and New Comics, Fantaco, etc.

The comic book industry is a truly cut-throat and disreputable cesspool of a place and I haven’t worked in that format much in a long time. The last comics work I did was for Basement Comics when I did a CAVEWOMAN one-shot.

Currently, Mark Masztal and I are trying to piece together a comic book adaptation of my zombie novel, THE LIVING END.

JET: Who inspires you — not just writers, but creative people in general who fan your own creative flames?

JRS: Charles Bukowski, Robert Graves, Robert E Howard, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Portis, Barry Gifford, Boris and Arkady Strugatski, David Lynch, Peter Weir, Ridley Scott, Bertrand Russell, (comedian) David Cross…hell, I could sit here all day and write about inspirational figures.

JET: Do you have some concluding thoughts or any other projects you’d like to mention?

JRS: A lot of people ask me for advice since the movie deal was made public. I have to say that the best advice that I can give to anyone wanting to be a writer is the same that I kept hearing over the years: keep reading and don’t stop writing.

In addition to that, I like to tell younger writers not to be scared of rejection. If you can’t deal with rejection then you’re never going to make it as a writer or any other kind of creator.

JET: Thanks for the guest appearance, James!

JRS: Yer welcome! Thanks for having me on the blog!

Find JAMES ROBERT SMITH at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/James-Robert-Smith/e/B001JP7MG0/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3?qid=1327214090&sr=1-3

…and visit him at his official web site: http://jamesrobertsmith.net/

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http://www.darkfuse.com/subject-11-by-jeffrey-thomas.html

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Welcome to the Subject 11 project.

We are currently seeking 10 individuals to participate in a research study. Participants shall receive a sum to be discussed during initial telephone interview. Interested parties should email us via our contact page, subject11.webs.com, providing their telephone number and a brief biography of approximately 100 words, describing themselves in terms of gender, age, race, and occupation if any.

The study will take place in a series of abandoned buildings rented for this purpose.

Note: subjects involved in this test may find themselves experiencing certain psychological distortions. They may experience lapses in memory regarding others and themselves. Subjects may even forget how long this test is supposed to go on for. And please disregard any additional people you may feel you’ve sighted in the complex, beyond those in the test group.

We thank you for your interest in our research.

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BEYOND THE DOOR tops reviewer’s Best of 2011 list

I was just now delighted to chance upon (after Googling myself for hours; there, I said it) this TOP 5 READS OF 2011 list over at the website SPECULATIVE FICTION JUNKIE, in which my novella BEYOND THE DOOR tops the (formidable) list. Did I say delighted? The aforementioned junkie says:

Beyond the Door by Jeffrey Thomas was my favorite book this year. While on the surface it may seem to be little more than a collection of excellent weird vignettes, this book is in fact both an unapologetic celebration of the weird as well as a testament to its potential as a humanizing force in our lives. For some reason, this book remains inexcusably underrated. I’m looking forward to exploring more of the work of Mr. Thomas next year.

I’m delighted!

BEYOND THE DOOR can be ordered in print or ebook form here:

http://www.darkfuse.com/beyond-the-door-by-jeffrey-thomas.html

A Top Ten List for BLOOD SOCIETY

A number of very positive reviews have come in for my supernatural gangster novel BLOOD SOCIETY. I’m pleased to see the reviewers focusing on and responding favorably to my various themes and the cast of characters. HORRORNEWS reviewer Anton Cancre said

“Overall, Blood Society messes with and blurs two mundane genres while making a clear social statement and coating the room red and chunky. Can’t see any reason to bitch there.”

Full review: http://horrornews.net/45844/book-review-blood-society-author-jeffery-thomas/

While George Wilhite at THE HORROR REVIEW observed:

“Thomas is more interested in fine character development and creating his own mythology than sticking to any tired old myths or versions of the undead. Anyone familiar with his Hades or Punktown stories and novels knows Thomas is a very capable monster maker.

Although Augusta “dies” in the novel’s Prologue that experience is only the beginning of decades-long journey in which he struggles with understanding his own nature as well as his complex relationships with humans and monsters he meets along the way”

http://www.horrorreview.com/2011/gwbloodsociety2011.html

And at HORRORTALK, reviewer Gabino Iglesias said:

“While the main story packs as much action, betrayal, tension, sex, drama and bullets as any good mafia movie, Thomas’ writing truly shines in the underlying narrative and the way he effortlessly transitions between the real world and that unknown world of shadows creatures inhabit when their physical presence is hidden behind the veneer of a human body. Furthermore, Thomas steers clear of all known vampire clichés and finds ways for his characters to deal intelligently with their thirst for blood while contemplating their situation with an almost philosophical slant.”

http://www.horrortalk.com/book-reviews/1933-blood-society-book-review.html

The novel also made this reviewer’s Top Ten list for 2011:

http://www.horrortalk.com/features/1944-gabinos-top-ten-horror-books-of-2011.html

“When you put together a demonic type of vampire and the great Al Capone, you can either get a messy book or an interesting, captivating and truly epic story like the one told in Blood Society. A horror book packed with action that never loses track of the opportunity it creates to explore humanity, death and love.”

Very rewarding insights into what I was after with the novel. I am pleased!

BLOOD SOCIETY can be found in hardcover, paperback and ebook formats on sites like Amazon, or can be ordered through the publisher (Necro Publications) here:

http://necropublications.com/blood-society.html

So 2011 ends with a bang, and 2012 begins with promise — I hope for all of you!

It’s pure Anarchy! FREE books, including “Monstrocity”!

Anarchy Books, which recently released an ebook edition of my Bram Stoker-nominated novel MONSTROCITY, has an exciting limited time free books promotion via Amazon. Here’s the press release:

***** PRESS RELEASE *****

Anarchy Books – FREE BOOK PROMOTION – 29.12.11

 

That’s right, Anarchy Books have a very special New Year gift for all you lucky shiny new Kindle owners.

 

During the next 4/5 days over the New Year period, a selection of Anarchy Books titles will be offered completely FREE! So if you fancy any of the following novels, get yo ass over to Amazon and stock up your Kindle with Anarchy for the New Year….

 

Participating titles:

 

GIG (Mik and Kim) by James Lovegrove

Monstrocity by Jeffrey Thomas

New York Nights by Eric Brown

Rain Dogs by Gary McMahon

SIM by Andy Remic

Serial Killers Incorporated by Andy Remic

The Black Seas of Infinity by Dan Henk

The Office of Lost and Found by Vincent Holland-Keen

 

All free!

Have a HAPPY ANARCHY NEW YEAR!!

www.anarchy-books.com

Ebooks of BLOOD SOCIETY and PUNKTOWN: SHADES OF GREY

NECRO PUBLICATIONS recently announced the following:

“Jeffrey Thomas’s new book BLOOD SOCIETY is now available as an eBook from Smashwords, Amazon Kindle Store and the B&N PubIt! site. SALEM’S LOT meets THE GODFATHER in this epic tale of an undead mafioso and his century-long journey from Sicily to the hard streets of 1920s Chicago and 1990s Boston — where he finally meets creatures much like himself who think it’s time to take over his crime empire, which leads to an all-out war set in a world of shadows where the rules are very, very different.”

*****

BLOOD SOCIETY an ebook by JEFFREY THOMAS

*****

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/102766

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064APN34/?tag=jeffreythomas-20

“Closed Circuit” by Robert Thomas

(My father Robert Thomas drew this haunting abstract figure. No, it's not a gray alien. I feel it conveys a lot of suffering.)

My father ROBERT THOMAS passed away at the age of 74, in November 1999. He was a small man, a teenager so eager to fight for his country that he ate like a fiend to put on weight so that he wouldn’t be turned away. He was a sailor who served on the USS Augusta during the Normandy Invasion. In North Africa, while on guard duty he killed an enemy with a Thompson submachine gun after the man had cut the throat of another sailor on patrol. He was a commercial artist, and a landscape artist. Late in life, his poetry was published in local newspapers, and he especially loved this time of year when he might write a special poem to commemorate Veterans Day. He told me of a short story idea he had, involving a place called Purgatory Chasm here in Massachusetts, but he never wrote it. He did, however, complete a single short story.

It was sometime in the late 1960s, I should think. My family had discussed emulating that night at Byron’s Villa Diodati, all of us composing a scary story. I think I finished mine, something I believe I called “Things With Claws.” My father completed his, too…

As an adult man, some time after my father’s death, I was in the process of moving and needed to rid myself of a lot of books, planning on giving them to the Salvation Army. Something made me crack open an old hardcover on Hollywood that I was just about to add to the box. Tucked inside were two brittle, yellowed onion skin sheets. It was my father’s long-lost horror story, “Closed Circuit.”

Tonight, I scanned these pages and created a text file from them. I have only corrected two misspellings; I haven’t adjusted the punctuation though there were spots where I wanted to. My Dad made one correction with pen to the manuscript, but he was uncertain about it — there was a question mark beside it — so I disregarded the proposed correction; it worked better without it, in any case. I’m not sure how many drafts of this typewritten story he might have written to arrive at this…or if it was the only version.

I will paste the story for you below. Is it Earth-shattering in its uniqueness? No. It has a classic “Twilight Zone” feel. It’s well written, though, and makes me wish my father had written more stories. No wonder he was so proud of my brother Scott and I for our published short stories. I wish he had lived long enough to see our books.

Here it is. It’s been waiting a long time to find its audience.

*****

Closed Circuit

Robert Thomas

Hugo didn’t wake up with a start, but emerged from a sleep between reverie and reality, aware almost immediately of what this particular day was, and what it had in store for him.

This last week, he had allowed himself to be used as the main subject of their experiments, which were after all, quite harmless. As a matter of fact, except for the annoyance of having a few irksome wires taped about his body, his actions although limited were quite normal. Besides, the compensation he was to receive, far overwhelmed these minor discomforts, and his family would enjoy this much needed assistance, especially now.

All during the week, every seemingly unconscious twitch or the slightest muscular movement was converted from physical energy to electrical energy, and recorded on tape, such as a television program might be. This was the whole point of this experiment.

Today was going to be “the day”. The day of days, and Hugo was going to be the star of stars. Today his mind was going to be televised. His every thought, his every mental emotion, his impulses, his most subconscious, deepest personal feelings were to be exposed through the impersonal medium of a picture tube, from which he was to be further exposed to the probing eyes of unemotional calculating science in the
form of man.

Hugo felt no extreme discomfort, even when the other type of electrodes as well, were attached to his body, except he thought they need not to have been so tight, especially the main one attached to his head.

Now, Hugo was most self-conscious of his thoughts, for he certainly didn’t want to think of anything which might cause embarrassment, so he naturally wanted to think as normal and rational thoughts as possible under the circumstances. He especially didn’t want to expose his terrible fear. Even though his selected audience was viewing him from a closed cir­cuit television set, and was limited only to those interested in the scientific aspects of the experiment, Hugo still felt as though the whole world were looking into his mind, and watch­ing his most intimate thoughts.

Suddenly Hugo was taken out of his role as a subconscious actor. He was not aware of how or when he was free of the restrictions caused by the annoying apparatus, but just began to enjoy the freedom with which he was suddenly blessed.

The fears and terrors were gone, no more wires to hinder him, nothing to hold him back, he was free, completely free to think as he pleased, do as he pleased.

Still, questions formed in this suddenness. Doubts of his family’s welfare — the worries and problems they faced. Was it really then, good luck that set him free?

Hugo felt, rather than saw, the blinding flash in that exploding moment of freedom.

If there were to be an answer to his questions, they were not to be viewed on a television screen. At the exact scheduled time on this special day, an authoritative unemotional voice pronounced Hugo legally dead.

The program was over, the scientists disconnected their wires, and at the same time, so did the executioner.

(The original manuscript, page 1.)

(The original manuscript, page 2.)

On a final note. On the one-year anniversary of my father’s death, I was sitting at my computer with my son Colin standing beside me. Colin was only eight, and he’s autistic, and no one had told him what this date signified. Suddenly he looked past me, into a dark bedroom beside us, and said in a surprised tone, “Grampa!” I whirled and looked into the room…but saw nothing.

Maybe my Dad knows about my books, after all.

Enter the BLOOD SOCIETY

Necro Publications — who have previously released (via their Bedlam Press imprint) my novel LETTERS FROM HADES and collection (with brother Scott Thomas) PUNKTOWN: SHADES OF GREY — today received copies of the hardcover edition of my novel BLOOD SOCIETY…ready to ship! And what is BLOOD SOCIETY? Well, I’ll let the back cover material speak for itself:

On the holiday Sicilians call Giorno dei Morti — “The Day of the Dead” — Attilio Augusta meets a beautiful woman while paying his respects in a crypt. She is the same woman he once met in that crypt as a young boy. She hasn’t aged a day.

Assorted Treats

A trick or treat bag’s worth of recent goodness to catch up on…

*****

At The Examiner, Michael Tresca reviews my collection of dark science fiction stories, VOICES FROM PUNKTOWN: http://www.examiner.com/rpg-in-national/voice-from-punktown-you-are-here-review

*****

At the site The Founding Fields, I do a guest blog entry on my cyber-Mythos e-novel MONSTROCITY, and other adventures in digital publishing: http://www.thefoundingfields.com/2011/09/guest-blog-jeffrey-thomas-marvelous.html

*****

And speaking of adventures in digital publishing, I’ve recently been experimenting with making some of my short stories available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. So far, these would be:

OUT OF THE BLUE

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NXMLLK/?tag=jeffreythomas-20

B&N http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Out-of-the-Blue/Dianne-Thomas/e/2940013421530

THE BONES OF THE OLD ONES

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NYBZVQ/?tag=jeffreythomas-20

B&N http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Bones-of-the-Old-Ones/Jeffrey-Thomas/e/2940013421523

GODHEAD DYING DOWNWARDS

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NYGX9U/?tag=jeffreythomas-20

B&N http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Godhead-Dying-Downwards/Jeffrey-Thomas/e/2940013421547

HALLOWEEN MASKS: A TRIO OF TALES

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005Q4USRA/?tag=jeffreythomas-20

B&N http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Halloween-Masks/Jeffrey-Thomas/e/2940013360464

*****

Okay…that should catch us up for now, I guess. I now return you to basking in this most magically creepy of seasons. Which if you want to enjoy properly and you need a magically creepy story to curl up with, well…scroll upwards again.

Lovecraft and Me

Germany’s Festa Verlag will soon be releasing a collection of my Lovecraftian/Cthulhu Mythos work entitled GESCHICHTEN AUS DEM CTHULHU-MYTHOS (TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS), and an interview with me will appear at the back of the book for a look at the man behind the scary sock puppets. I just completed this interview, which was conducted by the very kind CHRISTIAN ENDRES. A few words about this fine gent:

Christian Endres works as freelance author, journalist and editor in Germany. He writes for several magazines and newspapers, specializing in fantastic and comic literature. He also serves as editor for several German comic publishers and writes editorial texts for Spider-Man, Hellboy, Conan and many more. His own fiction includes a lot of fantasy, horror, and new Sherlock Holmes work. He has been awarded the German Phantastik Prize several times. His web site is: http://www.christianendres.de/

I thought I’d share that interview — in which I discuss my thoughts on HPL’s work — in its original English-language version, here.

*****

CE: Hallo Jeffrey. Lovecraft wasn’t your first and earliest creative/literary influence, was he? Who or what woke the desire to write your own stories and novels in you?

JT: Well, I was raised in a family that was addicted to reading, so that foundation was already there. I fell in love with comic books, but I also enjoyed reading about dinosaurs and animals. When I was about eleven I read in full a book about apes by Desmond Morris, because I had loved the film “Planet of the Apes” — which also of course inspired me to read Pierre Boulle’s novel on which the film was based. And because I loved the film “Oliver!,” I read Dickens’ “Oliver Twist.” (Come to think of it, as an adult I read Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” because I loved Polanski’s film “Tess,” and it became my favorite novel.) Those were some early favorite books of mine. And because the writing gene was also prevalent in my family (my mother and sister had written local newspaper columns, and my father was a poet), my love of reading naturally led to a desire to create my own stories. I started selling short stories to small press magazines in the late 80s, and my first two books came out in 2000.

CE: Can you remember how and when you first got in touch with H. P. Lovecraft?

JT: I’d heard his name over the years, but it wasn’t until 1985 that I first read him. I had read a short story by Stephen King called “Jerusalem’s Lot,” and I loved the feel of it. It was my favorite short story of King’s to that date. When I realized it was a pastiche and owed its feel to Lovecraft, I decided to check out the man himself. I started out with some stories I found in anthologies at the town library. The first Lovecraft story I read was “The Call of Cthulhu,” followed by “The Statement of Randolph Carter” and “In the Vault.” Luckily Del Rey came out with a series of books collecting all of Lovecraft’s fiction, so through the late 80s I devoured those — which was like a profound religious experience. In terms of horror reading, it’s an experience that’s never been equalled for its intensity of pleasure. In the following years I read much of his collaborations with other writers, and once in a while I’ve returned to reread various of his stories…though with all the literature abounding in the world, I tend not to revisit what I’ve already read.

CE: Were you hooked from the start with the very first reading of an HPL story? Or was it more some kind of a development of your fascination?

JT: I was absolutely hooked from the start. How could I not be, when my first exposure was “The Call of Cthulhu”? It was like meeting a long-lost brother you never knew you had, and feeling an immediate connection…hearing a kind of loud “clunk” as destiny locked in place. When I first read him, I knew I was home!

CE: Can you explain the international, ongoing fascination and also influence of that odd gentleman from Providence and his work?

JT: Much is made of Lovecraft’s use of “cosmic horror” — the idea that we as humans are an insignificant and accidental phenomenon, without the blessing or protection of any father deity; and indeed, the closest we might meet to a deity would be life so different from us and superior that our insignificance and vulnerability would only be that much more emphasized. In a world where we toil and fret and and face death with little reward, Lovecraft’s bleak vision is actually oddly comforting — because it simply confirms our worst fears of helplessness. It lets us know, yes, this is the big picture so keep your petty concerns in perspective. His stories give us a fantastical means of venting our fatalistic, existential anxieties. (Plus, he has cool monsters!) When we’re done with vampires and ghosts, zombies and human murderers, we must look beyond our physical and superstitious surroundings to the horrors of other worlds and dimensions. Lovecraft’s stories might not be strictly scientifically plausible, yet they do have a scientific presentation, and that resonates more with a lot of modern readers than do werewolves and witchcraft. Lovecraft can be thought of as the father of modern horror…but in fact, where so many authors still focus on more antiquated horrors (and not to belittle them; I love a good supernatural story as much as anyone!), Lovecraft often still proves himself the more modern horror writer even today.

CE: Do you have the feeling that the admiration for HPL has changed over the eras? That in the 1930s people also honored and looked up to him, but differently from the 1960s and then today?

JT: When Lovecraft was first being introduced to readers and winning fans, they were a relatively smallish group, at least compared to those who gradually came to discover his work over the following decades. But in recent years he’s attained the status of pop culture figure — Cthulhu is a household word! (Even if it is one that’s hard to pronounce.) This has a lot to do with HPL’s work or influence extending into movies, role playing games, video games, comics, etc., but also with people being tired of a diet of zombies and vampires. Unfortunately, this pop culture status has led to a lot of irreverent silliness. Toys and other products, online cartoons and images, which turn HPL’s creations — particularly Cthulhu — into cute and/or humorous objects of satire. A little of this reaction would be fine, and it’s natural when something becomes popular for people to want to have some fun by spoofing it, but it’s unfortunately becoming hard to view Cthulhu as a frightening figure when you have adorable Old Ones plush toys and the like. Though I have to admit, the first time I saw a Cthulhu plush toy years ago I excitedly bought one. But that was before things really went over the top. Still, I’m glad to see Lovecraft reach the level of appreciation he deserves.

CE: How comfortable or maybe uncomfortable is the “open source” thought of a fictional Mythos, like HPL installed for his creation, for you as an author? You also shared your Punktown world with some other authors, but stayed in control, didn’t you? Could you imagine making one more step, like HPL back then?

JT: Lovecraft’s contemporaries and later admirers working freely within his Mythos is what inspired me to invite other authors to write their own tales of my far-future milieu of Punktown for the 2004 shared world anthology “Punktown: Third Eye.” But Punktown was conceived as a collaborative creation right from the very start. When I first devised Punktown back in 1980, I invited my brother Scott Thomas and good friend Thomas Hughes to write their own Punktown stories to accompany the novel I was working on. They did, though up to now my first Punktown novel and Scott’s have not been published. Hughes’ novella appeared in “Punktown: Third Eye.” I am still very much open to more collaborative Punktown works. In fact, right now a Punktown role-playing game along the lines of “Call of Cthulhu” is being devised. I’m working on this project with two others already, and it’s very likely more individuals will come on board. Again, I invite this participation with great enthusiasm — it’s flattering, after all! — so long as I can exercise general control, as you say, by overseeing the contributions to ensure the consistency of the setting in all its fine details.

CE: What is the biggest danger and the greatest difficulty when modern day authors seek to adapt HPL’s cosmos of the Old Ones?

JT: That would be not imitating Lovecraft’s plotlines or prose voice, just using his ideas as a jumping point for their own imagination and style. Many a Lovecraft fan, including writers who are now very famous and respected, started out by perhaps imitating Lovecraft too closely, until they found their own approach and moved further away from the Mythos. And another trap might be ONLY writing Mythos stories. Just as I would never want to read only Mythos stories, I certainly wouldn’t want to only write Mythos stories, either. How limited, how boring that would be for me! I love sirloin steak, but I wouldn’t want to eat it for every meal. One critic complained that I stray too far from what Lovecraft did. Lovecraft didn’t focus on human relationships, he complained, there are too many guns in my stories, according to him, and Lord forbid I’ve used some of August Derleth’s interpretations of the Mythos. My God! I didn’t know there was a rule book! Well, to hell with the rule book. If you don’t want to read Jeffrey Thomas, just go and read the same Lovecraft stories over and over and good luck to you. I am not trying to rehash Lovecraft. I should hope I’m writing stories Lovecraft wouldn’t have written. What’s the point, otherwise — for a writer or his readers — if we just tell the same stories in the same manner?

CE: Is there a thing of HPL-interpretation you would never do? A border you knew where you always said: No, I would never cross THAT line!

JT: There are no ideas of his that are too frightening for me to pursue, but I don’t think I would ever set a story within his Dreamlands, as featured in “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.” I very much enjoyed that fanciful and mystical adventure, but it’s not the type of work I like best from Lovecraft. Though I do involve the Dreamlands to a limited extent, from a distance, in two of my short stories. Other than that, with my Lovecraft-inspired work there are no borders. Early on I wrote several comical Mythos stories and poems, but as I say I generally prefer not to see blatant humor mixed with the Mythos, to preserve the sense of scariness his creations should retain.

CE: What’s the difference between putting Lovecraft themes in a science fiction environment like you did before, and a more classical horror setting like you did now in this collection?

JT: But Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos work IS science fiction! His Mythos is based on ideas that are more akin to science fiction concepts — alien entities that are not truly gods, but god-like compared with ourselves — than they are akin to the supernatural terrors we associate with “classical” horror tales. Though of course, typically Mythos stories are not set in the far future, as I have done in my Punktown novels “Monstrocity” and “Deadstock,” and in my novella “The Bones of the Old Ones.” That’s the only real difference — the setting. The threats and hopefully the atmosphere of dread are the same with these futuristic stories as in those Mythos stories I and others have set in contemporary or older times.

CE: Do you try to keep up-to-date with other contemporary Lovecraft-themed works? Also in other media maybe, comics or such?

JT: Unfortunately I haven’t kept up-to-date with much of what other contemporary writers are doing with the Mythos, and I haven’t looked into any HPL-inspired comics, partly because I’m a shamefully slow reader with an overwhelming pile of “to be read” books. Plus, I like to diversify my reading and don’t want to spend all my time amongst the shoggoths and ghouls, lest they lose their appeal through over-familiarity. The only writer I faithfully follow is W. H. Pugmire, whose work I practically worship, mainly because he has his own distinctive voice and take on the Mythos. In fact, Pugmire and I have just completed working on a collaboration, a short story collection called “Encounters With Enoch Coffin,” about a sinister New England artist who has all kinds of Lovecraftian adventures. It’s going to be a terrific book! But I really should look into more of my contemporaries who write of the Mythos — I’m sure I’m missing out on some good stuff. Though I suspect a lot of it is not so good….but that’s the way of all art, not just HPL-inspired art, of course. I’m sure there are those who write as long-time aficionados of Lovecraft, while others are merely hopping on the bandwagon, but as I say I haven’t looked closely enough lately to tell one from the other.

CE: As we do this interview, there was a hurricane that hit the east coast of the USA, and you were without electricity. What does such an atmosphere means for a modern day horror author? Do you think you react and respond differently in such circumstances because of your work?

JT: Ha…well, being a horror writer I savor spookiness, so while there was daylight to read by I read a number of horror stories by three fine Canadian authors: Simon Strantzas, Richard Gavin, and Ian Rogers — and coincidentally, one of Simon’s stories featured a great wind storm. When the worst of the hurricane had passed, in the small hours of the morning, I brought my trash outside, and the sky was crystal clear because there was no ambient city light. The stars seemed to have doubled in number and I got dizzy looking up at them, overwhelmed, as if I might plummet into the sky. Whew! Not only that, but pacing through my apartment by candlelight, drinking coffee, alone while my daughter slept, I found myself mentally reviewing every ghostly, paranormal type experience my family and I have ever encountered (and there are too many good stories there to relate here). I think maybe I was masochistically trying to freak myself out. So it was a Halloween kind of atmosphere, that one day without our meager electric light to keep the spirits at bay. The veil between frail humanity and the great gaping cosmos seemed torn away! Definitely, my horror writer’s sensibilities came into play that night.

CE: To come to an end, I think I MUST ask: What’s your all time favorite piece of original Lovecraft work, and why?

JT: It’s got to be a toss-up between “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” and “At the Mountains of Madness,” with the latter winning out, I suppose, if a gun were held to my head. For one thing, being Lovecraft’s longest works (along with “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”), they’re extra meaty and hence extra satisfying. Being longer, they have more time in which to establish their atmosphere of terror and unravel their eerie revelations. And “At the Mountains of Madness” just has such an awe-inspiring scope, an epic scale, as it relates the whole history of the Elder Things. This and the imagery give the novel a feeling of both physical and temporal vastness. But trying to pick a favorite Lovecraft story is like trying to pick a favorite child — you love them all so dearly!

*****

GESCHICHTEN AUS DEM CTHULHU-MYTHOS can be found at the Festa Verlag web site, here: http://www.festa-verlag.de/Lovecrafts-Bibliothek/Geschichten-aus-dem-Cthulhu-Mythos::328.html

And much the same contents appear in my English-language collection UNHOLY DIMENSIONS, recently rereleased as an ebook: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/58343