Allan Batchelder's Blog: Immortal Treachery

Check out Ulff Lehmann's magnum opus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWlAg...

If you're curious:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...

Here's a little interview I just did, where you can learn more about what's coming next, among other things!

https://runesnielsen.com/author/autho...

 This month's guest is the British author a horror, science fiction and more. Having read both his 3:33 AM and Cold Sleep, I can tell you he's a master of his craft and deserves much more attention than he's probably gotten so far. You will also see, below, that he's got a wicked sense of humor. 

Why did you start writing at the age you did and not some other point in your life?
1989, Singapore. The only cold room in the building we’d been housed by the RAF. My Dad had just bought a new electric typewriter and I was finally allowed to play with his old one. Aged 8, I sat at it for several minutes and then started to write a story about a spaceship that was burning through the spaces between the stars on its way somewhere new and fleeing something pursuing it. Don’t think I ever finished that story because I didn’t have the experience, funnily enough, to carry it off. I wrote all through my time at school and ten years after that first story was one of only two students to choose the creative writing option as the coursework assignment for my English A-level. I wrote a fantasy novella. Then came University where I was too, er, “occupied” to write, then law school, then a masters and finally working as a Criminal Barrister, which I did for 11 years. I didn’t have the headspace with all the cases I was working, so let my desire to write sit on a back burner. I started the story that became my first novel several times while I was in court waiting for the jury to deliver a verdict with no other work I could do, but I rarely had a chance to do more than just play at it. Until my daughter was born, when I had a chance to reassess life and we moved to Denmark while my wife was pregnant with our son. Then I found all the mental energy I’d been putting into juggling a dozen or more cases at once wasn’t used up and I started writing again. Within that answer there’s another one, which is why I didn’t just focus on writing when it’d been my driving passion since childhood. The answer is my parents advised me to go out and get life experience. They knew it would be hard to “make it” as a writer but they also suggested that whatever I wrote would lack something if I hadn’t done something else with my life first. I’m not sure if their advice was right or not, but it’s worked out now at least!
What’s worse? Snakes in your shirt or spiders in your hair?
Spiders in the hair, though there’s not much of that. Spiders on the old “solar panel”, more like.
What’s the worst way to die?
Slowly, and in great pain. If we’re talking mechanically, then probably from radiation poisoning like poor Hisashi Ouchi. Not a story to google if you’re at all sensitive. Close second would be death by hyena--unlike most predators they don’t kill you before they start to eat. If we’re talking personal worst fear for mode of death, then anything dementia related.
Is there anything left that makes you sleep with the light on?
My kids when they’re sick. Otherwise, I generally find sanctuary in darkness not fear. That said, when I take my dog for a walk in our nearby forest at night and I hear an unexpected noise, I’ll go on full alert. I don’t think those instincts can ever leave us. It is always possible to trigger the fear of the dark part of us, I reckon. If your imagination is engaged strongly enough that is. When I write a psychological horror novel, like when I was writing 3:33 AM, the challenge is in trying to concoct scenarios that make me have to put the light on to go from my study to the bedroom. A few times I felt as if the malevolent presence of Eddie was standing just behind me. That gave me the shiver down the spine feeling I need from a horror story, hopefully I captured that for my brave readers.
What’s more frightening – McDonald’s or Burger King?
McDonalds. I once forgot a cheeseburger in my car while I left it at the airport for a week. The car smelt when I came back, but the cheeseburger still seemed like it hadn’t rotted. “That is not dead which can forever lie…” etc.
What’s a unique murder weapon?
A toilet brush. Then again, I dealt with a real court case where someone had been killed by a carpet once so maybe I should go with that instead. The poor feller was rolled up in it and suffocated.
Have you been banished from England, or are you in hiding?
I was outlawed for a year and a day, m’lud, but then I found I liked these here Viking flatlands. So I stayed.
What are some other genres you’re interested in exploring?
Don’t really think in terms of genre much. A story idea pops into my head and usually some characters related to it and off we go. I can’t see myself ever writing romance, erotica, or really anything YA. Anything else is fair game. See my answer to your last question.
Who’s the best writer you know whose name rhymes with Snallan Scratchelder?
LOL. I think everyone knows who that is! He’s very good by the way. I was particularly impressed by This Thing of Darkness.
What’s the big dream in writing? Sign with a major publishing house? Have a book made into a movie starring Keanu Reeves? Get mobbed by emo girls at a horror con?

I’d probably rather be saluted by some old Goths, LOL. The dream is to be able to write and not worry about anything else, to have people read what I write and “get it”, and to still be writing books when I’m 80. I think given the current state of rampant and irresponsible AI development, the last may be a case of writing for no readership but if that is how it shakes out, I still will be. Much like I’ll still be pretending the noise I make is playing the guitar instead of having a robot pretending to do it for me.


Speaking of Keanu Reeves, who’s deadlier, Michael Myers or John Wick?
Wick’s probably got the higher body count, though neither of them come close to Charlie Sheen’s character from Hot Shot’s Two. In all seriousness, I don’t find either that convincing as a deadly hand-to-hand fighter. Jack Reacher on the other hand… Yes, even with Tom Cruise playing him. They must have found someone who really knew what works IRL to do the fight choreography. That said, I really admire the dedication Keanu Reeves put into the training, and I have no doubt if you know much about gun use, his character is impressive for that side of things.
Should rainbow flying unicorns fart glitter or belch it?
I prefer to imagine them as light-splitting, horned pegasi and seeing them like that, they can do what they want and it’s not for me to tell them otherwise!
I don’t understand how there can be g-forces in space. There’s no resistance. What’s up with that?
Talk about a tough question! With the caveat I am only a third of the way through a Physics degree with the Open University and am not any kind of science teacher or communicator, I’ll give answering it a whirl.
G forces in an atmosphere are linked to air resistance--the greater the air resistance, the stronger the opposing force and thus the higher the g-force during acceleration, deceleration, and manoeuvring. However, the force that causes a change of speed acting on a body is the source of the g-force. When there’s no atmospheric resistance, the g-force experienced is at the lowest it could be for the object or body experiencing the change of speed. Air resistance acts sort of like a force multiplier, but in this sense: the force required to accelerate from 0 to 100 mph in 6 seconds in space is less than the force required to do the same in atmosphere because of the resistance. If you imagine trying to do 0 to 100 mph in 6 seconds in water, you can easily see how much more force would be needed.
Take one more example. Say you have a speargun which you fire in the water, measure the speed of the projectile, do the same in air, and then in a vacuum. The speed of the projectile would be higher in air than in water, and higher in space than either air or water. There’d be other consequences of firing a speargun in space, but enough of the physics lesson. I hope I’ve not got that all too wrong!
How do you handle the limitations of tropes. Haunted houses, for instance, routinely do certain things. It’s expected. But then, after a while, haunted house stories become predictable. How do you fight that?
Subversion of them, I suppose. For the most part I don’t really think about it while I’m writing. A situation evolves on the page and I try to scare or thrill myself. That probably leads towards a trope as often as away from one. Saffron’s house in 3:33 AM might be considered haunted at one point, save it’s not the house, it’s her. I remembered things that creeped me out as a child and put myself in that same headspace and explored it from there. I use a mirror scene--what might be considered a classic trope of the genre--but since the focus was on the character’s inner struggle it wasn’t about something being behind her. This wasn’t a conscious decision to avoid or subvert the trope, however.
With my latest release, Cold Sleep, I was acutely aware of two possible comparisons to existing concepts which I’ll skirt around to avoid spoilers. The key difference with the threat is that it remains human, that the people who become part of the threat are aware and still screaming inside to be free but cannot escape the fate that’s taken them. So for me, I made the element of terror one of a sort of existential kind, more akin to the denouement of the classic Harlan Ellison story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream than the more obvious threat to the characters of death and dismemberment.

Ultimately, I don’t think tropes matter that much and we get too precious about them. Sometimes the characters demand you go in one direction and it is the one that makes sense and works. If that falls into being a trope, so what? If they lead you away from a trope also great. Whatever serves the characters, the plot, and the story best is what we should write.
What’s the Dutch equivalent of Taco Tuesday?
No idea, but maybe you mean Danish? Before I fell for a Dane, I didn’t know the difference between Denmark and the Netherlands either. Partly because I’m a mediocre student of geography, and partly because paying little attention to continental Europe is a bad habit of British culture. Here there’s something called “Fredag slik” which means Friday sweets, something the kids get in the evening to celebrate the weekend. Otherwise, I don’t really know. Of course, being British, my thoughts immediately go to “Thirsty Thursday” but they don’t really have pubs here so that part of my culture is lost to me.
What’s your go-to adult beverage?
Being extremely adult, then tea or coffee. If we’re talking booze then whisky or whiskey, I don’t mind. That said, I was at a Rammstein concert two nights ago and vodka redbull seemed to be the weapon of choice--what a mistake!
Some writers write to music; others prefer silence. I like the weeping of small children. What’s your preference?
Depends on what I’m writing. Some scenes just need quiet to be able to get in the right headspace, others need music. My favourite place to write is outside in the sunshine in my back garden, so sometimes I enjoy the sounds of outside. I probably listen to music more often than not when writing a first draft but then edit in silence. In 3:33 AM, one of the POV characters is a rock/metal guitarist, so I spent a lot of time writing his scenes listening to those genres. In my as yet unpublished fourth novel, working title Going Under, set in the 80s and hopping between the US and Japan, the MC listens to a lot of rap, and so did I. When he was in certain parts of Japan, I listened to a lot of Japanese music, mostly classical but also some of the pop of the era when he was in Tokyo, for example. The title itself reflects the character’s favourite rap song, The Message by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five.
Have we reached peak gore?
Ah, yes and no. There needs to be consequences for actions within a story. Within horror, you can only go so far with the psychological elements. Take the films Alien and The Thing. Both work quite differently in terms of playing on the different psychological strings of horror. One being more the fear of the beast with sharp teeth lurking in the shadows, the other being our fear of other people. Both rely on graphic body horror to make sure the viewer has a handle on what the consequences are, but the purpose of the gore is to make the shiver down your spine more effective. Alien is more restrained, save for the chestburster scene, and hence the xenomorph XX121 is more terrifying for how little we see of it. The Thing is never the same creature twice and thus let’s our imagination run wild. It’s more terrifying for the danger it could be anyone and could infect you with a droplet of blood, or a single cell in your drink. Where gore becomes the means and the end, it doesn’t work for me. The problem is, the more of it you see, the more anesthetized to it you become. When it’s the gore that gives you the dopamine release, you’re in a cycle where you have to have more of it to appreciate the film or book. Ultimately, for me I’ve seen real world gore from the cases I used to work--the real life axe murder being a prime example. When you’ve had to attend an autopsy, you realise it’s not the sight of gore that’s the source of horror, it’s the smell.

What’s your favorite war (from a historical perspective) and why do you like it?
Hard to have a favorite, they’re all so good. In all seriousness, they’re a lesson to us of what happens when we allow division to arise between groups of people and forget to talk to each other. When we allow remorseless, psychopathic leaders to take over our societal consciences and react with our most primitive emotions instead of the coolness and refinement of our evolved selves. No war fails to deliver on our very human capacity for inflicting suffering on each other, but the Second World War reveals the depths to which we can sink. No other animal even comes close to our capacity for doing evil to our own. To that extent, it is the best mirror for ourselves and the war we can learn the most from.
In what room of the house is one most likely to have a paranormal experience?
Wherever you spend the most time sleeping, with wherever there’s a mirror and low light coming in a close second. Why? Because the paranormal is all psychological. In our bedrooms we are in a place where we are supposed to be the safest, and yet we cannot keep out the source of fear, our own minds. Add to that the frequency of nightmares and it’s a place where imagination can turn shadows on the wall into ghosts. The mirror thing is simply pareidolia--in low light looking at your own face, when your brain can’t see all of the details and has to start trying to fill in the missing pieces you can end up looking at a stranger in the glass. Not something I’d advise unless you’re mentally resilient enough to be able to rationalize it, but it’s another example of a real “paranormal” experience. In other words, I’m a bit more like Scully than Mulder, though like him I really do want to believe. I just need evidence…
What are you working on currently, and when can we expect to read it?
Second draft of another SF novel, called Diligence. It’s in the same setting as Cold Sleep but has no linked characters, save the corporations which are almost characters in their own right. Where Cold Sleep is Hard SF Horror, Diligence is more of a Hard SF thriller with lots of intrigue on board a military ship doing a patrol of a cluster of stars. The main character is the ship’s bosun and who he really is and why he’s on the ship is the core plot. Probably more character driven than Cold Sleep. That’ll be finished this year. I won’t predict a release date as so far I’ve been way off whenever I have!
I have another novel pretty much ready to go between now and then, Going Under as mentioned above--that’s a story which is more suspense than horror but deals with some supernatural elements around a series of suicides. Dark material indeed.
Finally, I have an alternative legal drama about two-thirds done. It may never see light of day given where the story’s taken me. The MC is a Criminal Barrister who has more in common with Patrick Bateman than Rumpole of the Bailey or other “legal heroes”. It’s turning out to be very dark and there’s a risk some may think I hold the same horrible opinions and condone the vile actions of the MC, much as how less canny critics saw Palahniuk’s Fight Club or Easton-Ellis’s American Psycho. The idea Palahniuk was glorifying fascism in the case of Fight Club when he was writing a warning against how easily it could take over disaffected and directionless men is absurd but you’ll hear it far too often. I’m not sure a book making a point about the dreadful kind of people who can get into positions of authority is worth potentially torpedoing my writing career over. Something I’ll have to struggle with. Certainly, it’s been the hardest thing to write of anything I’ve tried my hand at. The MC disgusts me, and accessing the part of me that understands that behaviour is a deep dive back into the worst parts of my legal career, dealing with the most unpleasant people I’ve ever met. I reassure myself that when I’m writing some of his more depraved scenes, it’s based on things that have happened that I know about, rather than things which I’ve just spun purely from my own imagination, as is the case with the rest of my fiction.
 
If you'd like to know more, check out his Amazon page. Or follow him on Twitter, @LukeETHindmarsh
​

Rabies and specimen, I give you the Bard of Arkansas, the eldritch horror himself, author C.T. Phipps. 

C.T. -- or "Charles," as I know him -- has long been a mentor and supporter of mine. He is as generous as he is prolific. And he's (expletive deleted) prolific. The guy writes more in a day than I do in a month. Sometimes, he works on multiple novels at once, just to taunt the rest of us mere mortals. 

And if you haven't sampled his books, haven't visited the Phippsiverse (okay, I don't think that'll catch on...), you have missed out. Although he writes across multiple genres -- fantasy, horror, sci-fi, thriller, etc. -- his works tend to be rich in humor, puns of every sort imaginable, frequent snark, and enough pop culture references to choke a TikTok influencer. 

I am never bored reading his stuff. Never. 

So, I thought I'd drag him in here for an interview and give you a glimpse into his weird little world. 

1. Okay, Charles, let’s do this! What did you want to be when you were 8?
I was already thinking about becoming a writer. Then an archaeologist because of Indiana Jones. Then a submarine captain.
2. What was your favorite book as a child?
The Hobbit.
3. Did you ever have recurring nightmares? Or just an especially bad one? Tell me about it/them.
I once had a dream where I was killed by a boat propeller.
4. You have a particular soft spot for Cthulhu mythos. What’s the most morbid thing you ever witnessed as a child? Did it intrigue or repulse you? If it intrigued you, did you ever think, “Hmmm, maybe I’m not normal?”
My family owns a lot of funeral homes so I think my definition of morbid is very different from most people's. Death has always just been a part of life for me.
5. What’s the problem with haunted houses?
They're not year-round.
6. You also write fantasy. What’s the first fantasy book you ever remember reading?
The Hobbit (see above). But I only got into fantasy full-time around my 14th year when I read Dragonlance Legends and Heir to the Empire.
7. Which classic fantasy book or series should have ended differently?
Gandalf the Gray should have stayed dead, forcing the characters to muddle along without him or Aragon should have stepped up.
8. Whose sword would you rather wield, Elric’s, Anomander Rake’s, Aragorn’s (or other) and why?
Stormbringer isn't to be trusted, Narsil isn't cool enough, or I'm not aware of the other. I'd say Anakin or Luke Skywalker's lightsaber. Probably the latter because it didn't kill any younglings.
9. I feel like we all have a love-hate relationship with tropes. Which are your favorites, which are your most hated?
I love tropes and think of them as tools rather than crutches. My favorite tropes are those of antiheroes and sliding scales of morality. My least favorite are those dealing with destiny and chosen ones.
 You subvert more than a few of these in your writing. Tell me about that.
I feel like it's always good to keep your audience guessing. I'm much more interested in the farm boy who thinks he's the Chosen One, only to find out that, no, there was no Chosen One and the prophecy was made by the bad guy to keep people sending suicide soldiers after him than I am for a straight narrative.
Is writer’s advice too personal to be useful? Like, are Hemingway and Stephen King’s suggestions bullshit?
Funny you should ask, "On Writing" was what finally allowed me to get off my ass and start creating.
What is the darkest fantasy-style entrée for dinner? In fact, let’s go around the table – What is the Paladin eating? The Rogue? The Mage? The Ranger? The Barbarian? The Cleric?
I dunno if the paladin, rogue, or mage is tastier. Depends on the species, really.
 Approximately how many seconds have you spent wishing you were Amish?
My ideal society is a cyberpunk or space opera one. I would be dead in minutes.
 Do you do your best writing:
a.         In the shower
b.         Right before you fall asleep
c.         Driving
d.         In a fog of hallucinogens
When I'm at a restaraunt, writing while I wait for my meal. Also, in bed when my wife is asleep. It's all about being alone with your thoughts.
 You write across a lot of genres. Is there one you’ve been meaning to try but haven’t got around to yet?
As long as I can write superheroes, cyberpunk, and urban fantasy, I'm good. Oh and post-apocalypse Cthulhu, regular fantasy...
 Many of your protagonists have multiple lovers. You write what you know, right?
My wife would heavily disagree. However, I do write characters who often live on the edge of societal taboos and I've always been fascinated with unconventional relationships. Free love in the future and fantasy worlds seems appropriate to me. After all, our world's values shouldn't dictate another one's.
 Plotter, Pantser or Hybrid?
I meticulously plot out my books then my characters smash them to pieces.
 Morning or Night
I prefer night until they come up with something darker.
 Write with or without music?
Heavy metal, cyberpunk music, and Eighties rock.
 Do you have a mentor? Who has been most helpful?
David Niall Wilson (This is my Blood, Dechance Chronicles) AKA the head of Crossroad Press really did lead me through the minefield that was my early years of publishing. I think authors have a duty to pass on their hard-earned lessons if they can. I got luckier than most.
 I find that a lot of creators have multiple talents – actors who can play an instrument, photographers who are poets, dancers who can sing…what are YOUR hidden talents?
Nope. My genius is free for all to see in all areas.
 How would you like to be remembered?
As a promoter of fellow authors as well as genres that could deserve some more credit (cyberpunk especially).
 What should we all do with your remains?
As the Klingons believe, whatever, it's just a shell.
 Who are some other authors to whom you’d like to give a shout-out?
My cyberpunk peeps of SC Jensen (Bubbles in Space), Eric Malikyte (Ego Trip), Jon Richter (Auxillary: London 2039), Wesley Cross (The Blueprint), MK Gibson (Technomancer), Brian Parker (The Immortaity Clause), Luke Hindmarsh (Mercury's Son), and ARVekt (Craig Lea Gordon).

If you want to check out C.T.'s work, you can start here.

Unless you’re an author with one of the big five publishing houses, self-marketing and publicity will take up inordinate amounts of your time and money. And, in the beginning at least, you’re probably going to learn the hard way. Lord knows, I certainly have.
Before I get into that, though, let me reiterate what I’ve said and done before. I have a presence on every social media platform I could think of. I am constantly trying to think of new and potentially eye-catching ways of saying the same thing: my books exist; you should check them out.

Here are some links to examples:
This Thing of Darkness - YouTube
Here Is Immortal Treachery - YouTube
Santa 1 - YouTube
Immortal Treachery (@tarmunvykers) | Instagram
Immortal Treachery (@tarmunvykers) | Instagram
Immortal Treachery (@tarmunvykers) | Instagram

I probably dedicate at least half a day – Saturdays, usually – to marketing, but I check in EVERY day. You’re wondering what my sales are. Over the last ten years, I’d say I’ve sold or given away between three and four thousand books. Minus the giveaways, that’s less than one a day. Sometimes, MUCH less than one a day. My friend Charles Phipps – C.T. Phipps to his readers – says it’s more about the size of your catalogue than the success of any individual book. So, I’ve got some writing to do.

With all that out of the way, let me talk about the various book promotion services I’ve tried, because you’ll see all sorts of ridiculous offers and claims. There are websites that promote books, and I’ve tried so many, I can’t even remember them all. Word is that Bookbub has the most productive promotions, but they are very, very hard to get. Everything else is a bit of an also-ran. You’ll get virtually no sales from some promotions.
Once you come to the swarm’s attention, though, you’ll start getting emails and social media posts from a myriad of outfits (I don’t know what else to call them). Some are virtual book tours, like Silver Dagger Book Tours, which allowed me to pay what I felt was fair after the fact . That’s become my new standard with those who come a-courtin’. But let me explain how I got there.

Recently, I received a promotion proposal from BookTalk_HQ that was so outlandish that I immediately knew it was a scam. 3,800 sales in three weeks? Several hundred reviews, a few of which would be in major newspapers and magazines? I called B.S. on these folks immediately, but they kept insisting they were absolutely legit. They named a few “best-selling authors” who used their services. Oddly, I was unable to contact those authors…

Yes, I knew it was a scam, I tell you. And yet, I was impossibly curious as to how it all worked.

I talked their fee down from $500 up front to $375 before and $125 after (which will now never be paid). In three and a half months, they haven’t gotten me a single review or even a sale – as far as I can tell. And now, they don’t even answer my messages. As I worked my way up to Defcon Three, however, they kept telling me to be patient, that it’s all “organic marketing,” which turns out to mean “word-of -mouth.” Seriously. They convinced me to pay them nearly $400 for a word-of-mouth campaign that is dwarfed by my own social media effort. And the results speak for themselves.

Weirdly, though, at the same time I was wrangling with these folks, another group called Bookworm Writers’ Center pitched me a similar deal, using the exact same language in our discussions. Booktalk asked me before I even agreed if we were “good to go.” Bookworm did the same thing. It was as if their end of the dialogue was, I dunno, written by the SAME PERSON.

So, I said, “Okay, here’s my counter proposal: you sell my books, get me those reviews, and I’ll pay you the $500 (yep, identical initial amount) as soon as you get results. Afterall, we authors don’t get paid until we sell books…”

I never heard from them again.

In a book promotions group on Facebook, everyone was complaining about the sudden stampede of Nigerian marketing experts who want to offer their services. I have seen the same in my social media DMs. Even if I accept their claims of expertise, I still can’t see how they’re a good match to promote what I write. So, I’m steering clear.
​
What works, then? Networking, making friends, finding mentors and endless tenacity. My books have been book-of-the-day, book-of-the-week, and book-of-the-month, but never book-of-the-year. I’ve done podcasts, won contests and poured every penny I’ve ever made (and then some) in sales back into marketing. I got a screenplay rights inquiry from a talent agency in Beverly Hills about seven years ago, I replied (to their answering service) and never heard back.

And yet my stuff remains largely unknown.

Yeah, I’m frustrated as hell. But I’ve also got a gajillion more stories to tell.

For this installment of the Batch Files, I thought I’d highlight the work of author-friends I’ve known for years. Every author knows a million others, through social media, conventions, etc. The folks I’m featuring today, however, are people I’ve actually studied, worked and lived with over my life. You’ll see that, perhaps, writing a book isn’t as rare a feat as you might think. The results, though, are always wonderful.
 

The Eloquent Shakespeare , by Gary Logan
This is a must-have for any classically trained actor. I’ve used mine a little too much, and now there’s a large coffee stain on the cover. I understand there’s another book coming soon. I can’t wait!

Being Seen , by Elsa Sjunneson
Elsa has won so many awards (including at least one Hugo) for her work, and I couldn’t be happier. I remember when she was a kid, dreaming and scheming of writing the next 1776. It looks like she’s found something even more meaningful.

Autism, Parent-to-Parent , by Shannon Penrod
Even if no one in your world is autistic, you’ll want to read this book to better understand the lives of those who are, and those who love them. But also because it’s one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time. Shannon knows how to bring the humor to what might otherwise seem a rather dry topic.

Dragons of Wonder, the Big Change , by Reena Stevens
Reena wrote this book during her 8th and 9th grade years. A lot of kids say they’re writing or have written one. Reena did. A sweet read for your younger readers.

Pop-Up Shakespeare , by Austin Tichenor et al.
The list of Austin’s books is as long or longer than mine. And he was a huge help in my getting This Thing of Darkness over the hump. What you need to know is that Austin is one of the funniest – and most insightful – guys alive. Read any of his stuff. You’ll love it.

Vampire Soul , by Shay Roberts
I’ve known Shay since 1981, back when I was an Acting Major and he was a Science Major. He was one of my all-time favorite dungeon masters – until he put me in a no-win scenario and killed off my character. Grrrr. Anyway, I think this cover is targeting a particular demographic, but the story is fantastic. It’s Anne Rice meets Jeff Shaara meets…I don’t even know. It’s tough to compare it to anything. All I know is, I couldn’t put it down.

Thy Father is a Gorebellied Codpiece , by Barry Kraft
I’d been watching Barry in plays for years at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, so I was delighted when I finally got the opportunity to meet and learn from him. Nobody knows Shakespeare’s text better.

Come the Harvest , by Paul Hunter
Not many people get to hone their English skills with an award-winning poet, but I did. My fondest memory of Paul, though, is when my father died unexpectedly during my senior year in high school – I was 17 – and Paul, my teacher, lent me the rough draft of his latest book of poems. I was struggling with the ineffable, and he gave me a treasure trove of thoughts and feelings.
 
Well, that’s it. I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone. I’ll add them later.  I hope you’ve found something on this page that sparks your interest. 

Addendum: 

I DID forget at least one: Moonlight Becomes You , by Robert Herold.
He and my oldest sister were dating back in the day. The cover and title give no hint of the rousing, riveting story within!

Check out my #interview with Austin Tichenor of the Reduced Shakespeare Company and the Shakespeareance.

#Shakespeare #books #historicalfiction #horror #awardwinning #readers #amwritingfiction #podcast

https://www.reducedshakespeare.com/20...

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Here's a guest-post from my friend Ulff Lehmann, author of the Light in the Dark series. What do you think? Agree, disagree?

​Thoughts on First Person narrators


Imagine sitting in a pub, café, on a beach, at a campfire, telling a friend or friends a story of something that happened to you. Your narrative will include common references, but won’t go into unnecessary detail. You know your friends know what you’re talking about, and even if they aren’t familiar with all the minutiae, those aren’t really necessary for the narration to be effective.
In my opinion, the same holds true for any kind of story, no matter the genre.


I’ve read some hard-boiled detective stories by Chandler, and while I did put them aside after a while, I do love his style. The Continental Op gives the reader almost a report of his cases. There’s very little excess baggage, a few terms a modern reader will be unfamiliar with are explained via footnote, but all in all the stories stand on their own.
There are numerous pitfalls a writer, especially a new writer, can stumble into. We all think in first person, so far so true. But this does not mean writing in first person is easier. Our thoughts are jumbled, fragmented. We rarely think in complete sentences. “Gotta buy toilet paper.” “Need apples.” “The oven! Did I? Yes. I think.” People’s thoughts aren’t perfectly punctuated and edited. It’s a mess.
We also don’t tell our friends every single detail of what our way to work looks like. Imagine a story beginning with a detailed retelling of how someone “left their home, turned the key to lock the door, opened their car, searched for the right key on their key chain to then insert the key into the ignition, left their parking spot, turned left at the next traffic light, only to then drive 10 minutes down that road, took a right at the big intersection of Main and Elm Street, hit the brakes to not kill a squirrel, hummed along to their favorite song of their youth whose title they can’t remember, turned left at another intersection…” and so on and so forth. Frankly, I tuned out after the key chain, and I wrote the damn passage!
Yes, these are all details one might think are important, but, honestly, no one gives a shit. “I drove to work.” Four words that pretty much sum up the entire useless passage.
Now imagine standing in your bathroom, in front of the mirror, brushing your hair. Do you think of how you run your comb or brush through your luscious, blonde (or red, or black, or brown, or whatever else color) hair? No! You think about all kinds of other things. Maybe you notice how you can see your scalp when the light falls at a wrong angle. Maybe you notice a gray hair. Maybe you think of the big speech you still need to work on, or the test you’ll write tomorrow. But the one thing you do not think of is your bloody hair color.


Most things we encounter on a daily basis are routine, they drift into the periphery of our perception. Think of this: You wake up and get out of bed. You go to the kitchen to start the coffee maker. Now, unless you stumble over the crap you dropped right in your way, you will not notice anything on your way from your bedroom to your kitchen. Not because it’s invisible but to you it might as well be.
I live about 100 meters away from a 600-year-old church, or some such. As I write this the bell actually rang 6 times, 6 PM. Now, under normal circumstances I do not think “the 600-year-old church’s bell rang six times.” I might think something like “6… another day wasted.”
Now, the novice writer might rage and scream that such details are important… and there’s the rub. To the person experiencing the umpteenth time of the church bell ringing (they bloody ring every hour, no matter the time of day) this does not matter one bit! Just because you want to wax about your wonderfully detailed world, a first-person narrator lives in this world, they know their way to work, they know their apartment, they know how old the church is, and they don’t fucking care.
In a fantasy or science fiction setting, things aren’t much different.
First off, we’re dealing with the same thing: the narrator lives in this world. They don’t care about certain details. A sword is a sword, a pistol a pistol. Measurements and type of weapons aren’t really of any interest to the narrator. Think about it… when you write on your phone or computer, do you think about the various chipsets and boards and whatnots that make up your writing machine while you’re writing? Do you think about chipsets when playing videogames? What about tire width when you’re riding the bus? I’m pretty sure the only ones worrying about tire width are the maintenance people.
We don’t think about such things. Especially not, when we’re telling a story. We want to keep the listener’s or reader’s attention, and the only thing superfluous details get you is less attention. You’re not trying to teach people about weapons or chipsets or tire widths, you’re telling a story.
Some might say that the reader needs to know certain things. Ask yourself, do you tell your friends every single detail about your workplace when the main story is actually a really funny mishap that covered your boss in paint? No, you lead up to what’s going on, fill in the details that are essential to the punch line, and then get on with the story.
What clothes were you wearing when this happened to your boss? Who cares? As long as you didn’t hop around stark naked, it doesn’t matter to the story. What’s the color of your apartment walls? Who cares? Unless the color is now stained by a huge splatter of arterial blood, it does not matter.
What about weapon types? Ever been in a fight? Did you pay attention to what your opponent was wearing? If you did, you probably lost the fight because there are more important things than the opponent’s attire while fists are flying.
But…but…but… it’s a fantasy (or science fiction) story, the reader needs to know what things look like. Yep, the reader needs to know, but the narrator doesn’t. If you want the reader to know what’s what, write in third person, this way you can throw all the many details you think the reader needs to know (oh look, the Argonath) into the text. A first-person narrator tells the story to someone who actually knows these things. Why? Because the narrator has not crossed space and time to sit down before a reader of 2022 to explain what a bloody warpdrive does, or some such stuff. I mean, if it’s a diary, fine, but overall, we must assume the narrator writes for people who survive him, if in diary form…
Think about it. When you tell a story, you have an audience consisting of friends, family etc. Why would it be any different for the first-person narrator? It’s not like Brzzklm from Betelgeuse has jumped back in time to our solar system to planet Earth in the year 2022 to tell us puny earthlings their story, is it?
Imagine a pub you enter. Now, what’s your first action? That depends on your reason for being here: looking to hook up? Meeting a mate? Just for a pint? You’re meeting a mate. Are you early, late, on time? Early, you’ll assume your mate isn’t there yet, so you look for a free table or spot to park your rear in while you wait. You spot a table, sit down, and wait. Now what do you do? I tend to watch people, or read, depending on the time of day and so on. So I look around. Fifty per cent of the people in the club are of minor interest to me. Why? Because statistically speaking they’ll be men, and I’m not that interested in men. Unless I know them, in which case I nod a brief hello. Oooh, pretty woman. Too young but still pretty. Waiter asks what I’d like to drink. A hot toddy.
Now, in this scenario, the reader doesn’t know what the pub looks like, what kind of music is playing, what time of year it is (although the hot toddy is an indicator). And you know what? It doesn’t matter. The reader is free to imagine such things. Music is non-intrusive; otherwise, it would’ve been mentioned. Pub… it’s a pub, who cares what it looks like?
I could write more, most people will probably dismiss it anyway, but I still wanted to get this off my chest.


Actually, there’s one more thing…
Tension. Imagine a friend tells you a story of them being in mortal danger. You already know they’ll survive. Why? Because they are telling you the bloody story! There are ways around this particular dilemma. You write in form of a diary or memoir, and you go the extra mile and create a more personal tension: the character lives, they have survived, but what exactly are the horrors they have survived. Sammy Smith’s ANNA is one of the most intense and terrifying books I have ever read, and it doesn’t lack any tension. Same goes for Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti novellas, for entirely different reasons, and Nnedi even goes one step further, doing something that actually caught me off guard, and the way she executes this particular plot point is beyond brilliant.
It all depends on the delivery method, but in order to do this, you have got to master the craft.


First Person POV is hard to master. And even professionals stumble, at times. Case in point, my favorite novel for the longest time was I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole. I wanted to give it a reread a while back, having read the book numerous times over the years, and I needed some comfort food. It’s written in first person, and it had been years since I last read it. In those years I had learned a LOT about perspective and delivery. I also read books differently than I used to, more intensively… what can I say? I can’t really take off my editor’s hat, no matter what I read. When I come across a passage I dislike, I try to rearrange or rephrase it.
I love I, Jedi… but my enthusiasm received a gut punch when I read “I blinked my green eyes.”
And now I’m done!