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Dark Bites Exclusive: A conversation with Thomas F. Monteleone, mutli award-winning author.

September 10, 2019 By Rick Hipson Leave a Comment

Night Train is the latest re-release from Multi award-winning (including the Horror Writers Association’s coveted Lifetime Achievement Award) author, Thomas F. Monteleone. You can check out my thoughts on the book from last week’s posted review HERE to find out why you should take a moment right now to order your copy before proceeding further.

Now that’s out of the way, get comfortable, grab a beverage of your choosing and enjoy a conversation with Tom and yours truly as we discuss Night Train, his approach to writing multi-layered stories, and what’s next to come.

Dark Bites: Although this is the first time Night Train has seen the light of day by means of a beautiful hard cover edition, it was originally published in 1984. Of all the great books in your library of work that arguably deserve a re-release, why this book, and why now?

Thomas F. Monteleone: Kinda a long story . . . I wrote a lot of paperback originals back in the eighties and into the early nineties because all the agents and editors of that era thought it was the shopworn “Wave of the Future” . . . and that “the hardcover book was dead!” and similar such crapola. The problem with that ploy was that paperback originals did not get reviewed in the “right” venues of that era like newspapers and genre magazines. They also did not have the lifespan of hardcovers on bookstore shelves and of course no sales to libraries.

All of which is to say, once your paperback novel had its run on the revolving racks of drugstores and airports, it was pretty much consigned to that place where buggy whips, betamax machines, iPods, and phone modems go to die. Once out of print, it was sayonara, baby.

Gauntlet and some other small presses have been toying with the idea of bringing a line of the old eighties/nineties pb’s in small hardcover runs for collectors, new readers, and even some library sales. Barry asked me if there was anything I’d like to see back in print, and there are a few, but I’d always thought Night Train was one of my more “out there” horror novels that, even though it was by-the-numbers, has some fun concepts along the way. So, yeah, Night Train.

DB: How did the partnership with yourself and Gauntlet Press come together the way it did rather than having a single publisher do all the promo and the actual publishing of Night Train?

TM: Barry Hoffman at Gauntlet and I have been friends for 30+ years, and we had done a few joint imprints in the past—notably the Gaiman/Doctor Who book and the David Morrell Rambo novels—so I was more than happy to help Barry market and promote this title as well.

DB: Reading descriptions for this book from its first release, I noticed the names of your characters have been changed. Can you explain this change and let us know what other changes readers of the original publication might notice?

TM: Ha! I was wondering if you would notice that! Here’s the story. I belong to (a) high octane charitable organization called the Associated Italian American Charities. Through a variety of events, we raise more than a half million dollars that we allocate in toto to the charities of our choice (based on how much each member personally raised. One of the events is a tremendous golf tournament that features $500/golfer ($2000/foursome) and we usually field 72 foursomes (!). We also have silent auctions and live auctions during the after-golf dinner. Two years ago, I did a live auction item “Become a Character in a Novel!” in which I would use the name of the winning bidder as the protagonist of my next book. The winning bidder ($1800!) was a guy named Tommy Iacoboni and I was planning to use him in my sequel to Submerged but that next book became tangled up in the demise of Samhain and some other contractual crap. So time went by and Tommy is bugging and making noise about when he was going to see his name in a book!? I told him I was running late on my sequel novel (plus I don’t write as fast-and-dirty as I used to), and just hang in there. And then when Barry talked to me about Night Train, I realized I had the answer to satisfy Mr. Iacoboni! Presto-Change-O with the name-O!

DB: Considering the vivid details in the way you describe the underground subway system of New York, I got the impression that you may have spent many a long hour down there yourself, mapping things out and taking notes along the way before taking us all with you. How much research and personal experience did you endear for the sake of such descriptive story telling?

TM: Yeah, I spent a huge amount of (pre-internet/pre-Google) time researching that book. I actually interviewed NYC reps of the Transit Authority, Sewers, Steam, Health, and all the utilities. I was taken on tours and promised to use the names of more than one of my tour guides. I studied maps, grids, and schematics, and of course I rode a lot of trains so I knew what the stations looked like. I think I spent about a year researching the book to make it as accurate as possible.

As far as a lot of the stuff Lane Carter (a thinly disguised Lin Carter) talked about was also based in extant arcane literature, some Lovecraftian lagniappes, and some archeological discovery stuff about NY dating back to the Dutch.

The scene dealing with Prometheus was probably my most outrageous posit of underground NYC and was actually lifted almost whole cloth from a short story (“Taking the Night Train”) I did for a long-defunct magazine called Night Voyages wherein I openly declaimed the story was an homage to the style and bravado of Harlan Ellison. (Yeah, I had stones . . . even back then.)

DB: How much of Night Train (other than the otherworld monsters – I hope) is lore and how much is based on actual fact?

TM: Lots of specific details of the workings of the various agencies underground are (or were when I originally researched them) factual. No train ever went missing down there, but wouldn’t it be cool if it had?

DB: It must have been quite an undertaking to keep all the characters, various twists and assorted facts straight while writing this one. Did you have an outline or other reference notes handy while you wrote? Feel free to share your schedule and approach to writing Night Train, or in general, if you will.

TM: About ten years before I wrote this one, I’d read a book entitled The Taking of Pelham One Two Three by John Godey. (a pseudonym for Morton Freedgood who had done a lot (of) really good mystery and suspense novels) For some reason that book stuck with me because of the writer’s masterful handling of the multiple viewpoint narrative, and I used it as a model for the way I would write a lot of my own novels when multiple viewpoint was the obvious choice for advancing a complex plot. It was a technique that worked for me and I remained comfortable with that narrative approach up to this day.

As far as Night Train, I’m pretty sure I didn’t have much of an outline because I usually wrote without a net . . . making it up as I went along and trusting my subconscious to have things figured out ahead of time. I would most likely have a vague idea of how I wanted things to resolve themselves but that was about it. Although back in those days, my agent could get a book contract based on the old “three chaps and an outline” proposal . . . so maybe I did have a kinda/sorta outline to get the book off the ground. Whether or not I actually followed it was a different story.

DB: Although you may have ended this novel the way you did, I couldn’t help but wonder if this might be a world you’ve considered tapping into for a bit more adventure from our surviving characters. Any plans to keep this particular train going?

TM: Honestly, I thought about it way-back-when, but never got around to working up a credible sequel. The last paragraph of the book was a purposeful dangle that I could grab onto if I wanted to . . . but it just never happened. And as far as me do it now, no, I have other projects that are keeping me plenty busy.

DB: And, the million-dollar question as always with interviews about new books, what are you working on next for us fans to keep a lookout for?

TM: Well, as they say, there are always new stories to tell, always new places to go. I am still working on a (research-heavy) sequel to Submerged, and of course I will continue to work with my daughter, Olivia, on new volumes of our (award-winning) Borderlands anthologies. For the very-now moment, I am just about finished wrapping up a novella for the latest and most striking iteration of the classic mag, Weird Tales. I’m also putting together a new short story collection (as yet untitled), an omnibus of all my oddments of non-fiction called Opuscula and Other Weird Notions, and eventually a second volume of my Mothers And Fathers Italian Association columns. So . . . plenty of work ahead.

DB: Thanks so much for your time and your talent, Tom!

TM: It has been a real pleasure to do this with you. Grazie mille!

And, if you haven’t already, you can still order your copy of the hardcover edition of Night Train while copies last right HERE!

Interview with F. Paul Wilson – Discussing The Last Christmas

July 19, 2019 By Rick Hipson Leave a Comment

Multiple award-winning Grandmaster of horror author, F. Paul Wilson, digs into his well once more to bring us the (allegedly) final installment in his Repairman Jack series. Set between books Ground Zero and Fatal Error, Last Christmas is the book fans have been waiting for. Paul Wilson previously declared he was done turning in a new RJ novel year after year, but if there ever came a time when a new RJ story begged to be tld, he’d have to tell it. Well, that time has come, and The Last Christmas is the story that demanded to be told as only F. Paul Wilson could tell it.
I was lucky enough to sit down with the author (sorta – he sat at his computer while I sat at mine) to discuss how The Last Christmas came about, what keeps Jack ticking after all these years and what’s next for the author and, of course, our beloved anti-hero, Jack.

Dark Bites: What can you tell us about how you came to work with Barry Hoffman and how his Gauntlet Press came to play host as the next publisher in your Repairman Jack series?

F. Paul Wilson: After I brought Jack back in Legacies, Barry asked if he could do a signed first edition of the next book. He’s been doing them ever since. They’re beautiful limited editions, all with art by the great Harry O. Morris.

DB: As declared in your afterword of The Last Christmas, I understand you’re a proud outliner which is clearly working out for you. Considering the ever-growing depth that is Repairman Jack’s twisting, multifaceted universe, do you tend to keep a running outline that goes beyond any single RJ book you happen to be working, or do you stick to one book at a time as far as your outlining goes?

FPW One book at a time. I depend on my readers for continuity. They know more about the series than I do. One created a website that breaks down every book into characters and plot and synopsis. I use it to keep things straight. I outline because the most satisfying fiction offers a symmetry that’s missing from real life.

DB: In your afterward for The Last Christmas, you provide a bare-bones look at the outline you used while writing the book. One item missing from your outline is the end of the world element you added to the mix of challenges presented to your characters. What caused you to up the ante with an apocalyptic approach previously left out your original your road map if you will?

FPW: That’s always been there as a background arc, at least since the end of Conspiracies. But it starts to take over the series in By the Sword and the books that follow. Things are coming to a head and not looking too good for humanity.

DB: If I may say so, I would have to put Jack’s Jewish friend, Abe, as the most endearing character for me outside of Jack. Like every other character we meet along the way, each stands out vividly on their own set of quirks and style and rarely needs to be named for the reader to guess who’s doing or saying what. Paul, when you’re creating realistic characters like Jack and Abe, do you envision actual people from your own life experience, or is it more of the result of a well-honed craft earned over the years?

FPW: Abe’s speech pattern comes from the late founder of the group practice I joined. He was born and raised in Philly but every so often, just for kicks, he’d adopt the patois of a Hasid from Crown Heights or Williamsburg. He was my resource for yiddishkeit. Julio is based on Cheech, but drug free.

DB: You mentioned in a recent newsletter of yours that various projects have or are set to roll out Repairman Jack, one of which is a graphic novel series. Are you able to share much about what we can expect from this such as storyline, who’s doing the artwork, or anything else?

FPW: As of this writing I’ve scripted four of the five individual issues that will make up the first graphic novel, called Scar-lip Redux. Issue one has been drawn and inked by a guy named Antonio Fuso.

DB: While you may not be able to say much on the possibility of a Repairman Jack television show, can you share anything about why things may have veered away from the movie approach towards t.v. land and what you think we can realistically hope for as far as the project goes, if it does go into production?

FPW: After spending a million-plus on scripts over twenty years, Beacon abandoned the idea of a theatrical film. They started off with an excellent script from Craig Spector which Universal rewrote into a mess. After that, one mediocre script followed another until Chris Morgan arrived (before he moved onto the Fast and Furious franchise). A Jack fan who really knows the character, he did an excellent job. But by then the studios had seen so many bad Repairman Jack scripts, they didn’t want to read another.

Beacon now has a showrunner (all I can tell you is that his name is instantly recognizable to anyone with even a casual interest in weird TV) but he’s taking forever to finish the pilot script. But even when that’s done, it’s still a long way from a series.

DB: Perhaps the most burning question in this entire interview, what’s up with the Repairman Jack thongs available for fans to buy? How the heck did those come about?

FPW: Lisa and Susan, two devoted Jack fans, put my early web sites together. They wanted to offer Repairman Jack merch, so Susan designed a logo and contacted Café Press. The usual coffee cups and T-shirts and hoodies are available, but also a thong which the ladies demanded we offer. I don’t argue with Lisa and Susan.

DB: On a more serious note, as far as labeling what type of story Repairman Jack is such thriller, suspense, urban adventure, etc. – what do you think it is about this long-running series that tends to be so well received among the horror community in general?

FPW: Well, it has many devotees in the thriller community – Lee Child, James Rollins, and Doug Preston, among others. Jack has many, many fans in the romance community. But I think the overarching cosmic horror that suffuses the series is what draws the horror folk. I understand cosmic horror – I’m a devotee – and I do it right. I placed Wardenclyffe in the same Secret History as Jack’s; I feel it’s very successful in evoking cosmic dread.

DB: After spending much of your writing career getting to know Jack and his supporting characters, is there anything about him or the series that continues to surprise even you?

FPW: Surprises do occur, even at this late stage. I still don’t know where the Lady came from. She appeared in Hosts as a sort of Greek chorus for Jack, and evolved from there into a major player in the series. Madame de Medici also came out of nowhere. Okay, not nowhere. She came from a trio of short stories by Sax Rohmer. Somehow a similar woman with the same name wriggled her way into Jack’s short story “Infernal Night” as a supporting character with just two scenes. I cast her (as the Rohmer character) in the antagonist role in my Sherlock Holmes pastiche, “The Adventure of the Abu Qir Sapphire,” and then made her my own via an acrostic message to Holmes. She fascinates me, so I had to give her a major role in The Last Christmas.

DB: Paul, do you think there will ever come a time when even Jack’s fateful end is abundantly clear, where the light at the end of the series grows bright enough to be seen, or will Jack and his band of fellow friends, fiends and foes keep on trucking for as long as there’s fuel in the tank to allow it?

Cover art by Harry O. Morris

FPW: I’ve said it before and I’m sticking to it: I see no point in taking Jack beyond Nightworld. His role is the ghost in the machine and Nightworld breaks the machine. The Last Christmas exists because of The Void Protocol, which involved that mysterious and wonderful substance melis, which made TLC feasible. I don’t know when I’ll do another Jack novel, or even if I’ll do one.

DB: Thanks so much for your time, Paul! Until next time.

This interview first appeared in Gauntlet Press’s newsletter. To subscribe to their newsletter click HERE and add your e-mail to the list, located beneath the welcome section. /

Brothers In Arms: A Tribute to The Beardless Warriors

July 11, 2019 By Rick Hipson Leave a Comment

Cover art by Harry O. Morris

Brothers In Arms

Edited by Barry Hoffman, Richard Christian Matheson

Gauntlet Press

Brothers In Arms is the newest anthology from award-winning publisher Gauntlet Press and is a tribute to Richard Matheson’s 1960 World War II novel, The Beardless Warriors. Brought together for a good cause are twenty-five of the best writers alive to ever put words together.

Each contributing author lends their personal spin on the war machine and both the proverbial and the very real monsters which dwell within it. While some entries lean towards the more barbaric, horrific aspects of a world at war, others take place a little closer to the heart where ghosts converge and regret chews like a slow animal.

When a collection of stories, even one with such a high-ranking caliber of writers at the table (William F. Nolan, F. Paul Wilson, Thomas J. Monteleone, Joe R. Lansdale, Chelsea Quin Yarbro, etc.) and especially one which touts its self as “having something for everyone”, I tend to see a glaring red flag and have to wonder how many stories will I really like? Turns out, with this collection it’s a lot. Sure, not every story made it to my cream of the cream favourites list, but for each one that did, I was only left with a slight few remaining – a major feat for any collection as far as I’m concerned, though everyone’s mileage is apt to vary.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve got the dark beauty of David J. Schow’s pen as he pits a war vet against an insidious killing machine from the past along with his own grief-stricken sense of being with Warbirds.
At the other end, we get a story from Clive Barker which brutally depicts what transpires in the shadows when secrets rue the day and men become ravenous beast in Twilight At Towers.

In between we get everything from a sci-fi look at intergalactic warfare, ancient savages defending against far superior forces, an old soldier who watches his past play out in the reflections of an epitaph honoring his fallen brothers, to modern day marines chasing baddies into the mountains where statues representing their worst nightmares await.

Richard Matheson (right) and his oldest son, RC.

Richard’s oldest son, RC Matheson, also showcases his sharp and tense style with his aptly titled contribution, Shrapnel. As a bonus, each author provides a few words to introduce their stories, focusing on the influence and love they shared with their friend and icon, Richard Matheson. Their debt to Richard is obvious and this collection is a true celebration of gratitude towards the man who influenced them all. Some photos from the set of YOUNG WARRIORS from the personal collection of Kent McCord are also included in the limited-edition hard cover and an outstanding cover illustration from Clive Barker ties it all together.

An inspired collection, Brothers In Arms, is a highly enjoyable tribute to the Legendary Richard Matheson and his Beardless Warriors and should resonate well with fans of Matheson and readers in general.