I love the feel of hardcovers, always have since I was a boy. I still have an early Twentieth Century edition of Treasure Island that just -feels- like a book. That's something you don't get with ebooks
I've always loved being published in print. I've had numerous stories in anthologies, and my earlier novels are also available in POD paperbacks -- I drool over the shelf on the bookcase. That's why this was so important to me -- my first novel in hardcover.
As for what's inside the covers.... It's kelp. It creeps. :-)
It's a homage to several things. There's more than a touch of Lovecraft obviously, given that I've appropriated the Shoggoths, but there's also a lot of John Whyndham in there. I wanted to do a big-scale, Britain-in-peril novel for a while. The title came to me one day and I knew immediately that there was a story to be told there. There's also a bit of QUATERMASS in there too -- the old "British scientists screw up" genre has been with me for a long time and it's also something else I've always wanted to do. Here it is.
I started my fandom of the disaster genre young and at first it was from a Science Fiction perspective. The British ones from the '50s and 60's got my attention, in particular John Wyndham's DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and THE KRAKEN WAKES. Them, and A CANTICLE FOR LIEBOWITZ were my earliest introductions to the form. After that came tales of cosmic disaster, mainly Lieber's THE WANDERER and Niven and Pournelle's LUCIFER'S HAMMER. My interest was further piqued by Terry Nation's TV show THE SURVIVORS, and Stephen King's THE STAND, the first to being real horror to the genre IMHO. But my favorite in the genre is by Robert Macammon. His SWAN SONG is a roller coaster blockbuster which eschew's King's religious trappings for non-stop action and gritty realism mixed with a slug of the supernatural. My kind of tale.
I grew up on a West of Scotland council estate in a town where you were either unemployed or working in the steelworks, and sometimes both. Many of the townspeople led hard, miserable lifes of quiet, and sometimes not so quiet desperation. My Granddad was housebound, and a voracious reader. I got the habit from him, and through him I discovered the Pan Books of Horror and Lovecraft, but I also discovered westerns, science fiction, war novels and the likes of Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain, Alistair MacLean, Dennis Wheatley, Nigel Tranter, Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov. When you mix all that together with DC Comics, Tarzan, Gerry Anderson and Dr Who then, later on, Hammer and Universal movies on the BBC, you can see how the pulp became embedded in my psyche.
If I had to describe my writing style in five words, it would be these: Entertaining, pulpy, fast-paced, old-school fun. The kick-ass cover Wayne Miller did echoes all those sentiments. Order it now, or I'll send the Shoggoths round.
If you are like me and grew up on those glorious nature run amok movies you will absolutely love The Creeping Kelp and I highly recommend it. - Famous Monsters of Filmland
No comments:
Post a Comment