048 - The New God with Jeffrey Thomas (& Special Guest Ian Rogers) - Weird Reads

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to the Weird Reader podcast, an extension of
Jason's Weird Reads found on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome, Hello, Welcome everybody today, I am very happy to
welcome a new guest of the show, and that is
Jeffrey Thomas. Jeffrey Thomas, you may know, is popular for

(00:40):
writing the punk Town short story collections and novels. And
I got my stupid thing on here, all right, and
Thomas or sorry, Jeffrey, would you like to introduce yourself quickly?

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Sure, Jeffrey Thomas. And yeah, I write a lot of
I write in the genres of science fiction and horror,
but I like to mash those together, and usually I
mationals together in my Punkdown series, I've written since two
thousand and I've had quite a few punk Down books released,

(01:17):
short story collections and novels. The first one was published
by Jeff Vandermire when he had his own small press
called Minister at Whimsy Press. And yeah, and my newest
one has called The New God and that's from Weird
House Press.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Awesome, and also joining me tonight is my new friend
Ian Rodgers. He was on the show about a month
month and a half ago, and I really love his
writing as well. Would you mind introducing yourself as well?

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Ian, Yeah, my.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
Name's Ian Rodgers. I've written some stuff, but I'm here
tonight as a hardcore Jeffrey Thomas fan, so fraid about
my stuff. I'm here to celebrate Punktown and all things
Jeffrey Thomas because Jeffrey I've known since, especially his work
from like the nineties when he was published in chat
books and everything else. That's how I found them and
just immediately fell in love with his work, what he
was doing with Cathula mis those stories, and then his

(02:07):
own Punk Town stuff, which was just basically like taking
the Cathula misso those in dumping them in kind of
like a Blade Runner esque setting, which was just absolutely
my jam. And it was just a great pleasure to
me that we became friends later on, and eventually I
was able to contribute a story to Transmissions from Punktown,
a collection where a lot of authors got to sort
of play at his sandbox, which was a great pleasure

(02:29):
and honor for me, and I just I love those stories.
They've they've they've influenced me so much in my own
Black Clan series, if not directly, then just how he
writes them. In such a way that makes them so
accessible to the casual reader while sort of rewarding the
super fan who's going to catch all these references. So
he's sort of been my uh, kind of like my

(02:50):
mentor in that way, and just a real inspiration and
just a really hell of a nice guy, so nice.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Before before we get into Jeffrey Thomas, something interesting happened. Well,
I was organizing all this in that we were talking
about your book, and Jeffrey Thomas bought a copy and
have you read it yet?

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Talk? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've finished recently. I very much
enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Sycamore, Sycamore.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's the book we were talking about
when Ian was on the show a month ago. Sycamore
is really fun. Absolutely adored it.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
I can't wait for more.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
Well, thank you, it's coming. There's another one this year
and possibly two more next year. I'm trying to I
kind of want to be like the anti George R. Martin,
where I'm not going to take ten years. Aren't the
doorstoppers that his are? So I it's full respect to him,
but I do want to sort of have a regular
stream of books that we don't want to want to
flood the market, but you want to have something regularly,

(03:48):
so they also don't forget you as as you know,
I'm sure as well as Jeff, you've sort of you
kind of got at least remind people that you're alive
out there. There's a lot of other books people can
be reading.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
But your series screams for continuance.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah. Stop. You can't finish Sycamore and not want that
next one.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Well, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
It was.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
It was a difficult book to write because it's as
you know, it sort of has to be a lot
of different things at the same time. It has to
sort of if there's only one book, it has to
sort of stand on its own. I wanted to stand
on its own anyway. I didn't want it to be
full of all these cliffhangers and you'll have to write
the second book to do this. I want people to
sort of it. If they just enjoyed it, they enjoyed it.
But if they want more, there's more. So it was

(04:29):
That's why I keep saying. It was a book that
had to do a lot of things at once. But
at the end of the day, I just hope that
people really got to get kick out of the story,
so so thank you. That really means a lot.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
That's that's got to be a challenge writing a book
that's in a series, but making it so that it
can stand alone on its own as well well.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
And again, as I said, I was really taking I
took a page, regardless of all my detective influences or
the sort of paranorm foresiegeable stuff of like the X
Files or even Twin Peaks. I was really in the
back of my mind, like Jeff Thomas was my Yoda,
going no, no, you can do it. This is how
I did it. And all I did was I would
go back and I was already reading that. I'm pretty
sure I've read every single thing in the Punktown series,

(05:09):
and I would just go back and reread it, and
I'd just be like, oh, this is how he did that.
I remember when I read the original Punktown collection and
each story almost had an easter egg from the previous one.
And I remember I emailed you about that, Jeff, and
you said that I was one of the very few
people who actually noticed that, whether it was a product
thing or a character reference or a neighborhood reference, it
was like these little stepping stones throughout the entire collection,

(05:31):
and I just I love stuff like that. It's like
it's like you're sharing a secret with the writer. You know,
you're both sharing the same world and just so accessible
and so much one and just so original, you know.
I just like you could say that it's this meets that,
but until you actually read it and discover, like how
wonderful the world is. I mean, it's one of those
series where I just keep telling people it's one I
recommend most and when I say, well, which which should

(05:52):
I start with, I'm like, it doesn't matter, whichever one
you can find by that and start from there. And
that's that's part of the jewel of the series, in
my opinion, one of.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
The many I appreciated in the Back of Sycamore where
you had said that that you had mentioned punk Down
and how the Punkdown stories can all be read individually.
You don't need to read another one to understand this one.
You can just read one. You can read them all
and and and I like that approach a lot. And

(06:24):
because I get intimidated myself with series. Sometimes something will
sound very interesting and then I'll read that it's the
first and a trilogy something and I'll get kind of
put off that I feel obligated if I'm going to
have to follow this plot line, and I would rather
read like like the Felix RN the black Lands books,

(06:46):
where I can read them out of sequence. I can
read all of them or one of them or whatever,
and then then you feel the less pressured or less
you know, you know you can go you can read that,
you can go away something else. And so that's when
I wanted to provide with people so they didn't feel
intimidated at all with my with my Pumptown stories.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
Well, that was definitely something that I had a lot
of conversations with with Dan Franklin at Cemetery Dance, who's
a big fan of the series and obviously is really
invested in it, and we both agreed because it was
one of the things that I said that there's no
numbers on these books. This isn't book one, this isn't
Book two. I want people to be able to sort
of pay. Like the next book in the series, it's
a reprint of Supernatural Tales that came out like ten
years ago, which was a collection of the very early

(07:28):
Felix frind Chat books with a story that actually takes
place right after the end of Sycamore. So Supernatural Tales
is being reprinted this year with a new cover the
same stories. But it's kind of cool because it's actually
a prequel and a sequel to Sycamore. So I think
of it as book zero. Actually it's not really book two.
Book two will becoming next yeous to what I'm writing
right now, and it's really picking up from the storylines

(07:50):
of Sycamore, and there are there are character arcs, and
there are story arcs. But again, you could still read
book two on its own if that's the first one
that you pick up, and if you go back to Sycamore,
you're not really going to be missing out on anything.
So it's, uh, it's like with your stuff, Jeff, like
you've had you've had a few Recraine characters in Punktown,
but you don't need to have read say Red Cells,
and then go to the other stories with your shape

(08:10):
shifting detective character and be like, oh, I read these
out of order. I'm I'm screwed. This is you know,
I don't know, You're just I was happy to like
bumping into a friend on the street and it's like, oh,
so like even the references that I caught in The
New God. It's been a little while thaying I'm trying
to I was trying to remember what the last Punktown
book you did before the New God. And I'm not

(08:30):
sure if it was Red Cells or not, but I
caught stuff like the color strain. I caught obviously, the neighborhoods.
I'm very familiar with the uh the the geography of
punktown itself. But again, it was really it was like
coming home in a way and seeing your favorite hangouts
and meeting some of your favorite people. It was so fun.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
You know.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Before we go on, I just want to thank you
Ian because you sent me these books. Oh and uh,
that's that's really awesome. And uh, yeah, I've read that.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
You know.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
One thing I love about having a channel like this
is that you you learn about new authors all the time.
And sometimes it's like, how did I not find this
person earlier?

Speaker 1 (09:13):
You know what I mean? Like, but uh, I.

Speaker 4 (09:16):
Can't do and I can't do that for jeff I
wish I could have the camera here, but my my
Jeffrey Thomashalk is right there. And it's still because I've
got all the standards, I've got a lot of limited editions,
and I even have the super rare Fall of Haites,
the the Little the Sculpture of the Gun, the the
Gun and everything. I even have one of those. So

(09:36):
it's like and I've even got a copy of the
super rare oh is it the dream the dream Catchers
and the dream Masters. You're you're Freddy Krueger Books, dream Dealers.
You can't fight anywhere. So it was like that was
I don't remember how I found it, but.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, those go for Those go for a lot these
days if they could find them.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
The funny thing with me is the only physical book
of yours I own, Jeffrey. Everything is is like like
I have a lot of your books on ebook because
I'm a big e reader, because well, books have like
really overtaken my home. But I do have one of yours,
and it's one that you co wrote with your old

(10:19):
friend W. H.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Pugmyer Willhelm. Yes, I have encounters with the colin.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
It's funny that you that you mentioned that book, because
that's the latest thing that I've been working on is
Dark Regent's Press has has gone out of business and
so my books with them have kind of are kind
of orphaned. And I recently re released one myself called
Nocturnal Admissions, and I brought that out myself. But then
I thought, well, what am I going to do with

(10:48):
my up conference stories? I don't have Willem unfortunately passed
away in twenty nineteen, and I don't have the rights
to his work. His literary executor is St. Josh and
so I hope somehow his stories can stay in print.
The only control I have is over my own stories.

(11:08):
And Willim and I wrote that book together. We each
wrote six stories about the same character. Was initially William's
idea for this character, and he asked me to collaborate
with him because he wanted the character as an artist.
And Willem knew that I was an artist and wanted
to bring that to the character. So he wrote six stories,
and I wrote six stories about this character enough coffin

(11:31):
and so, as I say, I only have control over
my own so and I wanted to keep them in print,
so I was gonna republish them myself. But then I
offered the story the collection of Just My Stories to
Weird House Press and Joe Moray He's very excited. He
was very excited about it, and I had two other
short stories that weren't in that book, but they mentioned

(11:55):
kind of you know, confidences a side character, so I
put them in there, and then I just wrote a
forty thousand word novella to flesh the book out even further.
It's the first story I've written about that character for
many years now. The original book came out, I think
in twenty twelve, so it was fun to revisit that character.
I read all my you know, Coffin stories over again,

(12:18):
I read Willielms's stories over again, just to get into
that headspace again. So I just turned that book over
to Joe Morey, and I'm certain he's going to want it,
I know, Joe.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Awesome.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
And so that was the most recent thing I worked
on was kind of a I'm calling it the return
if You're not Coffin because it's you know, it's not
quite the same as that as that book, but it's
my contributions and more.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, awesome. I've noticed.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
And one thing I admire about you is not too
many people do this, but the books of yours that
have gone out of print, you have been re releasing.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
How is that.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Experience been and what what has been like? Maybe the
biggest challenge of doing that.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
It's uh, I'm I'm so grateful that I can do that.
You know, when they go out of print, I like,
I want to keep them. I want to keep them
in print. I want people to to be able to
still get them. And and there hasn't been a whole
lot of a challenge because what I I format them
myself and I acquire new artwork for the covers and

(13:27):
so forth, and they don't they definitely don't generate a
lot of income. But it's just nice to know that
they're still out there if people want to seek them out.
And even a couple of my of my books that
had the most readership, that had the greatest exposure, like
my novels Dead Stock and Blue War, when those went

(13:47):
out of print, I was very grateful that I could
keep them keep them going. So it's just, uh, I
think it's it's valuable that you can that you could
do that book us and have to go vanish and
be inaccessible anymore.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, And like I was saying, a lot of authors
seem to not do that despite that option being there.
I think it's honestly, it's a good idea.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
It might still be maybe part of it is there's
a kind of a stigma about self publishing, and there
shouldn't be, but I think the stigma derives from the
fact that there's a lot of bad stuff to get
self published, and it's hard to differentiate between what has
value and what doesn't.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
But well, and you're you're you're fairly established. So I
feel like if you self publish something, and especially if
it's something that you're just trying to keep in print,
I don't I'm sure it's not even really viewed as
a self published book. It's more like no one has
no one really, no publisher has ownership because the publisher
no longer has the rights, or the publisher is no
longer in business, and you're just trying to make it available.
So I think that's if anything, I think it's a

(14:50):
service to your fans, right, And I will say like,
especially with the care that you do it, you you
do such a really good job. And I love what
what Weird House is done with the new artwork for
especially for the Hades series. I mean, all those books already,
if there's a players like, oh, I got to buy
them again because I think there was a bonus story
and one of the mess is like I'll have to
go and buy them again. But there, they're never going

(15:10):
to have this, I'm pretty sure. Which is the Yeah,
that's wonderful.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
That's a sculpture that was done by Frank Walls.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yeah, he did a beautiful job. I love his artwork.
He's his He's done the artwork on quite a few
of my books by now. Like, like Ian just said
that the new uh, the reprints of the Haiti series,
Frank Walls did the covers for all of those and uh,
and he'll be doing the cover for the new Enoch
Coffin book. And that was the sentient gun from my

(15:42):
novel The Fall of Hades.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
Yeah, so good too. And I guess you're just like
I love I love the sprawl, like literally intiguarly a punktown,
but I also love the there's almost like there almost
is really a beginning, middle, and end to to the
Hades story where it's just like this is your view
on Heaven and Helen everything in between, making it almost
very it's very meat and there's a metaphysical aspect to it.

(16:05):
But you also have these people like Jesus and all
these characters as as people as characters that are tangible
in reality. Like it's when when I was describing I
sold my own Angels and Demons story to help PS publishing.
They published it last last summer. And the way that
I described that that it's this this crime religious noir,

(16:25):
and I was trying to say, like, well, what if
uh what if, oh my god, his name escapes me
l a confidential? Uh yeah, thank you? What if I
had decided to rewrite the Bible as a crime epic?

Speaker 3 (16:40):
You know.

Speaker 4 (16:40):
So he's like, it's all the characters and they're just
doing things, you know, like imagine you know, the Devil
and his children, the Seven Deadly Sins were sort of
like Ocean's Eleven, but they're demons, you know. So it's
it was just trying to have fun with it but
also being very like it's it's not even blasphemous, and
actually keep in mind with what these people are according
to the according to the Bible. But it was just

(17:01):
something a way of sort of reapproaching this this material
and having fun with it the same way that other
people like Richard Cadre or anyone else who's written about
you know, even good omens. You know that that game
and Pratchett had done back in the nineties, just sort
of having fun with with angels and demons while actually
sort of even honoring the text but doing something different
with it in a fantasy setting or noir or whatever.

(17:21):
So what you did with the Haiti series was sort
of your take on it, starting with I believe was
Letters from Hades, and then I correct me if I'm wrong,
Letters from Hades Beautiful Hell. And then there was the collection,
and then there was a Fall of Hades. I think
that that's that's correct, Yes, yes, but it tells a
full story there, and and I just loved it. I
was just immediately cooked because you've got different characters, it's

(17:43):
not even following necessarily the same characters through all of it,
and Letters from Hades is is told, and I think
largely journal wonders. It is kind of like an a
pistolary book, as I recall, right, yes exactly, and I
just love it. It takes up this guy has died,
he is in Hell, here's how hell works, here's sort
of the hierarchy. And I was just hooked against another
mythology where it was the same thing sort of with

(18:04):
punk Town, where you sort of yeah, if I describe
it to you, you're going to say, oh, it's just
like this, It's like, well sort of, but you have
to read it to realize that it's not like that
at all. Just doing his own thing with this, and
it's truly special.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
Thanks seeing that. That's kind of the tricky balance. Also
with the Punkdown stories. It's like, if you look at
punk Town, the superficially nothing stands out as being really revolutionary.
You know, it's it's you know, aliens all kind of
a melting pot of aliens and flying cars and futuristic

(18:37):
cities and so forth. But it's it's it's when you
get down to the surface level and start you know,
that's when that hopefully it starts to feel a little
have a little more more idiosyncratic, idiosyncratic character, a little
bit more uniqueness. And that's like you said, with the
Haiti stories, of course, you know, uh, hades, you hit hell,

(19:00):
you've got demons in the damned and all that stuff.
But then that you you get when you look closer,
that you see the individual characteristics of the of the
series and and and so forth.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
Well, and again that's I think as part of your
strength as a writer is that you're not You're not
obsessed over gadgets or setting. It all comes back to
the characters and and for me, that's what always really
stuck with with the stories. And I can even go
back to one of the very first times I was
reading the original Punk towns or collection, and I think
that even there's even one story that deals with like
a sorority house. I think was at the Sisters of
No Mercy aroriy house on Punk Town. It was just

(19:34):
in fun touts. It's like, this is you've got detective characters.
I remember the the uh it was like a you
union Dick, I think is what the story is called,
like You're It's it's again what I'm trying to do
with the Black Plans. So, yes, I'm telling a story
with with Felix Rernd. I'm going to tell lots of
stories about this Toronto based PI. But I've got other characters.

(19:55):
I've got a short story that I'm working on right
now that takes place with the commercial fishing and the
street that bring me to triangle what that would be
like just for the average show trying to make a
living in a place where there's portals everywhere. Right, So
it's it goes completely sideways. But for me, I've always
thought The black Lands and I think your Punktown series
is very, very similar. It's not the characters that you

(20:17):
see over and over again, it's the world that's the
real recurring character. You know, when when my my manager
is trying, I was always trying to pitch black Lands
stuff and the way that we described it, because you
have to have to reduce it down to its simplest
idea for studio executives. And if they don't read, they
hire people, they actually hire people. That's all. That's how
you know, dumbed down. You have to bring it Someime's
not all the time. I'm not saying they're idiots, but

(20:38):
time or they're just not No judgment, No judgment for
the black Lands. I always say that it's a supernatural
version of the Wire because everyone knows the Wire, everyone
loves the Wire. And I say that this is a
TV show that dealt with Each season was a different
group of people it was. The first season was the cops,
the second season with the dockworkers and the Stevadors. The
third season was the school system, the teachers, and then

(21:00):
you know the journalists. Like every season focused on a
different group of people, but the real recurring character was
the city of Baltimore. How does this city run? And
some people would come and go. It's like usually the
cop characters are the same from season to season, but
not always. But that was why it was so fascinating,
because I've never seen a show like that before where
people will come and go you might never see them again.
But it was really this is how the city is
the recurring character, in the same way that I feel
Punktown is the real recurring character. Whether you're reading Blue

(21:23):
Planet or Everybody's Scream or a short story that you
happen to, just pick up an anthology and you just
see it. I always love when I read a short story,
when I discover a punkdown story and a collection or
an anthology and Jeff has got this way of mentioning
it's Paxton. You know, some people will call punk Down.
It's usually one line and it's like that's all he'll
give you is this is like, no, no, I have

(21:43):
a story to tell here. This is my job is
to tell the story. You don't even need to know
that there's twenty of these stories elsewhere. It's like, this
is my job is to tell this story and if
you like it, maybe you'll pick it up and find
somewhere else. And again, I had a story and a
tour Nightfire anthology called Scream from the Dark. Ellen dot
Low bought this standalone black Land. Store's not even a

(22:05):
Felix Ren story. It was just a regular standalone black
Land story, and she liked it, and she put it
at the very start of the book because she said
that she wanted that story to be the one that
introduces the collection, and she knew it was Blacklands, and
there was never any Oh, I don't think people will
get this. If it's part of a series, we will
confuse people. She really believed in me, and she believed
in the stories, and she knew what I was doing.
And I think she even made a Punktown reference at

(22:25):
one point, because I always correspond for quite a bit,
and I think that she knew exactly what I was doing,
because I mean, no one's no one's read more short
stories than Ellen Dotlow, So I think that she really
got it. And I was like, yeah, I mean everything
that I'm doing is because of Jeff and what he
what do they say, like, you know, he walks? So
that I can run with that. It's not the expression

(22:45):
that people say, you know, So that's that I'm running.
My stories are not nearly as successful as just but
what I'm trying, and I wouldn't be doing it much.
So that's having the fun that I'm having with it
if it wasn't looking back on your work Jet and
the fact that you're still doing it. I was so
excited when when the new God was announced and it
was like, oh wow, I got I'm gonna goggle this stuff.
And then and it was Jason's idea to say, we

(23:06):
should read it together. See if we can get Jeff
on this podcast and talk about the book.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, And it was our conversation Ian because I heard
you on another podcast or YouTube channel, I can't remember what,
and you were talking a lot about Jeffrey Thomas, and
then it came up again in our discussion, and then
we were talking more about Jeffrey Thomas after after the
show was over, and I was like, you know, a

(23:32):
couple of days later, I just kind of clicked, you know,
why don't we get like, he just released this new
book I've been wanting to read because it's a punk
doown novel. Why don't I just get us all together
and we'll chat about the New God.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
It was it was just those things came together. I
already had it was sitting on my pile, and of
course I'm a slow reader, but I knew I was
going to get to it sooner than the other stuff.
But it was you that made me really want to
get to it at a time. And I don't know
about you guys. So let's face it, this year has
not started off really great for a lot of people. Yeah, no,
personally and professionally and just everything that's going on. It's
just there's there's been a lot. So being able to

(24:05):
read a book like like Jeff's The New God was
something was like it's what I said before. It was
it was like meeting old friends again and it was
just like, oh, this is it was a comfort reading, right.
It was just like even though it was a book
I'd never read before, it wasn't the book I'd gone
back to and I'm going to reread, like say The
Stand for the fiftieth time. This was a new book
by someone I really respected. In a world that I'm
strumia with. It was like, Oh, this is exactly the
book I need to read right now, So being able

(24:27):
to talk to both of you guys about it, it's
this is definitely one of the highlights of the year
for me right now.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
And I appreciate all your kind words.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Again, before we go on with The New God, can
we just so people know, I don't know if a
lot of my audience know Jeffrey Thomas or punk Town.
So Jeffrey, could you tell us a little bit about
what punk punk Town is and how it relates to
your your latest novel, The New God.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Sure, punk Town. I've been writing about punk Town since
I eighteen eighty. It was It wasn't until you know,
a good many years later that I started publishing in
the small press some Punktown work. But I've been been
writing about it consistently, consistently since nineteen eighty. And how
I originally saw it and was as a a massive

(25:20):
city on another planet that is populated. It has their
indigenous people, but it's been it's largely populated by people
Earth colonists, but also a melting pot for aliens from
from from everywhere. What I took my inspiration from people,
and I don't fault them for it, but they people

(25:41):
frequently compare punk down to Blade Runner, but since I've
been writing about since nineteen eighty, it was several years
before Blade Runner. But I admit that I took a
lot of inspiration from the mass Isley Spaceport in Star Wars.
I loved that was my favorite part of Star Wars.
And I saw all these aliens and commingling and everything

(26:02):
and this you know, kind of in crime written little town,
and I thought I'd like to write about something like that,
but on a larger scale, like a whole gigantic city
of Megalopolis and so that, and so I rang with
that idea. And but right from the start, I knew
that I didn't want to just write about the same characters.

(26:26):
And I guess a way to this kind of compare
it would be to say, like, uh, you know, in
Rear Window, the entire movie takes place from Jimmy Stewart's
point of view, and he's looking at that apartment building
crossed the way, and he just looks at what's going
on in this one and what's going on in that one,
And everyone is telling a different story, and some stories

(26:46):
are funny and some are tragic, and and throughout the
movie you're seeing these different stories play out, and that's
kind of how it is the punk town. Punktown is
is you can you can watch what's going on in
this window for a while, and then what's going on
this window, and and there are all these individual stories
and they they're they're united by the fact that they're

(27:06):
all taking place in Punkdown, as in that in their window,
they're all taking place in the same building, but the
people aren't necessarily interacting with each other. And so that's
kind of my has been consistently my my approach throughout
and and the New God is the latest in that series.
And they don't all not all Punkdown stories have a

(27:28):
horrific component what they often do, they usually but I
like the freedom with Punkdown that they can go all
they can be. One could be like a detective story,
one can be uh have be more like a black comedy.
And I frequently have brought in love crafty and kind

(27:48):
of elements or or feeling. But I that by by
no means is that a consistent component in the Punkdown
stories either, although in the New Odd it's to the
four more so than in probably any of the other stories.

Speaker 4 (28:05):
Yeah, did you confirm more deny that the title Punktown
comes from funky Town.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
The song. Yeah, in nineteen eighty I was working in
a shoe company and it was very noisy, all the
machines and everything in radios, and that that song came
out around that time, Lips and was it Lips Incorporated?
Funky Town is and I would hear that, and because
it was the era of punk rock, I thought they
were saying, take me down the punk town, and so

(28:37):
that got stuck in my head, punkdown. And so even
when I found out it was Funky Town, I had
Punkdown stuck in my head, and I told that I
one time I found the website for Lips Incorporated and
I and you could leave stories about how you encountered
their music and whatever, and I wrote that little story
about how I wrote series of stories called punk Town
based because I was inspired by your song funky Town.

(29:00):
And they sent me a Funky Town T shirt.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Nice.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
That's awesome. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, what what was the very first thing?

Speaker 1 (29:12):
Like where did punk punk Down come? What did it
come from? That song?

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Or that was where the title came from?

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, like the stories and the idea of it being
like on a colonized planet.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
It's just I don't know.

Speaker 5 (29:25):
I think it's just it's I think it's just kind
of a composite of all my influences growing up, but
you know, loving like science fiction like Star Star Trek
and uh, but also living horror like Arter Limits and and.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
And just all these influences, and I just felt like
a place where I could mash all that together. Plus
a social commentary is a it seems like it's a
good canvas for that as well.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
Yeah, I think that was what I was going to say.
Especially when I was reading Knew God. It was like
a reminder that I mean, obviously I love the mashup
of sort of cosmic menace with science fiction, but what
I feel like isn't really remarked on enough is the
way that you explore sort of the social and psychological
aspects of the way that things take a toll on
characters in the punk Town stories. And I thought right

(30:13):
away I was reminded like, oh, this is one of
these reasons why I really love Jeffrey's work. Is club
feel you know, on the surfaces, this ordinary dance club
with loud music and bright stroking lights, but the floor
is made of this synthetic human skin, And when when
the when the protagonists, when when con Rex goes to
order a drink from a table computer, he's surprised to
see that, instead of holograms and intangible control, panels is

(30:34):
controlled by like hand moves, like like like knobs and
you know, clunky buttons and everything. And for me, this
is like a deliberate feature of the club that I
saw in response to the growing psychological malaise of the
citizens of Punktown who feel disconnected from physical reality due
to the exposure of holograms and other intangible media. And
it's just it's a small detail, but to me, it
just really shows that that Jeff's just you know, that

(30:56):
you're doing something on a whole other level here. Even
the argument AI, you know, like there's there's an AI,
large component of AI in this story. Without really spoiling
too much, I don't want to talk too much about
the details of the book, but it was just so
so topical, so so on point too that it's just
again it's uh, there's a there's a social satire, but

(31:17):
there's also a very deeply felt humanity that I was like, wow,
this this this really resonates to me, you know, just
like it's been too long since they've been to punk Town.
And of course I didn't want to hope and something
I was going to ask you later on, But like
I'm hoping that is this going to be sort of
like a precursor to more, you know, punktown books? And
are they going to come like sooner than the last one?

(31:37):
I can't think. I think the last one was Red Cells,
which was quite a few years ago, if I recalled,
But again I'm wrong, But I mean may be hungry
for more, you know, It's I'm selfish that way.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
Yeah, I don't. I don't actually I don't have any plans,
but there's always it's there's always the possibility, you know.
Uh where whereas I have planned not to write anymore
Haiti stories, I just feel like I've done everything I
can with that, it's a little it's a little bit more.
I feel that trilogy that that has come out recently,

(32:09):
the re released volumes from Weirdhouse Press, I think that's
the I want to just keep it all in that
in those three volumes where punk down to me, it's
always it's a place I I know I can always
come back to again. And and although I don't have
any solid plans. I I wouldn't be surprised if I did.

(32:30):
And I wanted to point out that the New God
has kind of an interesting history. Some years ago, there
was a kickstarter for a punk Town role playing game
that some some people wanted to do. It was a
guy named Mike Tresca was the one who really was

(32:52):
kind of uh got that going, and uh, I don't
play role playing games myself, so I'm sure I'll never
play the pump Town again. I played Dunge Engine Dragons
once in my life with a friend. So but they
it was the kickstarter was successful and the Punktown role
playing game came out. It's it's kind of obscure, but

(33:13):
it's still out there. And this whole guide book was
put together. It's like a punk Town encyclopedia. And so
there were there were some game scenarios in that volume,
and one of them was by Brian M. Salmons, a writer,
a fellow writer, and he also has done a lot
of anthologies singly and also collaborating with people like Glenn

(33:33):
Owen Bears and so Brian Brian uh success. His scenario
and that guide book was called Looking Long into the Abyss,
and Brian came to me, and he suggested that we
flesh that scenario out and write a novel, to collaborate
on a novel together, and so I agreed to that,

(33:53):
and we I wasn't sure how to. I typically don't
really collaborate with people. My most successful collaboration was that
one with W. Pugmier, but even then it was kind
of stranger first finding the right approach to that because
I'm not prone to collaboration. So we finally decided that
I would write the first half of the novel, The

(34:14):
New God. At the time, it didn't have a title
based on Brian's scenario based on Punk Town. So I
wrote my first half, and then for various reasons, uh,
various personal reasons and so forth, Brian wasn't wasn't able
to write the second half, and so I asked for

(34:35):
his blessings to complete it myself, and he told me
to go for it, and uh, but I didn't get
to it right away, And eventually Joe Moriy of Weirdhouse
Press asked me if I if I could give him
some kind of a love craft in book. He thought
that would be good, and and then I thought of

(34:57):
The New God, and I thought instead of writing something new,
I think I'm going to finally complete that. And by
the time I got back to it and completed it,
a span of I can't remember for it was nine
or ten years it passed. So even though I agree
it seems very topical because AI has a lot to
do with it that it's based on that Brian scenario,

(35:20):
the basic plot set up, and so I have to
credit Brian for that. He was he hit a lot
of force, I guess about because and another funny thing
about this is, you know, I like to cast actors

(35:41):
in roles so I can have some kind of a
mental picture what the character might look like, and I
might not just for my own benefit. And so I
saw the And this is funny because in your in
some interview that you did, you said you saw Max
Wren as possibly being Ryan Goslin.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
Yes, I did. I was literally just thinking of that
right now. It's just like, he's not He's not a
tough guy, because anyone anyone who thinks he's a tough
guy obviously hasn't read the stories that yeah, get ass
kicked more than than than he probably gets. You know,
he's definitely like it was when when when we were
casting the audio person when Spotify to the audio book
they were. They were asking me for notes of who
they should get because they let me audition Narraiders and
one guy was doing like a Humphrey Barget Humphrey Bogart impersonation,

(36:21):
which was like, no, that's absolutely not And I said,
and they said, well, can you tell us why? And
I said, well, Felix is the anti PI and they
said that's perfect. So they went out and they picked
someone who's really great. And that's why I figured. That's
why I thought of of Ryan Gosling was because you
don't look at him and see that he's this big,
tough guy.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
I was.

Speaker 4 (36:37):
I was actually thinking of him and Blade Runner twenty
forty nine because of course he's got the coat. He
looks for a PI. You know, he's a cop. And
I was thinking, oh, I was already picturing him, But like,
that's that's Felix. That to me is like he can
sort of take care of himself. He's not going to
take on five guys. But even if he was a
fair you wouldn't look at him and see that about it.
He's a very unassuming that way, you know.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
Right, He's not like a Nile Swartzer naked or something
figure side. Ironically, I pictured Brian Gosling as the protagonist.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Oh, mad God, you know that.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
That's incredible that you say that, because it was one
of my questions. You you go into a description of
what Colin Rex, what he looks like, and I was like, God, damn,
that's Ryan Gosling. Oh my God, And so I couldn't
help but think of Brian Gosling through.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Well.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
That's why when I saw Blade Run at twenty forty nine,
it was like, Oh, for God's sake, because not only that,
but in the New God his love interest is an Ais,
like an ai ghost of a lover. And I wrote again,
I wrote that first half of the book nine or
ten years ago, so it was before Blade Runner twenty

(37:43):
forty nine, right, So I thought, you said, I change this,
and I thought, just.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
Now, there's all these there's those movies like that. There's
there's just as many movie crossovers as there are story crossovers.
I'll tell you a funny story. JASONVI and Jeffrey here
we just talk to before we would adver really have
the same titles for stories aready called out of the Blue,
he's got a story called out of the Blue, and
like there's all kinds of stuff. So it's funny that
you said, because you actually, when you're just describing Felix Wren,
you actually said Max Wren. I wouldn't want to correct you. No, no, no,

(38:11):
actually know it's fine because I know the reason I
to name it, Like the very first Black Man story
is temporary Monsters. It's full of movie east because I'm
a movie jounk yea, I love movie trivia, and Max Rent,
I call it Max Felix. The name comes from uh
Cronenberg and the character from Video Drome, which is my
very favorite Cronenberg. The character in that movie is named

(38:36):
Max Wren, and Max Wren comes from David Cronenberg is
a big car guy. He likes cars, he likes motorcycles.
A ren Max is a German motorcycle that he loves.
So he had this He's had this motorcycle called a
Ren Max, and so he just took the name and
flipped it and said, well, I'm gonna call my character
in Videodrome Max Wren. So I took Felix Wren just
because Felix was actually the name one of my favorite

(38:58):
characters from John Stakeley's novels Vampires and Armor. He only
wrote two books before he died, and they were fantastic.
So and both books had a character named Felix, no
last name, and both books went. One is a vampires
working for sorry vampire Hunters sanctioned by the Vatican, and
Armor is basically Starship Troopers. It's it's it's military science fiction,

(39:21):
so it couldn't be further apart. But the books have
both got this little like not even a warning, but
a little note on the copyright page. This Felix is
no other Felix. This jack Crow is no other jack
Crow because there's also a character named jack Crow in
both books and for whatever reason, the actor maybe he
had friends with that name. But both books have a
Felix and a jack Crow. So my Felix I took

(39:42):
from those books because I love those books. The Wren
came from Max Wren from Video Drome. So when you
said Max red is like I didn't, I didn't, As
is like, well, I know that I know that Jeffrey
is a Universe fan too, so that's probably subconsciously I'm sending.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
That to Oh my god, funny, how you and I
kind of are where we we we both have this
like a story dead Stock right out of the blue,
and we definitely think of life because both casting Ryan Gosling.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
Right and some And the funny thing is like the
stories are nothing alike. Like your dead Stock is a
punktown novel, which is fantastic. My dead Stock is a
weird Western So it's like they it's not even like
the stories are are similar. They're just we're starting where
we're obviously ticking up each other's wavelegs on some level.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, well, honestly, there's nothing wrong with casting Ryan Gosling
in your head as a character because he's like he's
almost like, aside from being like that big muscular Arnold
Sourz snigger guy that can kick everyone's ass, he I
think he fits into the everyday sort of dude persona
really well, well.

Speaker 4 (40:48):
They're much as much more interesting. I mean, I think
no one, no one really wants that character. I think
I think our flaws are the things that make us
stand out right absolute. So I make feel looks funny,
but I don't really make him trite. He's and there's
a reason why he's funny. In my world, as you
guys knows you've read Sycamore. He's very upfront that it's
a defense mechanism. They live in a world it's very

(41:09):
dark and depressing. He doesn't look at the news. He
makes sometimes like really inappropriate joke. It's not not offensive jokes,
but of the moment, because this is how he keeps from,
you know, wanting to go home and split his wrists,
or because this is something that's a problem in this world,
like this is something palpable that's hanging over people's heads
living with this reality. And this was something when when

(41:31):
my manager has been trying to how can we successfully
sell a Blacklands project? And I said, well, forget about
the stories, forget about pitching any specific story or novel.
Most of these guys, we've got families, have got children.
Imagine your kid has a nightmare, they think there's a
monster under the bed or in their closet. You're going
up to make them feel better. We've all been in
that situation. I have and I don't have kids, but

(41:52):
they've been in that situation. Imagine we live in a
world where you can't do that because monsters exist. What
are you now telling your child what you want but
they're going to learn about the black Lands in school eventually,
so I mean, like, what what do you do? So
that was to me sort of like the what I'm
hoping would be the mind blowing moment, like, oh, this
is what the Blacklands world could be as a franchise
or an ip whatever you want to call it. For me,

(42:14):
it's always about the stories and the characters. But when
I'm trying to sell a project to Hollywood, I have
to kind of put the Hollywood pitch persona on and
speaks in that language. So for me, it's also very
personal and I love these stories and that's where my
heart lies, you know. I like, I like working with
film and TV, but for me, it's just like my
heart is in my books. You know, Like if if
I sell something a Hollywood, it's really just subsidizing my

(42:35):
writing career. I'm not going to ever quit writing books.
That's that's what I want to do. That's that's what
I'll always do.

Speaker 6 (42:40):
Yeah, I love the the the the how scary the
concept of the black Lands is because as you've seen Sycamore,
a portal can open anywhere, So there's kind of people
are going to be living under that stress constantly, if
even if it's just in the back of the minds
that they can't find firm foot on because anything can happen,

(43:02):
any danger could just pop up right in your in
your house, so to speak.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
And so you could see where Felix's sense of humor
would be born partly of cynicism, like I said, partly
as a defense mechanism. Doesn't touch sadness to what I feel.
And so it's he's not like you said, he's not tried,
he's not flippant. Uh. This is his kind of bitter
kind of way to uh kind of express things in

(43:30):
a way that to deal with it, Like you said,
this this very uh hostile and changing world, which you
could look at that in all kinds of metaphorical ways.
The sequence is where he actually uh enters the black
lands that we're terrifying. They were truly chilling, you know, and.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
You know that I've had in my head for a
very very long time because I knew it was sort
of like it was a I don't necessarily a game changer,
but it was a wonder was like this is where
I'm really trying to turn on the word ide. It
was going to be a very scary scene and scary
for the character too. It is one thing where was like,
if there's the beginning, there's the end, and you have
to do those things. Well, that was the scene where's like,
I can't screw this up. I have to make sure
this scene is really good for a full.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
Length novel as opposed to the short stories. It called
for that kind of payoff, and you delivered with those sequences.
They were really chilling well.

Speaker 4 (44:22):
And I did it kind of backwards, you know, And
I think you've done it certain of the same way
too with your series. And again taking a queue from Punktown,
where I did all the short stories and novella's first,
and then it took me ten years fiften years to
do the novel. I don't think you took that long
to do your Punktown novels, but I believe you started
with the short stories first and sort of went with
there and build it. You know. It's like I always
saw them as kind of like trailers leading up to

(44:44):
the main attraction, you know, to the main feature, and
for me that was that was exactly what you know. Again,
I really appreciate that you really get what I was
trying to do with Sick more because it was sort
of like, this is the This was delivery on the
promise I sort of made with those short stories, So
this is what a novel will be. I don't want
to be full of all these grand set pieces. I
still want to really honor what Felix does as a character,

(45:04):
but I do definitely need to deliver and justify why
this is a novel and not another novella or whatever.
So it needs to be grandiose without having huge explosions,
and you know, it's it's not like a superhero movie
where it has to have all these these giants set
pieces and stuff in this ridiculous action, because that's not
a Felix story. It still needs to be a Felix story.
I still wanted to have those kinds of scenes while

(45:25):
still honoring what a Felix story should be. It's his
His stories are very much supernatural noirs. I'm really trying
to honor my love of you know, Ross MacDonald, you
know William Hortzberg's Falling Angel, you know, even Clive Barker's
Harry to Moore stories, as much as I'm trying to
honor like Robert B. Parker, Dashel Hannett the long you know,

(45:46):
you know series of PI author fiction that we've had,
but the other story with other recurring characters are different.
You know, like there's the the Alice Baffle character that
that's introduced in Sycamore. I have ideas for series of
novels with her, and hers are very much paranormal procedurals.
They're like, what if Thomas Harris wrote horror novels instead
of procedurals, Right, So it's like, imagine Clarice Starling instead

(46:10):
of going to work for behavioral science, she went to
work for the X Files, you know. So it's just
and again for me, it's just really taking the supernatural,
or started taking our world and dipping it in the supernatural.
And and you know, the Jerry Baldwin character, the felix
Is Trench, who sells haunted houses for a living. I
literally just finished a new thirty thousand word novella with

(46:31):
him on Friday. And his stories are a little bit lighter.
They're sort of like Elmore Leonard sort of capers. They're
not funny because there's nothing really funny about this world.
But again, that's the whole point of the series, is
that even the stories tonally can be different, you know,
like the Felix Lens are supernatural noirs, the Alex baffel
Wins are paranormal procedurals, whereas Jerry Baldwin are kind of

(46:52):
Elmore Leonard meets the Amityville horror you know, sort of
like and they're just fun. Like He's he's got bus
ads around the around the city because he's real estate
agent trying to sell haunted properties. And the the slogan
he has is put a little super into your natural life.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
You know.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
That's the world. You know, I've tried to take I
tried to put the super into this natural world that
we all live in. Whereas like, well, what if ghosts
and monsters really exist, if you're not going to bump
into them as you if you walk when you walked
down street, probably not. They're still fairly rare. I would say,
there are dozens of portals around the world as opposed
to hundreds, much less thousands, but they are there. We
don't know how to get rid of them. And this
is the world that we live in. And that was

(47:32):
what I loved about punk Town. It's like it's not
even our world, you know. Pashton is on another planet,
and it's not even the only city there's there's there's
other cities. And I'm trying to remember if you've set much,
and I don't, they're definitely referenced, I feel, is Osiris
one of the other megacities.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Miniosis the oasis, and Miniosis is the other big city.
It's right, it's larger than punk Town, but not as
crime infested.

Speaker 4 (47:59):
Right.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
But yeah, I love what you're saying about the how
your series can be totally different depending on who's the protagonist.
That's exactly the kind of thing I try to do
with punkdown Is. And there's so much freedom in that.
You know, you can you can write a story where
the the main thrust of it is it's it's a romance,

(48:21):
this one's a detective story, this one's a gangster story.
And and people when they get used to that, then
they'll accept it. They know that there's that flexibility in
your setting and coming into it, and the more they
read of your of your setting, they'll they'll know that
they'll and they will give you that allowance. Whereas if

(48:41):
somebody else, if they write if they're right, we're writing
a series that was primarily science fiction and then suddenly
in one book in the series it becomes extremely horrific.
Maybe that might throw the people for a loop. So
so the consistency of punk Down is that it's inconsistent,

(49:02):
that it's tonally connective.

Speaker 4 (49:06):
I saw between The New God and Monstrosity, where you're
dealing with love crafty and horrors and cults, and again
I like that you sort of it's but it's still
not the same thing that I love the idea of
the virtual library that you're introduced in The New God,
and the idea that these things can infect you. It
doesn't need to be a direct virus. It's like it's
like a mental thing. When when people are starting to
suffer from this, things like yeah, being in cyberspace is

(49:27):
there's there's no distance from you for that you can
still be infected by this thing. That this is like
like an idea. It's it's like it's like the movie
Inception where it starts with that long that line that
an idea is like a virus. It can infect you.
It's it can breed in your mind. And I thought
that was something that for me, was was absolutely terrifying
about The New God. Was no, no, it's virtual. He's

(49:47):
just did the cybers. It's like like Johnny Newonic, right,
It's like no, no, he's he's fine. Once he once
he jack say out, he'll be Uh. It's it's completely harmless.
So when you see this and then you really understand
what the stakes are with with what's happening with literally
with this New God, it's it starts off as sort
of this this concept that this character is trying to
use to sort of to fight the old ones, and

(50:09):
of course, you know, things go sideways and it's uh
and of course the best way possible that these things
to do. But again, very very unique. I just I've
never I've never seen that before in that much less
in Punktown or even like the Cosmic Menace type stories.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
You know.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, speaking of uniqueness, Uh, you have some pretty interesting
things that happened in the New God, Jeffrey.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
There's there's some creatures.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
That just after I read it, I was I had
to go back and read them again because they were
just so far out there. I'm thinking of the slug
person and I don't want to give too much away
because it hit me as a surprise and I was
just like, oh my god, that was brilliant. How do
you like when you I noticed with your Punktown novels,

(50:58):
as you were saying there, they're very sort of diverse
and content they they're not always the same and so
you're not always going to get creatures like that. But
but when you do come up with a creature, how
do you approach creating something that's just like something you've
never seen before?

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Wow? I well, I'm I'm big in the body horror,
so that's that's a lot to do with it. And
also I'm an artist, and I think that may be
I think in visual terms, and and I'll say that again.
The basic setup for the story was for Brian Salmon's

(51:36):
and I kind of saw me writing the novel as
he's the game master. Here's the setup. Now, where are
you going to go with it? Now? You now it's
up to you to take these characters and and it's
up to you to wrap it, wrap it up and
follow and make them, you know, send them through their paces.
But this is the basic setup in Brian's scenario in

(51:58):
the Punktown Role playing guidebook, the creatures are there's a
lot of creatures, but they're straight out of Lovecraft, like
the creature in the club Field part in the beginning
is the character changes and he becomes in the game
scenario becomes the goldenac from Ramsey Campbell's like an old
one that Ramsey Campbell came up with. And so there

(52:21):
is a lot of that that show goths and night
gods or whatever and all this the lovecrafting branded that
to show the prospective players that you can incorporate all
these love crafting elements in this way if you want to.
So he really loaded the scenario with that kind of
stuff to show people interested in running those games. How

(52:46):
Like I said, how much how many lovecrafting entities and
elements they could incorporate it if they so desired. But
when I came to write the book, I didn't want
to reference lovecraft inventions that closely. So there's very actually
very little that it's a love crafting story. Cosmic gods
and all that they were alluded to, but I didn't

(53:07):
want to use all the the actually used love love
crafting creatures and elements. So that's why I came up
with things like that slug creature and the and and this.
The character in Club Fiel in the beginning, he he
turns into something monstrous, but it's not strictly a lovecrafting
and creation a lot of love craft creation.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
That beginning is just insane too, that what happens at
the very start of the story, it's like today today,
accidentally drink some something energetic.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
Here. For me, it's just like you stain, you know
what you're gonna get, but you also don't know what
you're gonna get. With Jeffrey Thomas story, so it's like, again,
I think the last one I had read was was
Red Cells. I'm thinking, okay, well, it's very curious to
see what what I'll remember, because I've got a good
memory in some ways. In other ways it's just you know,
I'll forget it. I'll forget a care name, but it'll

(54:00):
be like, oh hey cool, the color strain is referenced,
or or hey there there's a health agent, you know,
because Health Agent was one of my one of my
favorite Punktown novels because it was it was like kind
of like X Files and meets Outbreak. It was just
like you've got these agents and their whole job is
to contain biological vectors and stuff, and it's like, that's realistic.
That's what you would have when you've got all these
different species, and England you would have virus agents would

(54:20):
be a thing. So it was just something that each book,
each story was so creative but so organic to the
world and the setting. It was just like, maybe that's
why I liked it. It was like, oh, this makes sense,
you know. And even even as much as these stories
make sense, he's you know, he's the author. You know,
Thomas is still surprising you. So there was that element
to me where it was like, even when I'm seeing

(54:41):
something familiar, like oh, hey, he references the bed bugs,
who might be my favorite of all of the creatures
in punk Town. That was I get to write about
the bedbugs and my my Punktown story, Bedbug Radio went
transmissions from prunk Town. But I don't know what he's
going to do with them. You know, he might he
might maybe they might be a minor part as they
are and the New God, but or that might be
a bigger part. And even if they are, I'm still

(55:02):
going to find out something different. They're going to do
something that's unexpected because you know, just going to lull
you a little bit. Oh yeah, you see, you know,
Punktown sort of. But then he's going to turn it
on its head.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
You know.

Speaker 4 (55:13):
It's just that's that's what I like about it. It's
just you're you're comfortable and uncomfortable at the at the
same time in all the best ways. That's I mean,
that's when you know you're in the hands of a master.
I don't I don't want to throw it that you
go too much, but that's what we're here. And it
was such a joy. It was just especially at this
time with all this stuff going on. It's it's a
book that I recommended to a lot of people and
reminding me of how much I love punk Town. It's

(55:33):
just like, oh, yeah, this is you know, I'm always
I always try and boost other authors because I don't
try to. I do it because I love other authors
and their stories. So it's like, oh, it's been a
little while since I recommended punk Town because we haven't
had a Punktown book for a little while, and it
was just like, oh, yeah, you've got to read the
New God and then you have to read this, this,
this is this. It's just I want to give people
like a Punktown starter pack and just here here's a

(55:55):
care pack. It's just you know, digest all this because
it's going to be different, and it's all going to
be fantastic. It's not any one thing. It's well, if
you like that, you like this. If you like love
craft and stuff, read Monstrosity and then read New Gods
or go to If you like military stuff and you like,
you know, sort of like war stories, read you know,
like read Blue Planet, you know, because there's some Blue
Planet references in New God as well too. And again

(56:15):
it's just just like it's like revisiting, you know, old
stamping grounds. It's like it's like meeting up with old friends.
That's one of the things I loved about the New
Gods so much.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
You do have a short collection of a pump punk
Town stories called Welcome to punk Town. Is is that
somewhere where you would say somebody could start reading punk Town?

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Yeah? Actually, yeah, I've got I bundled. I bundled a
bunch of chat books again, stories that have been previously published,
and I wanted to do something with them instead of
putting them into into kind of a thick anthology. I
followed the lead of a writer, uh William William Michael,

(56:58):
who bundles like three stories and sell them as a
chap book series and so I I copied that idea.
So I put together a few punkdown chat books like that,
and and so one of those chap books would be
a good One of those punkdown chap books that has
only three stories might be a good entering entry point

(57:20):
for people who haven't read it before and they kind
of just want to kind of get a taste for us,
get their feet wet, uh, and to see if they
want to read something uh larger. But yeah, yeah, welcome
to punkdown. And there's a couple others that I think
would be that is actually a good idea for as
a starting point.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
It just it just it almost sounds like, you know, uh,
you know, come here and check these stories out and.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
If you like it. There's a lot more.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
Like even the title itself and obviously yeah, yeah, the intent,
but it's a good little standpoint. I mean for us,
I just go go whole hog By the first book
calculation read from there. But I mean that's for you.
I mean, obviously I think there's a lot there that
I think there's a lot there that even the ideas
that you haven't even developed that could be developed in
longer work. But you don't need to. You've seen a
slice of life in all of these stories in that

(58:11):
collection and then other ones. Some of those stories are
explored in greater depth in the novel series. And but again,
you can pick up whatever you want, in my opinion,
and start wherever you want, whether it's anything like Everybody
Scream or Health Asian or Monstrosity or New God. And
all I know is that, in my opinion, once you

(58:32):
read one, you're gonna want everything else, because like, that's
how I am with a series that I like. It's
funny because we were talking about series and how do
you get people to buy the first one. Usually it's
just like, well they start with you from the beginning.
Well they will if they think they're going to get
more books right away. But some people won't even start
a series until they know you've got two or three out.
And that's something I think is really great. With Cemetery
and Steven Spotify, who's doing the audio books for Black

(58:54):
Man's Is they seem pretty invested, you know, like there's
only two books scheduled. Obviously I've got other stuff going
and stuff I'm working on. They seem that they're in
it for for for the long haul, because they know
it takes a few books and when the second book
comes out, the first book, we'll get a resurgence, right.
So I think with the Punktown series, it's the same
thing where it's just, uh, it's like a gateway drug.
You know, you get a little taste and then you're

(59:16):
gonna want the whole thing and then something you're gonna
be But it's healthy, it's not it's not harrowin, it's
just really really good stories.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Still still take it for a weird trip exactly.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Definitely.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Yeah, And I'm happy that there are short stories and
novels as as as there is now for you, for you,
for you in because there are of course people who
who they'll only read novels that they don't're not interested
in short stories. Then of other people who favorite short
stories over novels, and so you're giving people a choice

(59:50):
if they are so inclined to lean one way or
the other. Myself, I I I I've always got a
short story collection and a novel that i'm reading, you know,
I like to alternate.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Yeah, I love both forms.

Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
But I think it was somebody who said, like, it's
not you know, it's not about good reviews or bad reviews,
like the real enemy of any writer's obscurity and when
they're not talking about you. So that was something where
it's just like, as long as you've got short stories
and novels coming out and that they're out there and
they're stolen print, people could find you anywhere, and it's
like little breadcrumbs and they're not necessarily led in the
straight line. They're sort of scattered to the winds. But

(01:00:22):
if they find you, they can still lead back to
you and lead to more stories. Like I can't tell
you how many people have been like, oh, I read
this short story like in the Yell Datlow collection. That
was a big coup for me. Right, that was Tory
Nitefire's very first anthology and to have this story at
the very beginning of it was great. And I can't
talk about a lot of the details with the Black
Plans movie that were shopping the guys who wrote the

(01:00:44):
screenplay or who've written the treatment for it. That's the
story and they that's how they found it. They found
that through there they became fans of me. They knew
about the Black Plans. That was their introduction to it.
So it works, you know, like it works when it
comes to finding people that way, and even when you're
talking to and I'm sure you've had your dealings with
with the Hollywood people too, Jeff, Like, it's always I

(01:01:05):
can't never tell what's more exciting when it's these these
people are reading your work, or you have a meeting
with someone and they already know your work. You know,
it's it's very very cool because you never know when
your stories are going to fall into someone's hands. It's
certainly not why I'm doing it, so go hey, you know,
I had a meeting with Jason Bateman and he's a
fan of my work. That's cool. I like that, But
it's not why I'm doing it. It's just it's a

(01:01:26):
cool side. But I'm doing it because I love it,
you know, like I love telling stories. I love to
be able to do to do what I want. Anything
else that I get from that is just a really
cool side benefit, you know, Like it's just in the
people that I've got to meet. Like I remember I
got to meet you, Jeff at a reader con one year,
and I believe I was so nervous because it was
like one of my very first conventions where I was
I was meeting you, I was meeting like Elizabeth hand

(01:01:47):
I was meeting Lard Barron and all these people. Everyone's
super nice. I've never met a bad person out there.
Everyone is really great.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
They signed my books, but more than anything, they were
treating me as as a friend and a contemporary, even
though I hadn't really done anything. It's, uh, it's a
great community. And that's one of the things I love
about about being a writer. It's being able to write
these stories and being able to sort of say, hey,
you know, I was doing this because of someone like,
you know, Jeffrey Thomas when I discovered back in the nineties.

(01:02:14):
You know, it's it's a really cool connection. And then
I got to meet him in person ten years later.
It's that's awesome, awesome, I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Yeah, I just want to say quickly here James Fetcho,
he's uh, he's been uh watching my channel for years now.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
He says he didn't even know about the New God
Book and he.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Just reread all the Jeffrey Thomas stuff that he had
a few months ago.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
Well, you're just gonna have to add that now. Actually
I think he did say that he bought it. Yeah,
getting it now. Yeah, really have to.

Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
Talk about We haven't talked about it all. It's the
one thing that I don't have because I couldn't afford
it at the time. And and again, if they if
the Netflix movie gets made and there's a There's there's
a There's an Every House That Haunted and update usposed
to be getting any time now, I said, like, if
I get my giant, my giant paycheck to make this movie,
I said, I've already told my wife. She's already cool.
I said, I'm going on the secondary market. I'm buying

(01:03:05):
the Cemetery or the Senipede, Presstown omnib. But there's still
every down again, a copy of these three books that
ended up on that that goes up on eBay, But
can you talk about about how that happened? And the
collection of all the stories, and I believe there's a
few new ones in there. I just want it. Even
if it was all reprint, I would still want it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
I have to give credit to Michael Cisco, the writer.
Michael Cisco, he put a bug in the ear of
Jared Walters sent to me press years ago. He's saying,
like you should do it. Some kind of a collection
of Jeffrey Thomas's work and then a Facebook friend of mine,
Donald Cobb, had mentioned years later he had mentioned to

(01:03:48):
Jared gard Walters that he should do a collection of
Punkdown stories. So Gerard looked into that. We we had
met at an ecronomicon, and I don't know, I don't
know if Jared Jared had remember that a lot, but
based on Donald Cobb, uh reminding him about my work

(01:04:08):
and seconding Michael Cisco's suggests that he put together something
of mine, uh, we started talking about doing an omnibus
of Punkdown stories. So that's what we started doing. We
and we put together all the punkdown Stories at that
time into three massive volumes, each with a forward by

(01:04:29):
somebody different. And of course there's been more Punk Down
Stories since then. But it's a beautiful, a beautiful collection,
a huge collection of three beautiful volumes, and it sold
out like in no time. And and uh, I got
I got a nice paycheck from that too.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
I got to make books like the giant oversize I've got,
I've got the Stephen King Salem's Lot with all the
deleted scenes from from from Us from from that book,
which which is just incredible. I mean, I love having
the extras. I mean like the I love the deluxe
hard covers. Again, it's not not as a collector, like
I would never resell these. These are my babies, and

(01:05:13):
I always love the extras. I think of like special
edition DVDs may get all the cool features. Here's the
audio commentary track, here's the here's the alternate ending. So
I love the fact that they're signed, but for me,
it's always the extra features.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
So they do press books are treasures. They're really beautiful.

Speaker 4 (01:05:31):
Mh.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
So that was that was that was throating nice.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
I I regret that, you know, I sometimes miss out
on these things because uh uh, like I was saying
earlier that books, I live in a small, fairly small space,
uh and books have completely taken over.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
I have nowhere else to put them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
So I've been selling a lot of my books and
because I want to get more. But then you think
about it, it's like, am I just going to sell
those too?

Speaker 4 (01:06:00):
You know? Yeah, that's why I feel. That's where like
I'm at the point now where it's like, yeah, I'm
probably not going to be able to read everything that
I own, but of course it's not going to stop
me from supply anymore. I urge a it more like
if I read a book and I'm not going to
probably read it again and it doesn't have a real
personal significance to me, I'm more inclined to sell it
or donate it to a library. I've done that much,

(01:06:21):
at least just to make some face. Yeah, even in
my office you can see a bit of it on
the camera. Every wall is bookshelves except for that one
over there, and it's still like a half well, and
that's only because I left. That's a framed copy of
my very first book, the book. But that's it. Like
even the you can see below it the Vivil Dead poster.
That's the signed evil Dead poster I got after Sam
raimi auf House is haunted, and I still don't have

(01:06:42):
a place to hang it. It's just it's framed, and
I moved around the office because there's nowhere to hang it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
You know, I have, I know I can relate that totally.
And just like you said, I and I'm sure I'm
never going to there's no doubt about it. I'm never
going to read every book I have, But that does
not stop me from ordering ordered a book today, you know, Yeah,
And I love them.

Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
Books. Books are great I'm a book I love movies
and I'm not a ladite. I love movies and TV too.
I watch a lot, but it's uh, it's even. And again,
let's face it with with postal prices these days, it's
hard to buy a lot of books because everything's expensive.
So my first, my debut novel came out last year
family from Earthening Publications, and a lot of people, you know,

(01:07:23):
especially in my families or couldn't afford it because it's
you know, the book that the shippings almost as much
as the book in some cases the pan on where
you live. But you know they will want to support me.
And of course, you know, the idea is that I
love the deluxe editions. I'm always trying to make sure
that there's a more affordable, you know, trade paperback or
an ebook edition. There isn't always the case. Again, my
my real fight is with obscurity. I want to make

(01:07:43):
sure I've got books out because I went ten years
with having nothing out every house A Saunted came out
in twenty twelve and then there was nothing for years,
and people either thought maybe I've retired or I'm dead,
and it was like, no one's still there, I'm still
doing stuff, but I hadn't really sold anything until I really,
you know, started going back into the small presses. I
was trying to sell stuff to the Big Five and
lots of nice rejections, but I wasn't selling anything, so

(01:08:05):
it looked like I wasn't around. So in twenty twenty three,
I decided to start really reconnecting with with the smaller
presses again. So I reached out to people like Garthling
and PS and Cemetery Dance, and that year I sold
five books and I was just you know, I well,
I was back. But then the other hand, and the
way I wasn't really away, I didn't really gone anywhere.
It was just trying to sort of, you know, take

(01:08:27):
control of my own writerly destiny, I guess, and get
the stuff out there, and trying to make sure that yeah,
even if they are the more expensive deluxe hardcovers and
some people may not be able to buy them, at
least it's you know, something is better than nothing, and
I'll still have my agent working on trying to sell
those rights to like the Big five or or whoever.
I might do a more accessible, affordable trade paperback edition.

(01:08:49):
It's it's it's hybridizing, you know, like you're trying to
be like the hybrid writer. That's that's I think how
you have to succeed these days. You have to do
a little bit of everything. I write full time, but
selling books is actually pays the least amount for me.
You know, I work in video games, I do film
and TV. I do graphic novels, comics and stuff. And
like I said, ironically, it's the book stuff that pays

(01:09:10):
usually the least amount.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
You know, it's and that's like your favorite your favorite
avenue of Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:09:16):
And that's the irony of it, right, That's why I
say it's sort of like the film and TV stuff,
but obviously is what pays the most. But it really
just subsidizes my writing career, you know. You see that
that's the world where you really have to take it
with a grain of salt. You can have your heart
broken if you're really going to get emotionally invested because
it's so hard to get anything made. Every House is
Haunted was auctioned years ago, and between the pandemic and
then the streaming wars, it just keeps getting delayed. Now

(01:09:39):
it keeps getting reauctioned. You know, obviously they want to
make it. If they weren't interested, they would just not
renew it. But they've renewed it multiple times.

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:09:46):
I've had you know, you know, zoom conversations with with
Raimi himself. They they've been very good about keeping me
in the loop. I'm working as a consultant on the film.
But they're also just good people who are really care
about the project. So it's I think it's going to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:10:00):
It's a it's a very very weird, uh world these
days in terms of film and TV. It's in terms
of what gets made or how it's uh, it's the
landscape has changed quite a bit. But I'm confident that
it will it will get made. But that's how you
have to survive as a writer these days. If you're
going to try to make any kind of a living
at it, you have to do a little bit of everything.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
Yeah, And like you're saying, I I I've had a
couple of books sold to a larger publisher, you know,
like like a Solaris Books, right, But I'm but I
also work with small publishers too, because, like I said,
you sprinkle the crumbs around, maybe nobody's going to read
all your work, but maybe they'll find this story in

(01:10:43):
this anthology. It may or may not lead them to
read more of your work, but at least somebody read that.
You found you there. Somebody else is going to find
you over here, so cumulatively, you're finding an audience. It's
it's just kind of spread out, and some people are
going to read that book that they're going to find
in the library. One of the greatest thrills of my
life was going in the in the library that my

(01:11:04):
childhood home of Westboro, Massachusetts, going in there just randomly
and look into the science fiction section and finding my
book Dead Stock. I was thrilled. It was one of
the greatest thrills in my life because I grew up
in that library and I didn't ask them to order
that book there. It was in my hometown library. You're
going to have a book like that that's you're going
to be able to find readily, and then maybe you

(01:11:28):
never will again, but maybe you know there's going to
be story sprinkled in these anthologies or this new god
from a relatively small publisher, and there's your audience. It's
just kind of spread out and like I said hybrid hybrid,
like a hybrid career. It's it's as you say, it's
it's probably you know, it's a it's a more realistic

(01:11:49):
way to pursue it.

Speaker 4 (01:11:51):
And you know, and well and you're you're doing what
I'm doing. At the at the end of the day,
it's not like it's this cold, clinical plan of attack.
We're all we're trying to do this. You know, at
the end of the day.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
What what what? What?

Speaker 4 (01:12:01):
What a hybrid writer about is not giving up? You know,
you're you're you're being creative. You're not You're not stifling
that creativity. You're not trying to put a tap on
that passion. You're trying to find different avenues to express
yourself and get your name it. There's not marketing. It's
just oh you just this is this is uh, this
is the global village.

Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
You know like it.

Speaker 4 (01:12:19):
It's great. Everyone's got a platform. The downside is everyone's
got a platform. It's signals the noise, right, Like, how
do I boost my signal in an organic way that's
not going to annoy people. It's also some very genuine
you know, one thing that you can do that that
that Jeffrey does that I'm trying to do is you
be yourself. You know, you don't you know, you're writing
something that's really unique, you know, like it's it has

(01:12:42):
to be sort of codified or quantified in some certain
way to describe it to you know, in a you know,
in a few sentences. But what the part that's unique
is yourself. That's the thing that makes it special. So
it sounds so cheesy to say, well, just be true
to yourself, be true to your passion, but that's really
what you need to do if you really want to
stand out in this world where everyone's trying to do
stuff and make help stand out, it's stay true to yourself,

(01:13:05):
stay true to your heart and have and be confident.
It's hard. There's a lot of days when I've got
that the old imposter syndrome and I don't believe in myself.
But that too does pass, you know, like you just
going back and just not not give up. As long
as you're in, as long as you're enjoying yourself. If
you're not taking any joy from it, feel feed to create,
like you you don't have to do anything, but if
you still feel a joy from it, then then don't

(01:13:26):
give up.

Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
Yeah. Absolutely, And there's no better feeling for me to
have than to have that project going to I get stuck,
to get kind of like despondent if I don't have
a project going. And that's the joy that you speak of,
you know, having that that once you're when you're we're
in that mode, when you're in that mindset, it's just

(01:13:47):
such a good feeling, and it's indescribable and comparable.

Speaker 4 (01:13:52):
Tell me, tell me when I'm talking about how how
like the state of the world and stuff that I
was going through with my family, my wife's family, like
author friend who passed away earlier this year, Like, it's
just it's been it's been a lousy start to the year.
And I just decided that, you know what, I just
it's okay to be upset, okay to be depressed. And
that was the ten that actually drove me to finish
this novella, this Black Lens, so that I've been chipping

(01:14:12):
away at for eight For eight months, I hadn't really
written anything new. I've been busy, I've been doing deadlines
for other things, and I just hadn't really felt like it,
Which is fine. If you don't feel like you don't
do it, but I ended up writing like ten thousand
words last week. I finished the damn thing. Got a
really great call from my agent on Friday. But something
I can't even talk about. It could end up being
a huge, maybe large. I don't want to I don't
want to tease, but it could be like one of
the biggest things happening for my writing career if it happens.

(01:14:36):
I don't want to jinx it. But it was like,
it was cool and it was exciting, but I was
even I was at the moment, I was more excited
but finally finishing something, and I wanted to finish it
because the next thing I'm working on is another Black
Leans novella, but it's a Felix Friend one, and it's
the Bridge Book. That's a bridge novella between Sycamore and
Miss Paranormal, which is the second Felix Rand novel. You
don't need to have read that to understand it that

(01:14:56):
they still functions as a standalone. It really sort of
explored Felix's fear of the dark that he sort of
acquires and sort of gets over in Sycamore. But it's
sort of like my my last word on that experience.
From Sycamore, and it had a great title, whe I
think is a great title that I've had for a
long time because it's sort of a reference to it's

(01:15:17):
a literary reference, but it's also pure black Lands, and
I don't mind announcing it right here. So it's going
to be called The Sun Never Rises, so, which is
just pure Blacklands to me. So again mean that it's
again it's a standalone story, and in my mind I
picture it as well if I still wanted to do
these old Felix Rand chap books, which is how I

(01:15:38):
started writing the black Lands books, that's what this one
would be. It would be a black Lands chap book
that fits in neatly between Sycamore and Book two. Again,
you don't need to read it to understand. It's not
a prerequisite, but I just I love, I love having
these in between stories that tell their own little story
references this and ushers the way to the next one.
But you can read it out of order. You don't

(01:15:59):
need to read it at all to to enjoy the
next book. But that's something that's got me excited this
year about about going and keeping writing, even amid everything
that's going on in the world right now in our
country and everything.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
Yeah, it's it's kind of scary right now. I'd be
remiss though. I mean, there's things that can keep us
happy and like reading and writing, but I'd be remiss
if I didn't welcome our new guest. Who who jumps
home into your lap.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
And is like promptly went right to sleep? Who is
who is that there with you?

Speaker 4 (01:16:33):
This is Barnabas And actually I'm surprised. I apologize for
the little cameo appearance, but oh no, that's fine here sooner.
Usually it's like he hears me going on on a
call and he's like, oh, there's will be there, I
need to appearance.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
So I love just how casually he walked up.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
I saw him come in, and then he just jumps
up and jumps on your lap and uh and then
promptly goes to sleep.

Speaker 4 (01:16:58):
Well we've been we've been super close to our cats
again more and more sad this here. One of our
cats passed away a couple of weeks ago. Goes. He
was our youngest cat. He was only six years old,
and he just suddenly got really horrible like kidney issues
which were unforeseen. He was sick on Sunday we had
to put him down by Friday, and we're we're still
pretty devastated. It was only a couple of weeks ago,

(01:17:20):
and I think we'd just be complete rex if it
wasn't for our other little guys who have sort of
rallied the cats. You know, I think all animals, wedding
cats especially can sort of sense it. So they've just
been really around and it's just it's been tough.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:17:31):
It's like it's only just like its February now, but
it's been it's been a tough start to the year.
I'm I was really thankful to be talking to you
guys tonight because I think sort of hanging out in
my dark office by myself is what I don't need
right now. I need to I need to hang out
and people talk to my friends. So this has been fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:17:49):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
It was really really good for me too, because the
week my weekend was a mixture of really good things
happening and really bad things happening, and uh and you know,
there was a a period today where I was like,
I think I'm just going to cancel because I just
can't get my head out of this bad space. And
then I went to the questions I had prepared for you, Jeffrey,
and I was like, you know what, this is pulling

(01:18:10):
me out of that, and this is making everything better.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
So I'm just going to keep's going to keep going.

Speaker 4 (01:18:15):
Yet I always sure my wife'svoice in my head, because
whenever i'm the same thing I'm not. I'm not anti social,
but I'm definitely a homebody. And when I think about
not socializing, it's if my wife isn't telling me directly,
I'm maybe hearing her voice in her head because she's
way smarter than I am and she always gives me
the best of I said, no, no, you're gonna do that.
And so it was the same thing, is that if
if I didn't feel like doing this tonight, I obviously
I didn't want to let you down. I didn't want

(01:18:36):
to let jeff down, but I went. I looked at
my own notes for The New God, which I had
taken while I was reading the book, and I was like, oh,
I'm really looking forward to talking.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
Yeah, exactly what happened to me too. I was like,
this is gonna be awesome. Why am I thinking about canceling?
Wake up?

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
Man, it's good lead those distractions absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:18:56):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:18:57):
I want to thank both Jeffrey and Ian for coming
on and discussing the New God and Jeffrey before we go,
Is there anything that you got coming out soon that
we can look forward to.

Speaker 3 (01:19:10):
I have another book coming from Weird House Press called
The Not The and that's in a series that it's
related to Punktown. It's in this Punktown universe, but it
doesn't take place in Punktown. It's it's it takes place
at the with at a time where the human the

(01:19:32):
humans of Earth, are trying to establish teleportation, long distance teleportation,
and the Punkdown stories are the results of of the
rewards of the long distance teleportation. But I've written three
novels in this kind of side series that revolve around

(01:19:53):
a character named Captain Robert Fusselli. The first was The
Exploded Soul that came out last year from Weird Press.
This new book, The Not is to follow up to that. Again,
you don't have to read one to enjoy the other.
But The Knot is the second in the series. And
then there's a third, longer novel that the Pulp's just
going to be looking at, and so that would be

(01:20:14):
the next book to come out, is the not. It's
a science fiction horror blend adjacent.

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
To Puntwent Awesome and is there a release date for
that or I'm not sure?

Speaker 3 (01:20:24):
It should be pretty fairly soon.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
Though, Okay awesome and Ian, do you have anything that's
coming out relatively soon that you can talk about.

Speaker 4 (01:20:32):
I've got two looks coming out this year. The one
that'll be out sooner, I'm thinking this spring or somewhere.
I can't actually say. It hasn't been announced, but it's
with a really cool small press that we all know.
I can't I can't say anything yet. The signature sheets
just delivered yesterday. I can tell you that there's an
awesome introduction by jem of Files. I think that's saying

(01:20:54):
that's the nominal because I love her, I love her work,
and I've known her for a very long time, so
it was a real, real honor enjoy to have her
introduced this book. It's it's a standalone or a novel.
It's not a Blacklands book, although I would say maybe
there's connections. It's definitely not a black Lands book. But
I would say the same way that sort of Stephen

(01:21:14):
King has this kind of shared universe, and maybe there
are little inquens of say, like a dark Tower story
in a book that's not a Dark Tower book. I
would say that maybe there are kind of connections to
the black Lands. Again, you don't need to to know
them to enjoy it. And then later this year I've
got the reprint of Supernaungeal Tales coming out from Cemetery Dance,

(01:21:35):
and the hope is that between that one and the
official book too, I would like to get this black
Lands novella out, this Jerry Baldwin one, with another Jerry
Baldwin novella, sort of a Haunted House real estate stories.
I would like to collect them as sort of like
a double built, like a black Lands double feature. You know,
it's just a short book, you know, a little a little,

(01:21:55):
a little tastier to hold you over until Felix's novel
two come out. And because it's real estate team, because
it's haunted houses, I'm thinking I would like to call
it if you died here, you'd be home by now.
So I'd like to play on those real estate ads. Really,
if you lived here, you'd be home by now. So
I was like, well, it's really haunted. It's cool right there,

(01:22:20):
that's the perfect what happens. But yeah, that's that's what
I've got cooked this year.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
All right, awesome, Well, I I want to thank everyone
who came and uh, I want to thank everyone who
is going to be here in the future and listening in.
And I want to thank Jeffrey, thank you for so
much for for coming on and prespising all this, and

(01:22:46):
thank you Ian for coming along too. I'm glad this
idea worked out and that it was I think quite successful.

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
I had a lot of fun and it's really.

Speaker 4 (01:22:56):
I'm glad we can honor jeff and just get the
insight on this book. It's a take it up immediately,
thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:23:03):
So much and make it my I think I'm gonna
float away shortly.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
And Jeffrey, You're welcome to come back anytime, and I
might even I might even ring you up when when
your new releases comes out and we'll talk again if you're.

Speaker 3 (01:23:17):
Interested, definitely be all right.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
Thanks everyone, and we will catch you all again next time.

Speaker 3 (01:23:24):
All right, take care, Thanks again.

Speaker 4 (01:23:30):
H

All Episodes

048 - The New God with Jeffrey Thomas (& Special Guest Ian Rogers)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}048 - The New God with Jeffrey Thomas (& Special Guest Ian Rogers)