Jan. 5, 2026

072 - Jack Finn and Wolves of Kalinin (Werewolf Horror)

072 - Jack Finn and Wolves of Kalinin (Werewolf Horror)

Please rate and review Weird Reads wherever you get your podcasts Jack Finn talks about werewolves, writing historical fiction, Russian fiction, creating your own universe, vampires, atmospheric rivers, managing a large cast, his time in the military...

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Please rate and review Weird Reads wherever you get your podcasts

Jack Finn talks about werewolves, writing historical fiction, Russian fiction, creating your own universe, vampires, atmospheric rivers, managing a large cast, his time in the military and how it influenced his writing, and his recent duology series, Wolves of Kalinin

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WEBVTT

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Hello, and welcome to Weird Reads. I am your host,

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Jason White, and this week I am very excited to

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welcome Jack Finn onto the show. Jack, Welcome to the show.

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Thank you so much for putting up with me. I've

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had to knock around your dates and times around a

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couple of times. But this it's like you were cursed

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a little bit. I don't know, maybe had a bit

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of the curse of the Wolf in you. I can't

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say for sure, but can you give yourself a quick introduction?

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Yeah, I'm Jack Finn. I'm a horror author up here

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in the Pacific Northwest for currently undergoing an atmospheric river,

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which is a new weather experience for me having grown

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up on the East Coast. But I've been writing since

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twenty twenty three. The Seven Depths of Prince Flab came

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out in twenty twenty three, and this year has been

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been pretty prolific. I've had my werewof duology, the Wolves

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of Clinton Duology come out, which was Prey upon the

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Lambs and Desolation of Hunters, and I've got a vampire

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story that just came out in November, the Calling the

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House of Wars, And so it's been busy in twenty

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twenty six is looking like another busy year. So this

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is this has been good.

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Absolutely, And you mentioned atmospheric river. You're experiencing that this

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isn't new. This is a new term for me. It

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sounds like it's really wet. What is it exactly?

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So apparently it takes all the moisture out in the

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Pacific Ocean, it hits our mountain ranges on the and

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shoots it up and it comes down as like torrents

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and torrents of water. So having grown up on the

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East Coast and in Florida, I was used to hurricanes

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and I thought I'm going to go to a place

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where weather is not going to be such an issue

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out here in the Pacific Northwest. And I was wrong.

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It's definitely a little different. But yeah, we do get

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the twenty five to a few mile an hour winds

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which take out the power on a regular basis. And uh,

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we got a tremendse amount of rain for about six

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months out of the year.

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Oh that sounds kind of rough. I can't. I mean,

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it sounds exactly like what it sounds like Atmosphre.

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It is conducive to writing, so that is the one

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good thing when it's.

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You can stay. Yeah, well, you have two novels coming

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out in twenty twenty six, so it sounds like keep

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being inside a lot.

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Very true, very true. It's a.

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Now before we get into your books, I just want

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to talk about you for a little bit. I know

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that you you served in the military. How long did

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you serve for?

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Twenty three years? Twenty three years in the navy. So, yes,

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I've done. I think a lot of the cynical miss

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that comes out in some of my horror about human

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nature is a is a direct, direct correlation to so

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a lot of the tours that did I did three

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tours in Afghanistan, and I think that opened my eyes

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to to a lot of parts of human nature that

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that I think plays pretty well into into horror. And

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I think that that comes across when when you read

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my books about but some of that, some of that

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cynicism and some of that human based horror. And one

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of the things, specifically, like with werewolf stories, that intrigued

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me was, you know, we've always had wolves. Wolves are

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an alpha predator. They're they're they're not inherently evil by

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any means. You know, it's a it's a creature as

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old as men. However, once you introduce that human element

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to the to the creature to make it a werewolf,

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that's when the capacity for evil and malice comes into play.

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And uh, and I think I incorporated a lot of

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that into into my writing.

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I would say, I really enjoyed, uh. Your books. They

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get they get kind of they get kind of rough

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here and there.

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Well, you know, it's it's it's funny when I when

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I first wrote, Uh, The Seven Desks of Prince of Vlad,

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one of the probably the best criticism that I had

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was from one of my readers, and he said, you know,

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I really liked book. I enjoyed it, but I never

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felt that the main characters were ever in any true

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danger of not making it to the end of the story.

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And he's like, that kind of took took a little

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of the suspense away from me, because I felt like

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they were gonna make it, you know, whatever whatever travel's

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I put them through, they were going to somehow survive

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and make it make it to the end. And I

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thought that was great advice. You know, I didn't when

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I stepped back, I'm like, Okay, that's a that's a

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great point. Now, when I wrote The Seven Disciplines Flat,

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it was it was more of kind of an ode

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to the old timer films. So it was kind of

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constructed that way for these folks to kind of go

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through these like crazy situations and make it to the end.

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But you could see I think in like the Wolves

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of Cleming duology, I've kind of gone with that Game

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of Thrones no character is safe kind of mantra, and

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it's it's a lot more difficult to write because you

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kind of you know, you fall in love with some

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of these characters, you really care about them, and then

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you know it's gut wrenching to to to kill them off,

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but you realize how it riches the story so much

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more and throws the reader off to like, well, I

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can't expect that every character I really like is going

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to make it to the end and have a happy ending.

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I had a question about the seven Deaths of Prince

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Flad because it's mentioned in the Desolation of Hunters Prince

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Flad comes up, and so I was wondering, are they connected,

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and if so, are you thinking of creating like your

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own shared universe?

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So there is a little I do throw that in there.

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In each of my stories, there is a link to

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a little east dragging there that does tie to other tales,

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not overtly in the sense, but if you're familiar with

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my works, there is a reference. Certainly in the Desolation

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of Hunters, there is a pretty strong reference that if

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you've read the Seven Deaths of Prince Flad, you know

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who has been referred to at the very beginning of

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Prey upon the Lands, they kind of allude to some

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of the events at the very beginning of the Seven

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Deaths of Prince Flad, how Prince Flat ultimately kind of

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comes into power and some of the key events that

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lead him down the road that that he does. So, yeah,

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I do like to put that in there. I like

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to show that all these things don't take place in

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a vacuum, that they do take place in kind of

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a shared universe. It's not as overt obviously as like

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you see in like Stephen King's works, where you can

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kind of do this link chart, but if you're familiar, like, hey,

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is that connected to here? And I kind of throw

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that in there as a little extra thing for readers

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that have read my other works. But oh, that's kind

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of cool. And if you haven't, it doesn't detract from it,

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but if you have read them, it's kind of a

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coottal thing to be like, oh, I know what he's

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talking about.

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Nice. Now, do you think when just say, ten years

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twenty years from now, and you've had a ton of

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books out, do you think that people will be able

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to create that link chart and map out everything in

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your created world?

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You know, I definitely think they would. One of the

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things that I incorporate into all of my story, and

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it's part of growing up as a history buff is

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there's a tremendous layer of truth and history as the

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backbone to all these tails. Most of the events, most

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of the large scale events that occur, and a lot

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of the people that are encountered or referenced are actual,

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real events. In the Seven Depths of Prince Wlad, a

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lot of those major milestone points are actual events and

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places and things that exist and.

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That it happened.

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So what I've kind of done is I've taken real

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world history and shaded in aspects of horror where we

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have some grade space. And so I do think that

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as I continue to write and build out that this

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has kind of become our shared history of filling in

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those shadowy places and so forth.

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Nice. Now you have a pretty large cast in both

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those books, starting with Prey upon the Lambs. It's a

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duology and you had a name for it, What's the

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Duology Company.

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So originally when I had written it, I first it

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started when I was writing a medium years ago, and

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it was a short story called the Wolves of Clinton,

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and I said, you know, this is I feel like

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this tells a little too long to just be encapsulated

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in a short story. So it became I started to like,

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all right, maybe I'll do five installments. And I said,

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you know there's this is. I think there's more here

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than just I can encapsulate in that. So I grew

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to a novella, and then I grew to a novel.

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And then when I went to get it published that

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my publishers like, hey, this is two. For a lot

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of the small and independent presses, it was too many

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pages to put out as a single book to be

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hit profit margins for them, and so they said, you're

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going to have to cut back significantly to get the

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page count much lower, or we're gonna have to break

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it up. And I said, I don't want to. I

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don't want to shorten the story for business reasons. That

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doesn't make sense to me. So I said, I'd rather

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split it into two volumes. So it really and I

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think even when you get to the break, get to

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the end of Prey upon the Lambs, it's not a

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true end of the tell, you know. It's almost like

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a cliffhanger that leads into the desolation of Hunters. And

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so that's kind of how it was written. Now when

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you talk about the size of the cast, one of

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the things I wanted to do, and this kind of

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goes back to the historical aspect, was I placed it

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in that turn in the century in nineteenth century Russia,

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because life was so difficult. Life was already these villagers

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that live there, And I did an extensive amount of

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research on what it was like to live in a

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rural Russian village in this kind of province in that

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time period, what the power dynamics were, who would be

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the key key powerholders, who would be in charge, who

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would what they would have control over, what life would

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be like for an everyday villager, and what kind of

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prejudices and biases and difficulties they would have, and life was,

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like I said, life was difficult, death was a common occurrence.

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You know, there's making it through the winter was by

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no means a certainty. And so I took all these hardships,

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and I looked at cases of like of what happened

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in real life during famines, during wolf depredations, doing all

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these different things, and how the village is reacting. I

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think I have a pretty good feel for how a

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Russian village functions in this time period, how it reacts,

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and who would play what role in reacting to this.

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And I said, all right, let's introduce now that alpha

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predator of the werewolf. And so one of the reasons

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the cast is so large is, to a degree, the

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story is the story of a bretchen, of the village itself,

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and how the village ebbs and flows and reacts, and

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how different personalities, how the blame pointing goes in different directions,

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how the paradynamics go, how some people rise to the occasion,

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some people kind of fall, some people trying to take

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advantage of it. And so while the story is really

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the main character story, it is, to a large grade,

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the story of this Russian village in the midst of

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this this horrific kind of wolf attacks.

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Is a breach in a real place?

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No, it is, it is. It is an amalgamation of

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Clinton is a real place, but a brechin is an

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amalgamation of several different villages that I studied that I

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was able to find historical source material during that time period.

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Nice. That brings up an interesting point on its own,

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because up until now, you've written a lot of historical

228
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horror stories and that's it's not new, but it's kind

229
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of an interesting niche that you've chosen. I was wondering,

230
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a why do you write in that sort of niche

231
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and be what kind of research goes into that?

232
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So it's research wise. And again I'm a history buff,

233
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so I love the research aspect of it, you know.

234
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And I think reading history it kind of triggers the

235
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horror stories in and of themselves. It's not that I've

236
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got the story and I said, where can I kind

237
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of place this? You know, I'll read something or I

238
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watch a lot of documentaries and I think, wow, you know,

239
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I can't imagine living in this time period and think like,

240
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what would I do in this time period if there

241
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was a vampire or a werewolf or some other kind

242
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of event that occurs, and so it's kind of goes

243
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into each other, goes into it. And I love the

244
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research aspect because I love learning more and more and

245
00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:48.039
more about it, and to a large degree, as I

246
00:11:48.120 --> 00:11:51.720
study more of it, and for example, the Priest and

247
00:11:53.799 --> 00:11:56.440
Prey upon the Lambs Desolation of Hunters, I studied a

248
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lot about how the order would actually function, how somebody

249
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would wind up a roal priests, and the different pathways

250
00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:04.320
they would take and what they would need to actually ascend,

251
00:12:04.360 --> 00:12:05.720
and kind of it was kind of cool to like

252
00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:08.879
learn the difference between you know, the black courgey and

253
00:12:08.879 --> 00:12:10.919
the white clergy in terms of like who could rise

254
00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:14.200
to what levels and how the church was segmented that way,

255
00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:17.559
and that dictated a lot about how that character was

256
00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:21.120
going to react. And same thing as I looked into

257
00:12:21.600 --> 00:12:24.440
how the village elders and studied about like what they

258
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did and how they functioned, and that kind of ultimately

259
00:12:27.360 --> 00:12:30.960
dictated a lot of how the characters themselves were going

260
00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:34.559
to evolve. And so I've enjoyed it. I liked that

261
00:12:34.600 --> 00:12:37.399
time period in general. I like that kind of mid

262
00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:41.879
eighteen hundreds to very early nineteen hundreds because I feel

263
00:12:41.879 --> 00:12:43.759
like you've got a lot less resources. You know, we

264
00:12:44.679 --> 00:12:47.519
cross into so many different aspects of the world and

265
00:12:47.559 --> 00:12:50.200
explored so many things, but we still lacked the modern

266
00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:53.080
day resources of GPS, of cell phones, of you know,

267
00:12:53.320 --> 00:12:55.440
the quick fix to like Google and be like what

268
00:12:55.559 --> 00:12:58.279
is this? What is a strange footprint? So you still

269
00:12:58.320 --> 00:13:00.799
left a lot to your own devices to be able

270
00:13:00.879 --> 00:13:05.120
to figure out and try and survive these these situations.

271
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So I really liked it, you know, I felt like

272
00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:09.799
that was almost like that second age of discovery, where

273
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we've gone out there and but we didn't really have

274
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the resources to figure out what it was or really

275
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the resources to overcome it like we would today. You

276
00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:20.799
can't you can't call it an air strike, you know,

277
00:13:21.080 --> 00:13:23.519
on the werewolf that time period.

278
00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:28.000
It'd be nice if you could, though, right, Well, you

279
00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:32.120
know what's something in this story though, you It's interesting

280
00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:35.320
because there's a contrast between a different kind of contrast

281
00:13:35.440 --> 00:13:38.679
an atmosphere between each book. The first book is much

282
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more of a horror story where the werewolf is on

283
00:13:41.799 --> 00:13:45.240
the outside of the perimeter and it's it's more scary,

284
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and then the second book becomes more of like horror

285
00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:52.720
action and I really enjoyed that aspect. Is that was

286
00:13:52.759 --> 00:13:55.399
that Did that come into the decision making at all?

287
00:13:55.440 --> 00:13:56.320
And where to split it?

288
00:13:56.879 --> 00:14:00.440
Yeah, I mean, because I think we're Pray upon Lambs

289
00:14:00.480 --> 00:14:06.559
breaks is the last real aspect of unknown horror in

290
00:14:06.600 --> 00:14:09.399
the story, because I think after that point, once we

291
00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:13.080
revisit the characters, you kind of start seeing the evolution

292
00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:16.399
of Okay, you start to get a better sense of

293
00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:21.320
what the monster is, the monster's motivations, and so you

294
00:14:21.399 --> 00:14:23.480
kind of have to make that transition. You know, they

295
00:14:23.480 --> 00:14:25.559
Prey upon the Lambs, you have the unknown like what

296
00:14:25.639 --> 00:14:27.720
is going on? Why side of thing, who's it hunting?

297
00:14:27.799 --> 00:14:30.159
Who could be next? And then once you get a

298
00:14:30.159 --> 00:14:32.879
better sense of like why this is occurring, which really

299
00:14:32.879 --> 00:14:35.799
takes place in Desolation of Hunters, you kind of get

300
00:14:35.879 --> 00:14:40.600
into the climactic battle and really it segments. I think

301
00:14:40.639 --> 00:14:42.480
you really see it more in Desolation of Hunters. Even

302
00:14:42.519 --> 00:14:44.919
in Prey upon the Lambs. There's there's a difference between

303
00:14:46.360 --> 00:14:51.159
the monster antagonists and the villains in the story, and

304
00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:53.120
I would say the true villains in the story, and

305
00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:56.639
I think Leo's father is definitely one of them. Is

306
00:14:56.799 --> 00:14:59.200
has very little to actually do with the werewolf himself,

307
00:14:59.279 --> 00:15:00.720
you know, so it kind of because we gave me

308
00:15:00.759 --> 00:15:04.240
the ability to explore some aspects of human nature in

309
00:15:04.279 --> 00:15:06.919
the midst of all this while still telling the story,

310
00:15:07.039 --> 00:15:11.080
you know, and it's yeah, it was definitely got that point.

311
00:15:11.159 --> 00:15:13.159
I wanted to kind of leave readers on that kind

312
00:15:13.159 --> 00:15:15.919
of cliffhangerup prey upon the Lambs, with that kind of

313
00:15:15.960 --> 00:15:20.639
one significant death scene, and then after that to kind

314
00:15:20.679 --> 00:15:24.240
of ramp up the speed of things as everything unfolds,

315
00:15:24.600 --> 00:15:28.159
you know, because that was really the cataclysm of the

316
00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:32.360
change of the story from being like randomly hunted to Okay,

317
00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:35.080
everyone is kind of come into a brutch and we've

318
00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:37.159
got the hunters are there. Now, we've got all the

319
00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:42.519
different power plays, the Cossacks have arrived. The dynamics of

320
00:15:42.600 --> 00:15:45.159
what everyone is trying to accomplish by the end kind

321
00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:47.200
of unfurls in that last book.

322
00:15:47.759 --> 00:15:52.600
Yeah, absolutely, the prose. I really enjoyed the prose as well.

323
00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:56.600
I would say it read like a classic piece of

324
00:15:56.679 --> 00:15:59.759
literature without being like it was more modern. But there's

325
00:15:59.799 --> 00:16:02.960
still like this feeling of Dickens in there, and maybe

326
00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:08.960
some video Theodor Dostoyevsky, are those influences of yours at all.

327
00:16:10.840 --> 00:16:13.080
I think a lot of that has to do largely

328
00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:16.399
with with the time period, you know. I mean, there's

329
00:16:16.600 --> 00:16:19.679
and I tried to be very careful to make sure

330
00:16:19.720 --> 00:16:23.960
that everything that I wrote, from the descriptions to the

331
00:16:24.320 --> 00:16:26.159
to what they talked about, to how they talked to

332
00:16:26.159 --> 00:16:29.360
how they reacted, was very true to the time period.

333
00:16:29.840 --> 00:16:33.159
And so I think that gives a certain authenticity to

334
00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:35.799
the story that it's that it's there, you know. I

335
00:16:35.840 --> 00:16:38.639
looked at sort of like a movie like Brotherhood of

336
00:16:38.679 --> 00:16:41.200
the Wolf, you know, where it kind of had that

337
00:16:41.240 --> 00:16:43.879
feel to me where you're you're enmeshed in that kind

338
00:16:43.879 --> 00:16:46.279
of time period. I think that's what gives that that

339
00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:49.600
kind of texture to like Dostyevsky and things like that,

340
00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:52.399
that we're both writing about the same time period. Luckily,

341
00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:54.879
I had his source material and a lot of other

342
00:16:55.080 --> 00:16:58.279
Russian authors and historian source material to look at to

343
00:16:58.879 --> 00:17:03.759
really understand what it was like. They said, I spent

344
00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:07.200
twenty three years in the militaries in Intelana, so reading

345
00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:10.880
and researching was always always a forte of mine. So

346
00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:13.200
I enjoyed doing that. In Russia was a place that

347
00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:16.079
I had studied a lot about, so it was it

348
00:17:16.119 --> 00:17:18.839
was able to kind of incorporate. That was really nice.

349
00:17:19.079 --> 00:17:21.359
Were you on the sea a lot, like in boats

350
00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:22.039
or submarines?

351
00:17:22.559 --> 00:17:25.160
Uh? Not, largely. Mostly I was I was a sand

352
00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:26.920
seller for for the bulk of my career.

353
00:17:27.319 --> 00:17:30.359
Okay, when you said you were in the Navy, I

354
00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:33.119
just had this weird image of you reading Dostoevski in

355
00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:34.359
a submarine.

356
00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:39.039
No, it's you know. It's funny too because when I

357
00:17:39.079 --> 00:17:41.279
when I first into the military service, I couldn't swim,

358
00:17:41.400 --> 00:17:43.799
you know. I was looking to the service and and

359
00:17:43.880 --> 00:17:46.119
I had a conversation with my father and he said, well,

360
00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:48.200
you know, whichever one you join, I know you're not

361
00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:50.039
going to join the Navy because you can't swim. And

362
00:17:50.079 --> 00:17:53.119
I'm like, you know, that's right. And so I had

363
00:17:53.160 --> 00:17:55.000
to go to the y and learn how to swim

364
00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:57.279
before I went to went off the train because you

365
00:17:57.319 --> 00:18:00.039
have to pass your third class swim test. And I

366
00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:03.759
was by like double the oldest person in the why

367
00:18:04.279 --> 00:18:07.319
swim class like trying to learn, But I was able

368
00:18:07.319 --> 00:18:08.960
to do it, and luckily I never had to use

369
00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:10.559
it in the in the Navy, which I guess is

370
00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:11.440
a key thing.

371
00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:15.119
Have you have you swam much since then? Are you

372
00:18:15.160 --> 00:18:16.119
still afraid of swimming?

373
00:18:16.440 --> 00:18:19.480
No, Now, I do enjoy I do enjoy swimming, but

374
00:18:19.480 --> 00:18:21.160
you know you have to do like an official stroke

375
00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:22.880
and all that kind of stuff. We can take the

376
00:18:22.880 --> 00:18:26.200
third class swim test. So yeah, I'm a very strong

377
00:18:26.279 --> 00:18:29.200
dog paddler before that, and I just kind of refined

378
00:18:29.240 --> 00:18:33.559
my refine my process.

379
00:18:34.039 --> 00:18:36.960
So have you ever been to a Breschen? No?

380
00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:39.359
No, I've never been to Russia.

381
00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:45.480
Wow. Nice. Going back to the research, do you have

382
00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:48.839
any like Russian friends or or professors or whatever that

383
00:18:48.920 --> 00:18:52.119
helped you come up with like the facts of what

384
00:18:52.319 --> 00:18:54.240
people would use just all books.

385
00:18:54.519 --> 00:18:57.839
Yeah, it was just just a extensive amount of reading,

386
00:18:57.880 --> 00:18:59.319
you know. I mean, one of the benefits I think

387
00:18:59.319 --> 00:19:01.920
we have in the digital age is that a lot

388
00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:05.960
of information that exists only in Russian language, we have

389
00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:08.400
translation ability to be able to read some sorts, especially

390
00:19:08.440 --> 00:19:11.079
when there's things from you know, the eighteen hundreds or

391
00:19:11.079 --> 00:19:14.640
early nineteen hundreds that is that really extensively relevant for

392
00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:17.519
it to be published today, But it does exist online

393
00:19:17.559 --> 00:19:19.599
in translated formats that I was able to kind of

394
00:19:19.599 --> 00:19:24.359
read about newspaper articles and historical stuff like all the

395
00:19:24.400 --> 00:19:30.160
things the Somatsky Circus, was a very real thing. Where's

396
00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:33.039
father worked, you know, the factory was a real place.

397
00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:34.720
All those things were real. So I was able to

398
00:19:34.759 --> 00:19:38.880
research about all those you know, about the police department,

399
00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:40.359
what kind of training he would have went through when

400
00:19:40.359 --> 00:19:43.079
he left the factory to work as a police officer,

401
00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:45.799
what the hierarchy would have been like. All that stuff

402
00:19:45.920 --> 00:19:48.559
was there through newspaper articles and so forth in the

403
00:19:48.599 --> 00:19:51.039
time period that I was able to read and research

404
00:19:51.079 --> 00:19:54.359
and extrapolate kind of textual details to help make it

405
00:19:54.400 --> 00:19:57.319
feel more authentic. I mean, I think for most of

406
00:19:57.400 --> 00:20:00.920
us when we read something historical, we just kind of

407
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:03.960
enjoy the aspect of it being different. But I want

408
00:20:03.960 --> 00:20:06.960
to be careful that anyone that was very knowledgeable of

409
00:20:07.240 --> 00:20:09.759
Russian history wouldn't be like, well, this wouldn't be true,

410
00:20:09.839 --> 00:20:11.599
or this wouldn't be right, and that's not what would happen.

411
00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:14.720
It's always very careful to not leave some kind of

412
00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:16.599
landmine in there that someone was going to say, well

413
00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:18.759
they wouldn't that's something to would have drank, or that's

414
00:20:18.759 --> 00:20:20.799
what to do with Warren or something like that.

415
00:20:21.039 --> 00:20:25.119
Yeah, I think one other thing that helped make the

416
00:20:25.200 --> 00:20:29.279
story feel so authentic was the characters the characters feel

417
00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:32.640
very real, and you could almost say that it's a

418
00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:37.039
character study on different levels because there's different characters. One

419
00:20:37.079 --> 00:20:39.599
thing that I appreciated that well, first we get into

420
00:20:40.039 --> 00:20:44.880
we're reading a Russian history horror novel, so you're going

421
00:20:44.960 --> 00:20:48.680
to have Russian names. But I didn't have being a

422
00:20:48.680 --> 00:20:52.400
Canadian or a North American, I didn't have any trouble

423
00:20:52.440 --> 00:20:54.720
following any of the characters. I knew who they were.

424
00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:57.880
Like sometimes when you read books with foreign names, you

425
00:20:57.920 --> 00:21:01.480
get a little lost, right, But I had no issues whatsoever.

426
00:21:02.599 --> 00:21:06.079
How were you able to create the characters feel so real?

427
00:21:08.119 --> 00:21:10.079
You know, I think and I spent a lot of

428
00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:12.079
time with these characters. Like I said, they started off

429
00:21:12.279 --> 00:21:15.160
as a short story in medium, so I felt like

430
00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:18.119
I spent two years with them kind of developing and changing.

431
00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:21.440
A lot of the roles had changed, you know. Some

432
00:21:21.559 --> 00:21:25.680
characters that survived to the end were not initially designed

433
00:21:25.680 --> 00:21:28.480
that way, and others that became much more prevalent characters

434
00:21:28.519 --> 00:21:32.279
were not designed when I first had written it. Leo's

435
00:21:32.319 --> 00:21:34.759
father and the police officer were going to be two

436
00:21:34.799 --> 00:21:38.880
separate characters, and then ultimately incorporated Leo's father as the

437
00:21:39.359 --> 00:21:42.519
police officer. And his roles and his motivations and so forth,

438
00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:45.559
and yeah, I mean you just kind of get a

439
00:21:46.160 --> 00:21:49.240
feel for it, you know, not a big, big outliner.

440
00:21:49.319 --> 00:21:50.920
With my stories, I know where I want to kind

441
00:21:50.920 --> 00:21:53.599
of go to. And my initial concept for the story

442
00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:58.000
stemmed from that kind of penultimate scene and the clearing

443
00:21:58.440 --> 00:22:00.839
you know they when Leo is, when they bring Leo

444
00:22:00.920 --> 00:22:04.400
up into the forest, that was initially where my short

445
00:22:04.400 --> 00:22:07.400
story was going to go to an end. So I

446
00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:09.119
kind of knew I wanted to get to that point,

447
00:22:09.359 --> 00:22:12.599
but the journey to get there kind of just evolved

448
00:22:12.720 --> 00:22:15.559
over time. And I think because I let the characters

449
00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:18.960
kind of flow and grow into what felt natural as

450
00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:22.359
the writing was there, gives them a different texture, and

451
00:22:22.400 --> 00:22:25.720
I think that kind of lends to the feeling that

452
00:22:25.720 --> 00:22:28.640
they're a little more three dimensional because they're not following

453
00:22:28.640 --> 00:22:31.759
a set path. And sometimes when I'm writing, it just

454
00:22:31.799 --> 00:22:34.480
felt the right way to kind of deviate and change

455
00:22:34.480 --> 00:22:38.160
it and change character, make one character, to create a

456
00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:40.039
different backstory, to think like, well, gee, what would have

457
00:22:40.039 --> 00:22:42.759
got him here? And some characters become more sinister and

458
00:22:42.839 --> 00:22:45.480
other characters became less sinister.

459
00:22:46.319 --> 00:22:51.079
I liked the bad guy, the main bad guy Leo's dad,

460
00:22:51.920 --> 00:22:54.960
he's the main police officer. What's the name of the

461
00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:58.480
police there, I couldn't ever find myself pronouncing it.

462
00:22:58.599 --> 00:23:01.839
So he was part of the local jendarmy, which ultimately

463
00:23:01.880 --> 00:23:04.160
was part of like the Colinnian police department. And so

464
00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:06.640
I looked and I did do a lot of research

465
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:08.400
of like what do it take and who they would

466
00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:10.640
select to go to these more whorl stations which are

467
00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:13.960
definitely not the more preferable ones to go to. And

468
00:23:13.960 --> 00:23:16.440
of course Leo's father chooses this because he knows it's

469
00:23:16.519 --> 00:23:18.759
less desirable, So he's going to make his kind of

470
00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:21.279
pay his dues and then come back to Kalinnan and

471
00:23:21.799 --> 00:23:24.680
and think that he, you know, will then rise up

472
00:23:24.680 --> 00:23:27.039
the ranks. And I think when the werewolf attacks first start,

473
00:23:27.400 --> 00:23:31.039
Leo's father immediately sees this as his pathway to kind

474
00:23:31.039 --> 00:23:33.359
of glory, and especially when he sees the linkage to

475
00:23:33.400 --> 00:23:35.799
the first hunter killed, is like, hey, this is something

476
00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:38.319
I can capitalize on politically. And then he takes a

477
00:23:38.400 --> 00:23:41.119
trend right there and finds out ultimately that he's still

478
00:23:41.480 --> 00:23:45.400
a small wheel in a small, very small town, and

479
00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:48.799
that kind of further he's I think he was one

480
00:23:48.839 --> 00:23:52.519
of the most interesting villains that I've written, because everything

481
00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:56.839
that he's done, he's a pretty despicable character. And you know,

482
00:23:56.920 --> 00:23:58.920
he's one of those ones that blames everybody else for

483
00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:04.200
his own personal short comings, and you know, he's it's

484
00:24:04.279 --> 00:24:07.200
kind of it's recidivous behavior everyone his wife is the way,

485
00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:09.119
the nicer his wife is to him, the nice litt

486
00:24:09.160 --> 00:24:11.519
Leo is to him, the more he repays that with

487
00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:16.319
real malice. And I think ultimately the way that takes

488
00:24:16.400 --> 00:24:21.039
him and Leo two and the ultimately ends with is

489
00:24:21.720 --> 00:24:23.920
is really it just deserts. You know, here's Leo that

490
00:24:24.039 --> 00:24:28.400
is that is such like a kind and caring and

491
00:24:28.599 --> 00:24:30.960
optimistic person that he sees that he owes his father

492
00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:32.599
in no matter all the things that his father kind

493
00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:35.920
of really does, and in his father's shortcomings, it doesn't

494
00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:37.839
really impact him really until the very end of the

495
00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:40.119
story when he kind of has and it's almost tragic

496
00:24:40.119 --> 00:24:42.240
where he kind of sees really his father for who

497
00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:46.640
he is. And and that was I think some of

498
00:24:46.640 --> 00:24:49.039
that scenes that really they are the most difficult scenes,

499
00:24:49.079 --> 00:24:51.720
right because you know, you feel for Leo, you know,

500
00:24:51.759 --> 00:24:54.799
and you feel this like you never want a child

501
00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:56.319
to look at his father and feel the way that

502
00:24:56.400 --> 00:24:59.880
Leo felt about his father, And but I think that

503
00:25:00.119 --> 00:25:05.319
makes makes Pavel all the more unlikable, you know, it

504
00:25:05.480 --> 00:25:09.000
makes you know that's so, yeah, it was. It was

505
00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:10.839
a difficult character, right, but also one of the more

506
00:25:10.920 --> 00:25:13.960
enjoyable villains. Like I said in the big scheme of

507
00:25:13.960 --> 00:25:16.759
the story, I think you have an antagonists, which are

508
00:25:17.039 --> 00:25:19.559
predominantly the other hunters, and I think you have the villain,

509
00:25:19.559 --> 00:25:22.039
which which Pavel certainly is one of the and Rostov

510
00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:24.960
being the other person I would consider a villain. Everyone

511
00:25:24.960 --> 00:25:27.720
else has different motivations that put them on one side

512
00:25:27.759 --> 00:25:29.640
or the other of good or bad, but I think

513
00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:31.279
those two are the only ones that would really put

514
00:25:31.319 --> 00:25:32.720
into the villainous categories.

515
00:25:33.240 --> 00:25:38.640
I liked Alexei too, because he's he's a he's an

516
00:25:38.680 --> 00:25:41.839
asshole of a different Sorry, he's the guy you like,

517
00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:44.880
but but any like a lot of the people in

518
00:25:44.920 --> 00:25:48.240
the village don't like him because he's different and he

519
00:25:48.359 --> 00:25:51.200
tends to raise hell. But he's he's one of our

520
00:25:51.240 --> 00:25:54.200
heroes and we fall in love with him regardless. And

521
00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:58.319
that was very well done too, thank you. Also, there

522
00:25:58.359 --> 00:26:02.000
are threads of LGBT stuff within this book, there's two

523
00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:06.319
different threads of and so there's there's a little bit

524
00:26:06.359 --> 00:26:12.039
of a love story within. There's two different kind of loves. Well,

525
00:26:12.079 --> 00:26:15.000
there's I guess many different there's different love stories, but

526
00:26:16.799 --> 00:26:19.039
there's two that I'm thinking of within the lgbt Q

527
00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:24.079
one of them. They're both quite heartbreaking. But I was

528
00:26:24.119 --> 00:26:29.359
wondering because it impressed me and it felt effortless. Did

529
00:26:29.400 --> 00:26:32.759
this come naturally within the process of writing or did

530
00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:33.440
it surprise you?

531
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:39.559
Well, I think within the case of Galina, that was

532
00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:42.599
always that was always there, The intent was always there

533
00:26:43.119 --> 00:26:45.359
to kind of take the story in the direction that

534
00:26:45.559 --> 00:26:51.319
was because it plays such a vital role in one

535
00:26:51.680 --> 00:26:54.720
where the story ultimately ends in those final chapters, they

536
00:26:54.759 --> 00:26:57.319
plays such a key thing. But it also plays into

537
00:26:59.079 --> 00:27:01.680
it evolved diferently when I started to do research into

538
00:27:01.880 --> 00:27:07.000
how the Russian villagers in that time, in Russian society

539
00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:12.400
in that time viewed they viewed the LGBTQ community overall,

540
00:27:13.119 --> 00:27:16.920
and it was something that they really as far as

541
00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:20.279
for women, they almost thought wasn't possible. And so I

542
00:27:20.279 --> 00:27:23.680
think that that plays very strongly into the village's bias

543
00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:25.720
as to what they think she's doing out in the

544
00:27:25.720 --> 00:27:29.839
woods and especially when she sees the noble carriage coming

545
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:35.000
and so forth, like that that they have the village's

546
00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:39.359
bias is very natural, inappropriate, I think, to the time period,

547
00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:42.759
and they're this understanding of what goes on which ultimately

548
00:27:42.839 --> 00:27:46.240
leads to the other, to the end state. And what

549
00:27:46.279 --> 00:27:50.480
I wanted to do was kind of portray those relationships

550
00:27:50.519 --> 00:27:54.319
in kind of a very realistic kind of feel, you know,

551
00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:58.039
they and how they evolved, and they both evolved socially

552
00:27:58.039 --> 00:28:00.880
through different ways, and I think play out in the

553
00:28:00.920 --> 00:28:06.640
story in very real ways that that that anybody's relationship

554
00:28:06.680 --> 00:28:09.240
would show out. You know, there's you have. You have

555
00:28:09.279 --> 00:28:11.680
good relationships and you have bad relationships. You have people

556
00:28:11.680 --> 00:28:14.000
that really give a lot into that relationship, and it

557
00:28:14.039 --> 00:28:17.680
doesn't get repeating together people that are in relationships for

558
00:28:18.119 --> 00:28:20.599
different reasons. And I'm being vague because I don't want

559
00:28:20.599 --> 00:28:23.279
to give away any of the stuff that's in the story,

560
00:28:23.319 --> 00:28:26.279
but I try to write it just as I would

561
00:28:26.279 --> 00:28:28.920
write any other relationship, and I think that that gives

562
00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:32.960
it a certain comfortable feel for for both those two

563
00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:36.480
major relationships that that unfold throughout the story.

564
00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:40.000
Within all the sort of romantic feels in this book,

565
00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:42.680
I don't think it like when I when I'm talking

566
00:28:42.680 --> 00:28:44.680
to romance here, I'm not saying this book is a

567
00:28:44.759 --> 00:28:49.319
romance by any means. There's just some love or maybe

568
00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:52.480
light I would say, very light romantic threads, but I

569
00:28:52.519 --> 00:28:55.519
would say almost all of those threads have an unrequited

570
00:28:55.839 --> 00:28:58.319
love or you know, a love that is not returned

571
00:28:58.359 --> 00:29:01.640
sort of theme running through them.

572
00:29:01.799 --> 00:29:06.319
Well, you know, I think in Alexei's case, it kind

573
00:29:06.359 --> 00:29:10.039
of makes a turn in the Desolation of Hunters, you know,

574
00:29:10.119 --> 00:29:13.759
where his story kind of you know, his is definitely

575
00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:17.960
and it's he was he's very limited to a degree,

576
00:29:18.079 --> 00:29:21.240
you know, like he's a hothead, he doesn't have aspirations,

577
00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:25.119
and so he was always going to kind of hold

578
00:29:25.119 --> 00:29:26.960
her back, you know. And I think one of the

579
00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:31.680
reasons that we see that kind of change later on,

580
00:29:32.200 --> 00:29:34.720
and that that kind of spark of romance coming at

581
00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:37.920
probably the worst possible time in the story, gives it

582
00:29:38.039 --> 00:29:42.319
a kind of a bittersweetness to to where things ultimately go.

583
00:29:42.759 --> 00:29:45.359
You know, that he's that he kind of comes into

584
00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:50.359
himself as a more responsible person and becomes almost a

585
00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:54.640
better person. We could see like he's he's overcoming some

586
00:29:54.680 --> 00:29:57.599
of those like he's had a lot of childhood trauma,

587
00:29:57.680 --> 00:30:00.440
you know, his lost his parents, he's an out in

588
00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:03.480
the village, and that he's finally starting to overcome that

589
00:30:04.200 --> 00:30:06.640
and become maybe the person that could be, you know,

590
00:30:06.680 --> 00:30:09.359
the one that you would ultimately have a longer term

591
00:30:09.400 --> 00:30:11.480
relationship with. But of course it comes at a very

592
00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:12.880
pivotal part in the story.

593
00:30:13.559 --> 00:30:16.000
Yeah. Absolutely. I would say that there's also a theme

594
00:30:16.079 --> 00:30:20.640
of a found family within their story. Yeah.

595
00:30:20.680 --> 00:30:24.880
I mean there's there's two there's only two scenes where

596
00:30:25.319 --> 00:30:29.519
kind of the found family is ever fully together.

597
00:30:29.640 --> 00:30:29.880
Yeah.

598
00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:34.240
Yeah, and and there's you know, and that was by design,

599
00:30:34.359 --> 00:30:35.839
you know, I wanted to be able to kind of

600
00:30:35.920 --> 00:30:40.920
juxtapose the two cases juxtaposed, like the very joyous uh

601
00:30:41.079 --> 00:30:43.640
trip the Leo takes at first in that cart, with

602
00:30:44.160 --> 00:30:46.200
much more sinister one where he's back in the same

603
00:30:46.279 --> 00:30:49.440
cart at the same time. And you know, you have

604
00:30:49.519 --> 00:30:52.079
the kind of birthday party scene where you get all

605
00:30:52.119 --> 00:30:54.920
these characters in one place and they're only all together

606
00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.200
in one scene one other time in Deslation of Hunters,

607
00:30:59.240 --> 00:31:00.799
and that is kind of that's in the in the

608
00:31:00.839 --> 00:31:04.319
Cave complex, and it's all wanted to kind of juxtapose

609
00:31:04.400 --> 00:31:07.119
where these characters were to be able to easily put

610
00:31:07.119 --> 00:31:08.839
on the map and be like, wow, the last time

611
00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:11.599
we saw these characters in this place, this is what

612
00:31:11.640 --> 00:31:14.119
was going on, and this is how they've transformed since then.

613
00:31:15.359 --> 00:31:20.599
That those caves gave me, h, that made my skin.

614
00:31:20.799 --> 00:31:24.079
I don't have the phobia where you're afraid of small places,

615
00:31:24.079 --> 00:31:29.960
but I started to feel it in the cave scenes.

616
00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:33.279
But I want to mention I loved your were wolves.

617
00:31:33.960 --> 00:31:36.200
They're my favorite type of werewolf. I love the ones

618
00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:41.039
that well, they look like the were wolves in my mind.

619
00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:44.119
I pictured them bigger, though, But the wolves from Dog

620
00:31:44.200 --> 00:31:47.759
Soldiers yep, which is as I said, that's one of

621
00:31:47.759 --> 00:31:52.200
my favorite movies. So did you how did you come

622
00:31:52.279 --> 00:31:53.839
up to design your own wolf? Man?

623
00:31:54.680 --> 00:31:58.440
So? Dog Soldiers is also one of my favorite favorite

624
00:31:58.480 --> 00:32:00.680
werewolf movies. So that was when I had a mental

625
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:03.720
image of how I wanted them to appear. That definitely

626
00:32:03.759 --> 00:32:06.680
played a very large role, you know. I think of

627
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:09.799
that scene where the wolf is like in it ultimately

628
00:32:09.799 --> 00:32:11.799
gets into the cabin towards the end of the movie,

629
00:32:12.440 --> 00:32:14.880
and that's kind of the mental image I had in

630
00:32:14.960 --> 00:32:17.400
the scene where he breaks into the cabin and and

631
00:32:17.880 --> 00:32:20.559
taxa hunters. That was kind of the mental image I have,

632
00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:24.079
but a lot of the One of the things when

633
00:32:24.079 --> 00:32:25.759
I created a werewolf story and there's so many were

634
00:32:25.799 --> 00:32:28.279
world stories out there, is I want to add something

635
00:32:28.640 --> 00:32:31.119
kind of unique to the to the genre. I wanted

636
00:32:31.160 --> 00:32:36.079
to understand how a how does a person become a werewolf?

637
00:32:36.200 --> 00:32:38.200
Right like we've seen it in American worlf in London,

638
00:32:38.200 --> 00:32:41.359
you see this transformation. And so I found there was

639
00:32:41.400 --> 00:32:45.599
a in the seventeen hundreds there is a German naturalist,

640
00:32:45.640 --> 00:32:48.359
Maria Marry and her name was and she started off

641
00:32:48.440 --> 00:32:52.559
as a naturalist illustrator. She would do old illustrations and

642
00:32:52.599 --> 00:32:56.640
she had an interest in studying the symbiotic relationship between

643
00:32:57.240 --> 00:33:00.160
bugs and the plants that they inhabit and they they

644
00:33:00.200 --> 00:33:02.559
live upon, and so at a time when they did

645
00:33:02.599 --> 00:33:05.680
not have female in that naturalists, she self funded through

646
00:33:05.720 --> 00:33:09.160
her art a trip to study this to South America

647
00:33:09.200 --> 00:33:12.000
to study insects. She didn't have a team, she had

648
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:14.839
no sponsorship. She only brought her daughter along as a helper,

649
00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:18.559
and she spent two years there in Turnami, studying about

650
00:33:18.599 --> 00:33:21.799
one hundred and eighty six different insect varieties, and she

651
00:33:21.960 --> 00:33:25.519
was the first person at that time period, the scientific

652
00:33:25.559 --> 00:33:29.119
community thought that insects, which were a creature of the devil,

653
00:33:29.559 --> 00:33:34.319
sprang forth from mud was spontaneous, like a spontaneous combustion,

654
00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:38.319
and that was the scientific community's understanding of where insects

655
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:42.039
came from in the early seventeen hundreds. So she studied

656
00:33:42.039 --> 00:33:46.079
these insects, and she studied the process of metamorphosis, and

657
00:33:46.319 --> 00:33:49.960
came back and took she did her own illustrations very detailed.

658
00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:53.720
She published it, and the work was largely debunked because

659
00:33:53.759 --> 00:33:57.279
she was a woman writing something in the scientific community

660
00:33:57.279 --> 00:34:00.200
that debunked what all their research has done. And so

661
00:34:00.319 --> 00:34:04.160
her stuff was this really castigated, was pushed to the side,

662
00:34:04.279 --> 00:34:08.960
was denigrated, and she dies in poverty two years later. Well,

663
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:12.800
not until the twentieth century did someone actually start to

664
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:15.920
relook and they revalidated her work as actually factual. And

665
00:34:15.960 --> 00:34:19.199
one of the things that I thought was incredibly interesting

666
00:34:19.199 --> 00:34:21.800
about what she did. I actually have her book if

667
00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:23.440
I was able to. My wife was able to track

668
00:34:23.480 --> 00:34:26.599
down a copy of a reprint of her book. Wow,

669
00:34:26.639 --> 00:34:29.840
And she talks about them When a caterpillar and methoughts

670
00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:32.800
was kind of fascinating. When a caterpillar goes into a cocoon,

671
00:34:32.880 --> 00:34:36.639
it actually dies in the cocoon, and the butterfly that

672
00:34:36.719 --> 00:34:41.000
comes out is a wholly separate creature that has repurposed

673
00:34:41.039 --> 00:34:45.840
the organs in biomatter of the caterpillar to create a

674
00:34:45.840 --> 00:34:50.239
whole other creature. So really it's neither Holy caterpillar or

675
00:34:50.280 --> 00:34:53.519
Holy butterfly, some amalgamation the two. And I thought, that's

676
00:34:53.519 --> 00:34:55.239
what I kind of want to do. And that's why

677
00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:58.360
the characters kind of go through that death transformation to

678
00:34:58.400 --> 00:35:01.320
become the werewolf is because they're their body is being

679
00:35:01.360 --> 00:35:04.280
repurposed not as a wolf or as a man, but

680
00:35:04.320 --> 00:35:07.119
as a completely wholly different creature. And that's why it

681
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:10.840
has the two sentient minds within it, you know, there's

682
00:35:10.599 --> 00:35:14.559
there's there's two consciousness that exist in this new creature.

683
00:35:14.599 --> 00:35:16.320
I thought, well, well, that's kind of a cool I

684
00:35:16.360 --> 00:35:19.400
haven't read anything like that in a werewolf story before,

685
00:35:19.880 --> 00:35:21.760
and so that really kind of motivated me to like, yeah,

686
00:35:21.760 --> 00:35:22.960
I want to I want to write this story. I

687
00:35:23.039 --> 00:35:25.960
want to put this into into the add into the world.

688
00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:30.599
Yeah, that's awesome. I really like that. Uh uh, that

689
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:38.440
juxtaposition of of butterflies or caterpillars turning metamorphising into butterflies

690
00:35:38.719 --> 00:35:42.280
and your your werewolves. But you also mentioned in one

691
00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:44.159
of the books, I can't remember which one, but you

692
00:35:44.239 --> 00:35:48.239
mentioned the volkalact, a shape shifting being in Slavic mythology.

693
00:35:48.880 --> 00:35:50.400
I imagine that took some research.

694
00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:53.519
Yeah, I mean, there's I spent all my my wife

695
00:35:53.599 --> 00:35:55.400
is from Romania, so we spent a lot of time

696
00:35:55.440 --> 00:36:00.320
in Europe and in uh in Transylvania, and so pretty

697
00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:04.440
familiar with a lot of different East European type folklore.

698
00:36:04.519 --> 00:36:06.599
My my recent book, calling in the House of Wars

699
00:36:06.679 --> 00:36:10.119
is about the origin of Stragoi, which really was what

700
00:36:10.239 --> 00:36:13.840
nos Ratu was a was a Strogoi and kind of

701
00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:17.360
that where the vampire myth becomes. And when you look

702
00:36:17.400 --> 00:36:23.960
and there's there's some great research done in the early

703
00:36:24.039 --> 00:36:27.320
seventeen to eighteen hundreds, and I think somebody even predates

704
00:36:27.320 --> 00:36:31.800
that about all the different werewolf myths and I had

705
00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:34.039
to say, this's but werewolf folklore that is out there,

706
00:36:34.519 --> 00:36:38.639
and almost every culture has some form of a shape

707
00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:43.679
shifting you know, mythos with wolves, with other creatures that

708
00:36:43.719 --> 00:36:45.599
are there. You know, some it's for a human base

709
00:36:45.639 --> 00:36:48.559
where you have the Norse berserkers that actually wore the

710
00:36:48.599 --> 00:36:51.920
skin of the of a you know, warl like wolf

711
00:36:51.960 --> 00:36:55.400
skins and stuff into battle. But then there's so much

712
00:36:55.440 --> 00:37:00.559
more history that documents cases of life, anthropy and so forth,

713
00:37:00.599 --> 00:37:04.840
and even the tavern the Kenti gans is based upon

714
00:37:05.719 --> 00:37:10.800
one of the first prosecutions for worl ism in Europe,

715
00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:13.440
which is I think it was in the early fourteen hundreds,

716
00:37:13.440 --> 00:37:15.960
where he was a village boy. They accused of witchcraft,

717
00:37:16.239 --> 00:37:17.880
and they said that the witch turned him into a

718
00:37:17.880 --> 00:37:20.320
wolf and he would hunt a knight and kill the livestock.

719
00:37:20.360 --> 00:37:22.639
And he was executed as part of the witch trials.

720
00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:26.679
And so this has always kind of existed throughout human history,

721
00:37:26.679 --> 00:37:29.679
whether it's in North America, whether it's in Europe. The

722
00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:34.159
Asian continent has its own similar mythos, and so I

723
00:37:34.199 --> 00:37:37.000
wanted to incorporate. And there's a point in the story

724
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:39.920
where each of them almost refer to it differently based

725
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.239
upon their own folklore, you know. And I wanted to

726
00:37:44.280 --> 00:37:47.320
pull in that, like the werelf is something that everyone

727
00:37:47.360 --> 00:37:51.800
has a mental connotation of based upon their cultural reference point,

728
00:37:52.119 --> 00:37:55.960
and so the booklock Is was that one reference point

729
00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:59.000
to it. And then I said, there's a Romanian view

730
00:37:59.039 --> 00:38:02.199
and there also get the kind of that East Asian

731
00:38:02.199 --> 00:38:08.480
Mongolian viewpoint of world. But it's existed across American American

732
00:38:08.559 --> 00:38:10.119
across human psyche.

733
00:38:10.239 --> 00:38:14.440
Yeah, that's interesting too. It's sort of like in today's

734
00:38:14.800 --> 00:38:17.800
I would call it more mythology of aliens and whatnot.

735
00:38:18.880 --> 00:38:23.360
How there's different reports. Before anyone knew anything about it,

736
00:38:23.400 --> 00:38:29.559
there was different reports speculating on the exact same experiences

737
00:38:29.639 --> 00:38:35.199
throughout North America. But in Europe, I would say that

738
00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:41.239
werewolves and vampires are probably more European central or like

739
00:38:41.719 --> 00:38:46.360
I think Native Americans have some shape shifting. I don't know.

740
00:38:46.559 --> 00:38:50.079
I don't know if they have vampires. Stephen Graham Jones

741
00:38:50.079 --> 00:38:54.559
recently wrote a book about vampires. Yeah, but I don't

742
00:38:54.559 --> 00:38:58.039
know if there's anything in the actual myth. But I'm

743
00:38:58.079 --> 00:39:00.280
getting ahead of myself here. I just want to say,

744
00:39:00.320 --> 00:39:03.559
that's a very interesting correlation. And how do you think

745
00:39:03.599 --> 00:39:05.920
this is something a result of the psyche or do

746
00:39:05.960 --> 00:39:08.280
you think there's maybe something to this.

747
00:39:09.719 --> 00:39:16.239
I'm a firm believer that what two thousand plus years

748
00:39:16.440 --> 00:39:22.079
of church transformation of the Western psyche, what we attribute

749
00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:28.239
as myth and folklore, the modern human, the biologically modern human,

750
00:39:28.280 --> 00:39:31.760
has existed for about nine hundred thousand years, and so

751
00:39:34.199 --> 00:39:37.400
beings like us, with our mental capacity and or our

752
00:39:37.480 --> 00:39:40.960
understandings of have existed for almost a million years on

753
00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:43.440
the plant, I think is the latest skull found brings

754
00:39:43.480 --> 00:39:46.519
it back there. So I find it very difficult to

755
00:39:46.519 --> 00:39:50.239
believe that in the last twenty twenty five years we've

756
00:39:50.239 --> 00:39:52.960
gotten it right. And for the previous nine hundred thousand years,

757
00:39:52.960 --> 00:39:57.880
everything that all their experiences were incorrect. So I think

758
00:39:57.920 --> 00:40:02.599
a lot of that is based upon factual experiences that

759
00:40:02.679 --> 00:40:05.119
has been been handed down. And I'll give you a great,

760
00:40:05.480 --> 00:40:09.079
uh great example. I've talked to Nick Medeena about it.

761
00:40:09.280 --> 00:40:12.800
Nick Madeena's new book The Whistler is about like you

762
00:40:12.840 --> 00:40:15.199
don't whistle at night? We saw Shane Hawk's book is

763
00:40:15.679 --> 00:40:19.440
titled the same thing. Well in Romania, that's that's you

764
00:40:19.440 --> 00:40:21.760
don't whistle at night. You know when I go there,

765
00:40:21.760 --> 00:40:25.480
like you don't wist the night because it attracts the

766
00:40:25.480 --> 00:40:28.719
the demon to you, you know, you attract like evil

767
00:40:28.760 --> 00:40:31.079
spirits to you. And I've asked him, like, what's the

768
00:40:31.079 --> 00:40:34.360
difference between like whistling and humming instead of night? And

769
00:40:34.440 --> 00:40:37.000
he says that like a whistle is a call right.

770
00:40:37.039 --> 00:40:40.840
So universally, whether it's Native American, whether it's Eastern European,

771
00:40:40.880 --> 00:40:43.880
whether it's you know, you go to Asian cultures, there's

772
00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:46.840
a warning against whistling at night, to attracting attention to

773
00:40:46.920 --> 00:40:51.559
evil things. Now, I have to think that's more than happenstance,

774
00:40:52.159 --> 00:40:56.360
you know. And when we look at every culture has

775
00:40:56.920 --> 00:41:00.320
a werewolf or a vampire to it. If we look

776
00:41:00.360 --> 00:41:02.920
at the if we go to kind of Cherokee myth

777
00:41:03.239 --> 00:41:07.159
they have the jumbling, which is basically the the first

778
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:10.360
instances we see of a North American vampire, and it's

779
00:41:10.440 --> 00:41:14.239
very similar to what we see of in meso America

780
00:41:14.440 --> 00:41:17.800
of their types of vampires. Now, the difference is between

781
00:41:18.039 --> 00:41:20.800
the Western and non and Western traditions is like what

782
00:41:20.840 --> 00:41:24.480
that creature is and what attracts it, what links it.

783
00:41:24.639 --> 00:41:29.679
You know, there's in Western kind of mythos it's the

784
00:41:29.760 --> 00:41:33.639
vampire is undead, you know, someone that's been wronged and

785
00:41:33.719 --> 00:41:36.519
comes back. What we see here is that it's more

786
00:41:37.440 --> 00:41:41.719
a supernatural, spiritual creature that exists that gets attracted to things.

787
00:41:42.239 --> 00:41:44.760
And so but there's always a form that has existed,

788
00:41:44.920 --> 00:41:48.480
you know, it's not always the end. It's different enough,

789
00:41:48.599 --> 00:41:50.960
that you could say, well, no, the what we see

790
00:41:51.039 --> 00:41:54.039
in in a Native American folklore, what we see in

791
00:41:54.199 --> 00:41:59.239
Meso American folklore is not the result of exposure to

792
00:41:59.559 --> 00:42:04.519
Western superstitions, because it's it's a similar type creature, but

793
00:42:04.639 --> 00:42:06.800
the nature of the creature, how you kill the creature,

794
00:42:06.880 --> 00:42:09.679
how you prevent the creature, what attracts the creature, is

795
00:42:09.719 --> 00:42:13.639
completely different. So I think that there's a certain universalness

796
00:42:14.039 --> 00:42:16.800
to a lot of what and I hate to call

797
00:42:16.840 --> 00:42:20.480
it mythos because mythos almost makes it seems like that

798
00:42:20.559 --> 00:42:23.000
it's not real. But I think we have a folk

799
00:42:23.119 --> 00:42:27.880
history of all these things across cultures, and we're taught

800
00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:32.880
that these things are are not real, right, it doesn't

801
00:42:32.920 --> 00:42:36.760
fit into our our current modern day theology, and so

802
00:42:36.800 --> 00:42:40.400
we're taught, I know, that's that is a backward superstition,

803
00:42:40.559 --> 00:42:42.519
that is that. But when you look and you see

804
00:42:42.559 --> 00:42:46.960
how universal so many of these cultural whether it's a

805
00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:52.239
creature or belief or or norm is, you think there

806
00:42:52.239 --> 00:42:55.840
has to be more to it than just happenstance that

807
00:42:56.039 --> 00:42:59.639
the superstition or this creature is replicated across cultures that

808
00:42:59.679 --> 00:43:04.039
are no contact for the vast majority of human existence.

809
00:43:04.440 --> 00:43:07.920
Yeah, it's all fascinating. And when I when I say

810
00:43:07.960 --> 00:43:11.280
mythos or folklore to me, I sort of it means

811
00:43:11.320 --> 00:43:13.760
the same thing to me. So I'm not intending to

812
00:43:13.800 --> 00:43:17.519
insult one belief or another. It's just the words are

813
00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:19.960
close to me. But I see that there is a difference,

814
00:43:20.159 --> 00:43:23.679
and I just wanted to mark that out there now

815
00:43:23.960 --> 00:43:26.360
before we go. I just I wanted to touch upon

816
00:43:26.800 --> 00:43:29.719
one more thing. I want to say one thing. These books,

817
00:43:29.760 --> 00:43:31.719
Like we were talking about love stories and all that,

818
00:43:31.920 --> 00:43:34.880
I want to mention for the more horror centric people

819
00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:38.800
out there, there's a plenty of gore, and these books

820
00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:42.480
are brutal. They're they're they're not They're not just you know,

821
00:43:43.920 --> 00:43:46.679
like people falling in love and stuff stuff like that,

822
00:43:46.719 --> 00:43:49.440
although that stuff does exist in there. But I also

823
00:43:49.480 --> 00:43:51.880
want to mention that you do creepy quite well as well.

824
00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:55.239
There's a scene in the first book where Antony and

825
00:43:55.360 --> 00:43:59.960
Yuri are laying out traps for whatever is attacking their town,

826
00:44:00.760 --> 00:44:03.840
and that is just spooky. I just wanted to know,

827
00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:06.960
how are you able to use language to manipulate me

828
00:44:07.119 --> 00:44:08.360
into feeling freaked out?

829
00:44:09.719 --> 00:44:13.199
It's you know a lot of it, A lot of

830
00:44:13.239 --> 00:44:17.800
it is re editing and editing. But you know, I

831
00:44:17.840 --> 00:44:19.639
here in the Pacific Northwest, I spent a lot of

832
00:44:19.639 --> 00:44:22.440
time in the woods, do a lot of a big naturalist.

833
00:44:22.519 --> 00:44:24.599
I like to kind of out nature as much as

834
00:44:24.679 --> 00:44:29.280
I possibly can. And whether you're out on the ocean

835
00:44:29.320 --> 00:44:31.480
on a kayak or you're in the middle of the

836
00:44:31.480 --> 00:44:35.159
woods hiking like off off the trails, that's when you

837
00:44:35.239 --> 00:44:40.360
realize how small and defenseless we as humans are against

838
00:44:40.119 --> 00:44:46.400
the larger specter of nature. And that seems like stemmed

839
00:44:46.440 --> 00:44:49.599
from like my own my own fears walking in the woods,

840
00:44:49.639 --> 00:44:51.480
like as the sun starts to come down of like

841
00:44:51.519 --> 00:44:54.639
what you could and you could picture this kind of scene,

842
00:44:55.440 --> 00:44:59.400
and yeah, I mean I think it's it's I get

843
00:44:59.440 --> 00:45:01.559
a very clear picture in my head and I go

844
00:45:01.639 --> 00:45:05.960
through several rewrites until I feel that I've captured that

845
00:45:05.960 --> 00:45:08.719
that mental image and fear, you know, for me, small

846
00:45:08.760 --> 00:45:10.599
places like we talked about the Cave complex.

847
00:45:11.320 --> 00:45:12.000
When I watch.

848
00:45:11.880 --> 00:45:15.480
People squeeze through these like small places on like a

849
00:45:15.480 --> 00:45:18.199
documentary TV, that is that is my worst fear of

850
00:45:18.239 --> 00:45:20.800
being trapped like that, you know, and not able to

851
00:45:20.800 --> 00:45:23.880
turn around and not be able to breathe stuck that

852
00:45:24.039 --> 00:45:26.159
is h Yeah, like there's a dude that got stuck

853
00:45:26.239 --> 00:45:28.079
upside down that they were never able to retrieve his

854
00:45:28.159 --> 00:45:30.639
body and then just walled him in. To me, that

855
00:45:30.800 --> 00:45:33.840
is like the worst. So I think it's it's able

856
00:45:33.920 --> 00:45:37.159
to to channel some of those fears and write it

857
00:45:37.199 --> 00:45:38.960
down and you keep writing into you like, you know

858
00:45:38.960 --> 00:45:42.639
what this this is capturing how I'm currently the tightness

859
00:45:42.639 --> 00:45:44.159
I'm feeling in my chest when I think of the

860
00:45:44.199 --> 00:45:48.800
scene and you know your picture, Like, especially as I'm

861
00:45:48.960 --> 00:45:51.599
writing the story and I go for walks in the woods,

862
00:45:51.679 --> 00:45:53.719
I say, you know, this is exactly the kind of

863
00:45:53.719 --> 00:45:56.800
place that they would set a trap for to try

864
00:45:56.840 --> 00:45:59.360
and catch the werewolf. And I think, all right, well,

865
00:45:59.719 --> 00:46:02.559
you know this is it's so dark down there that okay,

866
00:46:02.559 --> 00:46:04.639
well they would have torches to do so. And then

867
00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:06.800
I pictured like, all right, if you see the torch

868
00:46:06.840 --> 00:46:09.239
going out and then here the traps starting to go off,

869
00:46:09.639 --> 00:46:11.559
you know, like the fear that you would have of

870
00:46:11.679 --> 00:46:13.599
like what are you gonna do?

871
00:46:13.800 --> 00:46:15.800
Ye? That was the best man. That's like one of

872
00:46:15.880 --> 00:46:20.159
my favorite scenes from from both books, because it's just

873
00:46:20.440 --> 00:46:25.199
captured that that freakiness that I mentioned that oh my god,

874
00:46:25.239 --> 00:46:26.840
you know you're out there with them and this is

875
00:46:27.199 --> 00:46:30.280
this is going down man, you know, and we're stuck

876
00:46:30.280 --> 00:46:33.920
out here in the dark. Yeah, yeah, you know it.

877
00:46:34.199 --> 00:46:36.360
I think a lot of that stems from and it's

878
00:46:36.719 --> 00:46:39.280
it's funny. I think this is really how you become

879
00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:41.360
a horror FIMD. When I was a little kid, and

880
00:46:41.400 --> 00:46:43.360
I take that. I grew up in New York and

881
00:46:43.360 --> 00:46:44.960
I would take the garbage out of a night. You know,

882
00:46:45.039 --> 00:46:48.400
there's dark except for like this one little light around

883
00:46:48.440 --> 00:46:50.800
where the garbage pillows, and but once you get outside

884
00:46:50.840 --> 00:46:53.360
that center of light, you know, it's darkness, you know,

885
00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:56.840
and woods and stuff like that. And so I think

886
00:46:56.840 --> 00:46:59.519
to myself, well, there's no there's nothing out there there.

887
00:46:59.639 --> 00:47:01.280
I'll be I'll be fine, there's nothing out there. And

888
00:47:01.280 --> 00:47:03.679
then I think, you know, in all those movies, they

889
00:47:03.719 --> 00:47:05.199
thought there was nothing out there, and there's something that

890
00:47:05.320 --> 00:47:08.039
grabs them, right, And so like you throw the garbage

891
00:47:08.039 --> 00:47:09.480
in the pail and you close it up and run

892
00:47:09.519 --> 00:47:12.039
back inside. But you can't go to work the next

893
00:47:12.119 --> 00:47:13.800
day or go to school the next day and be like,

894
00:47:13.800 --> 00:47:15.559
oh man, I was really scared of taking the garbage

895
00:47:15.559 --> 00:47:18.000
out last night. Because your friends aren't talking about that.

896
00:47:18.400 --> 00:47:21.639
It's like in the suburbs, what's going to happen? But

897
00:47:21.679 --> 00:47:24.159
then you read like a Stephen King novel and you're like, wow,

898
00:47:24.199 --> 00:47:26.199
he's talking about this kid takes the garbage on somebody,

899
00:47:26.239 --> 00:47:28.079
something grabs him and pulls him into the woods, like

900
00:47:28.519 --> 00:47:32.840
I'm not alone in the world. Right, horror, And that's

901
00:47:32.840 --> 00:47:34.440
what really builds the horror community.

902
00:47:34.519 --> 00:47:37.519
Right, That's why I love about it. That's what I

903
00:47:37.559 --> 00:47:39.000
was just going to say. That's why I love about

904
00:47:39.039 --> 00:47:42.880
reading in general. Like it doesn't there's so many things.

905
00:47:42.960 --> 00:47:45.280
When you're growing up and you're getting older, you realize

906
00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:48.000
that you're not alone in your thoughts and your feelings,

907
00:47:48.039 --> 00:47:51.079
and reading really stamps that you can always come across

908
00:47:51.119 --> 00:47:53.199
these things like oh I felt that and I thought

909
00:47:53.199 --> 00:47:55.840
I was alone or or my god, I was scared

910
00:47:55.840 --> 00:47:58.280
in this weird situation and I couldn't tell anyone because

911
00:47:58.320 --> 00:48:00.880
they just laugh at me. But here's, like you said,

912
00:48:00.880 --> 00:48:04.480
you're Stephen King writing about it. Yeah, yeah, And I.

913
00:48:04.440 --> 00:48:06.760
Mean, like I said, you walk in the woods, you

914
00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:09.559
ride your bicycle home at night from a friend's house,

915
00:48:09.639 --> 00:48:11.679
and like these things run through your head, you know,

916
00:48:12.320 --> 00:48:14.519
and it's you know, my mom would always be like, well,

917
00:48:14.519 --> 00:48:17.039
that's because you watch all those movies and I'm like, yeah,

918
00:48:17.079 --> 00:48:18.440
but you know, that's why do you think they put

919
00:48:18.440 --> 00:48:20.719
them in the movies? You know they think of that too,

920
00:48:21.239 --> 00:48:23.360
and it's uh. But that's what makes such a great

921
00:48:23.400 --> 00:48:26.360
sense of community. I think within the horror community is

922
00:48:26.400 --> 00:48:31.559
absolutely it's a shared experiences like all these like weird

923
00:48:31.599 --> 00:48:34.559
strange fears that you can't or you can't walk into

924
00:48:34.639 --> 00:48:36.599
work or can't walk into school or can't you know,

925
00:48:36.840 --> 00:48:39.199
come down to the dinner table like, oh, man, I

926
00:48:39.239 --> 00:48:41.239
was really worried I was gonna grab by a werewolf

927
00:48:41.320 --> 00:48:43.480
last night. And everyone's gonna laugh at you look at your.

928
00:48:43.440 --> 00:48:43.840
Kind of fight.

929
00:48:44.159 --> 00:48:47.599
But you know, you go to like you get together

930
00:48:47.639 --> 00:48:49.320
with some of the horror fans and you're like, man,

931
00:48:49.639 --> 00:48:52.159
I could totally picture being grabbed by a werewolf of there,

932
00:48:52.199 --> 00:48:55.280
and everyone's like totally, dude, I get it, you know,

933
00:48:55.360 --> 00:48:58.880
like they get that vibe and it's uh, and it's

934
00:48:58.920 --> 00:49:00.519
a great feeling. You know. There's there are so many

935
00:49:00.559 --> 00:49:04.159
things that you know, you could quote like something from

936
00:49:04.199 --> 00:49:07.199
Stephen King or something you know, and right off the bat,

937
00:49:07.280 --> 00:49:10.000
whether you're you can have someone that's a sixty five

938
00:49:10.079 --> 00:49:11.960
year old horror fan and someone that's a fifteen year

939
00:49:11.960 --> 00:49:14.840
old horror fan, and you both understand that's a Pennywise quote,

940
00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:18.360
you know, and suddenly like, what attracts you to read

941
00:49:18.440 --> 00:49:20.320
it at fifteen or what attracts you to read it

942
00:49:20.400 --> 00:49:22.920
at sixty five is the same thing, you know, and

943
00:49:23.239 --> 00:49:27.079
it builds that community and the commonality. And you know,

944
00:49:27.320 --> 00:49:29.840
horror is still a niche. You know, We're not as

945
00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:32.440
big a genre as a lot of the other ones

946
00:49:32.440 --> 00:49:34.760
that are out there, and so when you find someone

947
00:49:35.079 --> 00:49:37.719
that's as weird as us, right, you feel like, oh,

948
00:49:37.719 --> 00:49:39.440
this is awesome. Man. I'm not alone in the world.

949
00:49:39.960 --> 00:49:42.960
And that's one of the great things about writing, you know.

950
00:49:43.039 --> 00:49:45.480
I love to write something that someone connects with and

951
00:49:45.519 --> 00:49:47.760
I'm like, all right, that's cool. I've contributed to that

952
00:49:48.239 --> 00:49:49.519
community in a positive way.

953
00:49:50.320 --> 00:49:52.719
Yeah, all right, man. Well, I want to thank you

954
00:49:52.760 --> 00:49:54.800
for coming on. I had a blast talking to you,

955
00:49:55.320 --> 00:49:57.480
and I could have talked to you for a lot longer,

956
00:49:57.519 --> 00:50:01.679
but things being as they I am another meeting right

957
00:50:01.719 --> 00:50:03.679
after this, but I want to You have a couple

958
00:50:03.679 --> 00:50:08.320
of releases coming in twenty twenty six. You've mentioned them already,

959
00:50:08.360 --> 00:50:11.400
but you're free to mention them again. But I would

960
00:50:11.400 --> 00:50:13.320
love to have you back on the show to talk

961
00:50:13.360 --> 00:50:16.440
about them. Maybe around this time next year.

962
00:50:16.880 --> 00:50:19.079
Oh, I'd love that. Yeah, I've got Wilson is coming

963
00:50:19.119 --> 00:50:22.400
out in February. It's a kind of Doctor Jacko and

964
00:50:22.480 --> 00:50:26.360
Mister Hyde. Mee, It's Carnival. It's a supernatural serial killer.

965
00:50:26.760 --> 00:50:29.239
I love that show. That show, that HBO show.

966
00:50:29.440 --> 00:50:33.239
Yeah, And I've got He Was Done Evil, which is

967
00:50:33.280 --> 00:50:37.280
a World War One supernatural horror that's coming out from

968
00:50:37.280 --> 00:50:39.400
Crystal Lake next year. So I talked that coming out

969
00:50:39.440 --> 00:50:42.079
as well. And it Pierces, which is a full car

970
00:50:42.159 --> 00:50:44.320
that will be out in September. And I've got my

971
00:50:44.400 --> 00:50:48.400
first kind of dark fantasy dualogy coming out, which is

972
00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:52.360
a re envisioning of Alis in Wonderland and Peter pen

973
00:50:52.679 --> 00:50:56.559
against the backdrop of The King of Yellows. Carcosa is

974
00:50:56.559 --> 00:50:59.880
coming out from Edgewaver Books. Red Red Queen yell King

975
00:51:00.360 --> 00:51:02.239
comes out at the end of this month. Actually it's

976
00:51:02.280 --> 00:51:05.599
the first Wow. Yeah, So it's been a busy. It's

977
00:51:05.599 --> 00:51:07.400
been a busy kind of it's a rain said atmosphere

978
00:51:07.480 --> 00:51:08.679
quiver has got me inside, right.

979
00:51:09.679 --> 00:51:12.360
I was gonna say, you mentioned that you like being outdoors.

980
00:51:12.360 --> 00:51:13.760
I'm like, how do you have the time.

981
00:51:15.079 --> 00:51:16.360
Rain gears, rain gears.

982
00:51:17.960 --> 00:51:19.920
All right, man, well, thank you so much and we'll

983
00:51:19.920 --> 00:51:22.920
have you on the show again. And I really enjoyed myself.

984
00:51:22.960 --> 00:51:23.880
Thank you you too.

985
00:51:23.920 --> 00:51:24.519
Man. Take care.