053 - Animal Attack with Eric S Brown

Eric S. Brown and I discuss many animal attack horror books while also defining what the genre entails. We also talk about a book that he and I are writing together. 

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Episode Transcript

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, and welcome.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
To episode fifty three of the Weird Reads Podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Today, I have a special guest. I've had him on.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
It was fairly recently. I thought it was like a
year ago, but apparently it was only about six months ago.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Eric S.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Brown joins me, and we're going to discuss animal attack
horror books.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
This is a.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Passion of Eric's and I was more than happy to
have them come on and discuss these books with me.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Eric S.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Brown is he an American novelist known for writing science
fiction and horror novels. He lives in North Carolina and
he has written nearly, if not one hundred and twenty novels.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Eric is a writing machine, and.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
I'm happy to say that I'm currently writing a book
with him right now, and it's we're at the.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Halfway point and it is fun.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
We talk about that a little bit in this episode,
and we also talk about a lot of different books.
I am not quite as versed on animal attack horror
books as he is, but he educates me and I
had a lot of fun talking with him, so without
further ado, here we go. Here's my conversation with Eric
about animal attack books.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Hello, welcome back to Weird Reads. Today.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
I am joined by my friend Eric S. Brown, and
today we are going to be talking about animal attack books.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Now, this is a before actually, before we get into that.
Can you introduce yourself quickly?

Speaker 4 (02:03):
Eric? Sure? I'm Eric CAS Brown. I'm a writer. I've
been writing a long time. I'm mostly known for Bigfoot
books and Bigfoot movie related stuff, but I'd write a
little bit of everything here and there. That's pretty much.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Me and animal attack books are They're pretty much a
passion of yours, aren't they.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
Oh yeah, yeah. I mean I've always loved them growing up.
But in twenty twenty three or maybe no early twenty
twenty four, I read Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix
and it just kind of rekindled it all for me.
So I've been on like an animal attack reading bench
for the last year. And actually, after reading all those books,

(02:44):
I wrote my own canine attack book, Snarl, that's out
now from Evil Cookie Publishing, and it's kind of my
take on the dog subgenre of the animal attack subgenre.
It's very much like Kujo meets twenty eight days later.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, that was a fun book to read. Well, we'll
talk about it later. That book is that book goes.
There's one scene in there that will live rent free
in my in my mind, it involves test in test tns.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
It's going to be in my mind for the rest
of my life.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
Well, I don't know whether to say I'm sorry or
thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
But both both are appreciated.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Yeah, it was an awesome book though. It's really fun.
So how has your year been since we last talked.
We talked about a year ago.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Well, always busy, always busy collecting paper. Vintage horor paperbacks
has definitely completely replaced collecting comic books in my life.
I was a comic elector for over forty years. Now
I just buy the occasional omnibus to read. So and
now my living room has been taken over by horror
paperbacks from hell. So you can't tell that from looking

(04:01):
behind me. Those are still my Marvel omnibuses and Balsargalatric
and rids Onia stuff. But trust me, the other side
of living room looks like Grady Hendrix vomited all over
the place, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, the comics way to put that.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
Grady Hendrix. Sorry.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Do the comics take up a lot of space too?

Speaker 4 (04:20):
I have a second house and another town for the comics.
Oh wow, Yeah, all the comics were here, we would
not be able to function, So.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
That's a lot. Yeah too.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
So you've released a few new books since then, including Snarl.
What are some of the other books that you've released.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
I've done two more big Foot books for Severn Press,
Sasquatch Nightmare, which is kind of like night Mare on
Elm Street meets Bigfoot War and The Sasquatch Murders, which
is kind of a throwback to my book Manhunt. It's
got the very serial killer versus sasquatch vibe going on,
with a little bit of I hate the set jk.

(05:01):
Rowlings Gilbriith books with the cuckoos calling. But I was
going for that kind of vibe with one of the
detectives because Cormeran strikes a great character. Yeah. But the
book does focus primarily on the serial killer and the sasquatch,
just like Manhunt.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Dude, awesome.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Now, before we begin, we go into the animal tack
thing here, I get, well, we already announced it on Facebook.
I thought we'd announced it here as well. But you
and I are currently writing a book together. I think
we're at the halfway mark right now.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
We are at the halfway point. Yeah, hopefully virtual high five. Yes, indeed,
and hopefully we will fly through the rest of that
book and it will be uh hopefully this summer. Who
knows this the summer this fall from Evil Cookie.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Pan Well, I wanted to thank you too for willing
to bring me a board or on board.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
It's been a lot of so far my pleasure. I
mean years ago, when I edited an anthology based on
the Chud movie, you had one of the best stories
in the book, I mean so and we became kind
of Internet friends. So it was just a logical stept
to say, hey, Jason, would you like to do this
since we both like that genre.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
So thank thank you. It's it's been an awesome ride
so far.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
Uh so animal attacks now, I have to admit I
have read my fair share of animal attacks, but nowhere
near where you have. I love creature features too, But
you know, if you look at my because later on
we're going to be talking about our honorable mentions in
our top threes, you're going to notice that a lot

(06:34):
of mine are like the mythological, mythological type creatures, not
necessarily dogs or cats Dutch. But uh, but you know, uh,
I admire your knowledge of animal attack books and uh
and and I know that you've been wanting to do this,

(06:54):
so so let's let's get into it.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
So what what the fine? What the fine? An animal
attack noble? For you?

Speaker 3 (07:02):
Is it just limited to animals? Or can we add
as I said just now, mythological creatures, creatures that are
possibly real maybe not, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
To me, I would go with just animals, plants, and insects.
Those would be the three that constitute an animal attack.
There can be a supernatural element in the book, but
most of the time it's ecohara. It's some kind of
mutation or toxic waste kind of thing, or some kind
of disease or virus that's turned the animals against humanity,

(07:31):
or just nature taking vengeance on us from destroying the planet.
That that's the core of an animal attack book. However,
there are very realistic ones that don't fall into that,
like Jaws. Jaws is just a big, great white being
itself and killing.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
Here's like I remember, I don't know if it's true
or not. It might be it's the same with bears,
they say once. I don't know if it's the same
with sharks though, because sharks can't actually eat us. They
can kill us, of course, and they can try to
eat us, but they end up not eating us. But bears,
they say, you know, once they get like the taste
for human flesh, they crave it. Like do you believe

(08:10):
in that? Like is that true or is it? Do
you think maybe a myth myth on it?

Speaker 4 (08:14):
Well, you know, I can't, I would say with some animals, certainly.
I just finished reading Killer by Peter Tonkin and Kill.
The main character in it is a military trained killer well,
and it definitely acquires the taste for human flesh, because
I mean, that's just the premise of the book. It's

(08:34):
trained by humans and one day it accidentally kills an
emerald who came to check out the proper by the place,
and it gets the taste of human flesh from him,
and then they shoot it and face it runs all
so it's got like this mixed mingling of oh gosh,
humans hurt me with oh gosh, humans taste good, and
it just it's a wild ride. I mean, Peter talking

(08:56):
is probably famous for saying. Yeah. At the time Joles
came out, he was he was already a writer and
one of his friends said, hey, can you do better
than Jiles? And he said, no, but I can do bigger.
I can totally relate to that in my career. You know,
I'm not always the better, but I strive for the bigger. Yeah.
The Killer is one heck for read, and it's one

(09:16):
of only two killer whale books that have ever been
done in the genre to my knowledge. There's killer repeater
talking in Orca, which there's a movie, and those are
not the only killer whale books.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
And my wife's mom gave went into labor while watching
the movie version of Orca.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
Oh wow, that that must have been an experience.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah, and she says that's probably why she's afraid of
horror movies.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Have you seen that movie?

Speaker 4 (09:49):
Or I have seen Orca, but it's been a very
long time.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah. Yeah. So animals, why why do they attack? Is
it just the excuse me here, is it just the
instinctual fear of being eaten alive? Or is there something
else to the effectiveness of animal attack horror? Why is
it so scary?

Speaker 4 (10:13):
I think because realistically, it could happen. I mean, we
could screw up the planet enough to the point where
Mother Nature turns on us and just unleashes some horrible
virus or you know, some kind of attack, and then
you've got all the bioengineering going on today and the
chemicals and the pollutants. I mean, it's a very realistic
trope in that sense. So I think it's scary because

(10:36):
it could be real. And especially in the case of
animals like dogs and housecats. You know, there's this whole
companionship friendship thing that gets turned completely on its head.
Kujo is a great example of that. I know you're
a fan of Kujo because Youkujo is this lovable big
dog who would never hurt anyone, and through no fault

(10:56):
of his own, he gets rabies and then he becomes
like this vicious kill and it turns everything on its head. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
Yeah, it's funny you bring that up because one of
my questions here is about Disney and how Disney has
made animals, including the ones that will kill us with
no question ask, they've made them.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Into these furry, companionable creatures. Do you think do you think?
And you know you watch TikTok.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
Videos and whatnot, and maybe Facebook videos and whatnot, people
befriending bears. Do you think this has desensitized us to
the real threat of animals?

Speaker 4 (11:37):
Oh? Absolutely. I think in our modern culture we have,
we're so comfortable, especially in America, you know, and probably
Canada too. I'm assuming, yeah, that we're just cell phones
and laptops and comfort and grocery stores, and we forget
all about why it's like to be out there in
the wild. So when we see a wild animal, our
first instinct, MA, that'd be oh, that's cute, and then

(11:57):
we go up and it rips its face, It rips
our face off, you. I mean, because no matter how
much we humanize them in our own brains, animals are
still animals, and they're going to be driven by their
own based instincts. And sometimes they instincts is hey I'm
bigger than you and I'm going to eat you, or hey,
you've intruded up on my territory and you're not supposed
to be here, and they're not very kind about it.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, that's absolutely true.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
I mean, you see people you see the dark side
of that too. You see videos where people like they
see a moose which you don't want to approach, or
a bear and they're like, oh, I want to get
a selfie with this animal, and they approach it and
then the animal attacks and they're.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Like, why did it attack mes?

Speaker 4 (12:40):
Oh? Yeah, for sure. I have a book here that
I had not planned on showing that I'm actually opening
right now because it's wrapped up in bubble wrap, which
is a perfect example of what we're talking about, because
it can get very crazy in the animal attack on it.
But this book right here, I think it's pronounced Malsam,

(13:01):
is about a killer deer. Of all things. There's actually
a deer going around, and it's it's one that's not ecohara.
It is a Native American shaman who has this vengeance
thing and he takes over the deer and possesses it
and starts killing people with a deer.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
That's awesome out there, I think, honestly, we come from
a place where we knew better.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Absolutely, animals attack for different reasons, right like they're hungry,
or they're they're defending their babies, or they're sick. But
a lot of people don't realize that even the small,
cute ones will attack. I have a kind of a
funny story about a next girlfriend I was with. She
was the type of woman who anytime she saw an
animal on the side of the road, she'd make me

(13:52):
stop the car so we could chase it off the road,
which is honorable. But this one time, there's two beavers
across the road. I'm assuming it was the mama and
the papa.

Speaker 5 (14:04):
Yeah, they could be kind of vicious too, They can be,
because we pulled over and she gets out of the
car and she stomping her foot and she's like kissing
at them and shoeing them with her arms, and they
both tilted their heads at the same time and turned
around and looked at us.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
And right then I knew something was wrong. Right, they
didn't run right away, they were going into attack mode, certainly.
They turned around and they charged at us, making these
weird sounds, and I had to She panicked and tripped
over the curb, and so she's like on the ground, squirming.
So I had to grab her by the coat and

(14:38):
she was wearing and drag her to the the car
where she got in. And then by that time though,
they were like there, right, And so I jumped over
the trunk of the car like slid across it. It's
like an action movie almost, right, Yeah. Yeah, and then
I landed on the other side, and.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
Talking about sliding from over a car that it comes
into my mind. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, I landed on the other side, jumped in the
driver's side, and took off.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
But that was like a crazy, crazy period. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
I have no idea what they would have done had
they caught us, but I'm assuming that they had babies
nearby and they weren't thinking of themselves.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
They were probably thinking of their they're young.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
But you know, we've also learned about animals and that
that's kind of got lost, I think in the whole
Disney and TikTok age. But we've learned a lot about
animals and why they attack. They're not just evil. They're
doing what they do. They're hungry, they're they're sick, or
they're or they're protecting their babies. And I think people, yeah,

(15:44):
or their territory. Yeah, it's their area. When you go
into the woods, you're entering their territory. It's important to
remember that. And I just kind of wanted to stress
that because there's a lot of people out there. I
think they might be leaving in a little bit of
a you know, the world of fantasy.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
And now I want to Oh, you're going to say
something I.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
Was gonna say. You get more hate mail for killing
animal characters than you do forget for killing children, because
we have humanized our pets so much, and there's nothing
wrong with that. I have a dog that I completely adore.
You know, I have a cat too, and we kind
of get along. But you know, we're just inclined to
think that way in terms of modern culture.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Mm hmm. With the cat.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
You know, cats are funny creatures, like some of them
are just violent and vile little creatures.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
That is true. I had a big main coon when
when my wife and I first got married, named Howard
after Howard Lovecraft. I love that cat to death. But
the cat I have right now, her name is Blackie,
and she is a demon. All she does is terrorize
the dog and myself. I think that's her favorite pastime.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
She probably enjoys herself. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, so uh animal attacks uh in a
big sin.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Now you're kind of chiding me.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
You're like, oh, oh yeah, you have who have not
read these books?

Speaker 1 (17:07):
But you know, honestly, most animal attack books do take
place in that is true in the woods or in
you know, like remote areas, but there's not as many
big city attack.

Speaker 4 (17:22):
There's not as many, but there's still more than you
might think there would be. As a kid, I read
this one right here now with the toy Dragons. It's
about albino cabans, little tiny cabans who just swarm and
hundreds of thousands of numbers eating human flesh and the
sewers of this giant city. I mean, I think it's
New York. I can't remember where it's actually set, but

(17:43):
I mean it is great. And then he got classic
Maybes like Alligator, same trope, same animal there. And then
of course you have British writer James Herbert. I think
The Rats is set right outside of London or in London. Yeah,
and then not layer them one second, John Howkin, he
wrote four animal attack books. Almost all of his are

(18:06):
set in urban settings. Like Bloodworm. Here London becomes like
this post apocalyptic wasteland of biker games and people finding
to stay alive because these giant blood worms and this
other symbiotic insect with him just destroyed the city. But
I mean there's a lot of urban stuff out there.
It's just not as prevalent as you said.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yeah, that blood Worm book. Do you know if that's
still in print at all?

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Either?

Speaker 4 (18:33):
I think typical it is not in print unless you're
in the UK. I'm not sure if it's some print
over there in the States. Here in America, copies probably
gonna run you around seventy five bucks if you find one, wow,
unless you have luckily find it in the wild. And
he used bookstore or something.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Act. She sent me three recommendations for that, I believe,
and two of them I was able to find that
I can read for free on my Cobo because I'm
part of like the Cobo book Club.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Uh, and they were both on there and they were free.
But the other one, the Dragon one, that one is
similar to the blood Worm. You can't find it unless
you're willing to pay steep money. It's not available in
ebook or anything.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
Well, I took all my money that was spending on
comics and putting the vintage paperbacks. And that's my defense
right there. That reminded me though I also mentioned Vespers.
Vespers has a really really terrible movie called Bats that
was based on interesting. Yeah, but the book is amazing.
I mean it and it ends the big climactic scenes

(19:35):
in New York with two giant bats bringing just this
legion of bats into New York, and the climactic battle
takes place inside of the Statue of Liberty. So I
mean it's some must read for a Yeah, I got
that in one of those cases that proves the book
is better than the movie.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, I got that one for free on my Cobo
with that book club.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
And the other one too.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
I can't remember exactly what it was, but that one
actually had an audiobook to it as well, so I
downloaded both the book and the audiobook.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
Well, Domain by James Herbert is another one. I may
mentioned it. It's post apocalyptic, though it takes place. It's
the third book in the Rats trilogy, so it's back
in London, but it's after a nucular war, so you
have the Rats just coming out and fully taking over.
And there's a graphic novel called The City that comes
right after Domain. The novel the trilogies on novels, but

(20:31):
after that there's a Part four that's a graphic novel.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Honestly, I think it's a fun idea to have animal attack,
especially if it's like giant mutated animals. Oh yeah, attacking
big cities because I think.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Most people would feel safe because of the numbers of
people in the city.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
So if animals were to attack, you know, most people
would be like, you know, we'll get the military on
it or whatever, and it'll be fine. But what if,
you know, you could obviously turn it around, make it
so it's not fine.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
Right, and not even the military is not always enough.
I mean, if you've ever heard of guyans Guyan Smith,
he wrote a series of books called it Attack of
the Crabs. Yeah, yeah, those crabs. The military ain't stopping them.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
They just bounce off.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the bullets bounce off.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Now, speaking of insects, you mentioned insects as part of your.

Speaker 4 (21:25):
Oh yeah, you're there's free lante of great insect books
out there. One of my favorites is Blowfly by David Lohman.
That it is a great insect attack book, with flies
laying their eggs in humans and just using us as
breeding grounds. And it's pretty deep in terms of the gore,

(21:47):
not deep philosophically. Most animal attack books you go into
them understanding they're going to be a fun, pulpy read. Yeah,
there's another one called killer Flies. It's similar to Blowflies.
It's just just terrible, no offense to whoever wrote that.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
You mean it's terrible, Like it's not a good read
or yeah, I mean compared to blow fine, Okay, oh
it's not.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
And I just read an AMP book called The Colony,
and you know, it was one of those books where
you just want to scream with the writer because I mean,
the concept and the plotting and the pacing was all great,
but every time there was an antack, it was oh, I
feel a sting. Oh, I feel a sting. Oh they
swarmed me And there was like no detail. It was

(22:30):
just like he was going, yep, they're covered in ants. Down,
they're dead. And I was like, you're not describing the gore.
I mean, isn't that your job? Aren't you getting paid
for that?

Speaker 1 (22:39):
That's the fun part, right.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
Right, Yeah, that's.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
The fun part.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Have you ever attempted a writing or using insects in
your own writing? I can't remember if you have or not.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
Oh gosh, yes, Well I've worked with sever Press for
probably more than fifteen years. And after I read slither
Ed Lee that that is a great worm book, I really,
really wanted to do a worm book, and sever Press
was like wormstone sale, so they had me write a
jungle adventure book. I think it was called The Lost

(23:12):
Relic that might be the one that but I snuck
worms into it and made worms like part of the
Jungle Adventure and the climact with the evil love Crafty
and force because I was like, I just got rite
some worms, so and they didn't get too mad, so I.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
Was gonna say that they give you the side eye.
They they're like, yeah, you got we got worms in here.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Eric.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
I was like, yeah, well, yeah, I think worms should
sell a bit more because that they're they're kind of gross, right, yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
I mean, and there's a classic seventies movie called Squirms Squirm,
which is probably like the only killer worm cinema that's
actual worms. Now, of course there's trimmers, but that's a
whole other thing than earthworms or the little parasitic worms.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
I actually just finished a book about worm, not worms,
but by the Sisters of Slaughter.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Have you read them at all? No? It's it's called
Janitors Versus the Undead.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (24:11):
I saw your post about it, I think, but I
have not read it.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
And it's it's little parasitic worms that create the zombies.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
And yeah, kind of kind of it's like that meeting
Return to the Living Dead, and it's it's absolutely awesome.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
I highly recommend it.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
But it's not necessarily an animal attack book unless you
can consider the parasites.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
But it's it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
It's definitely down our alley with the golore and the nastiness.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
What you know, it's probably one of those things that
starts to line whether it's animal attack or zombie and
there are a lot of things like that. Yeah, we
just mentioned that the creeps, and I mean so, I
guess it depends on how much they focus on the
parasitic organism.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
Yeah, you know, honestly, I might put it in that
because the parasit worms are a big part of it
and it's described in a lot of detail.

Speaker 4 (25:05):
So yeah, you can probably toss it in the animal
attack genre and it'd be fine. Just lump in the
insects side.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, it's a it's a lot of fun though, and
it's funny too at points, So what.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
I'm sorry off Kingdom Kingdom of Spiders with William Shatner's
Attack movie from the seventies if you've heard of it, haven't.
If you haven't seen it and you like Shatner, I mean,
it's Shatner and his most Shatner spiders. So and there's
a book of it too, there's a novelization, and I

(25:38):
highly recommend either. If you like Can't Be Can't Be Horris.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
What does the name of that again?

Speaker 4 (25:43):
Kingdom of Spiders?

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Kingdom of Spiders?

Speaker 4 (25:46):
Awesome guy like Shatner. Otherwise you're just gonna not not
really get it.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah. Do you feel like that movie was tailored for him? Oh?

Speaker 4 (25:57):
Gosh, I don't know. Maybe he just got the script
and said this is for me, you know, Yeah, who knows.
But I mean he does not get more Shatner than
that movie. Take Captain Kirk and multiply by ten and
it's it's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
So I want to know what type of animals do
you think make the best animal attack books.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
Well, I'm gonna say definitely not snakes. I personally have
a phobia snakes, I have since I was a kid.
In every snake book I've read today, I've read like Rattlers,
The Mountain King, a couple others, and the snake books
for whatever reason, seemed to go off the rails on
sex instead of gore and animal attack stuff. And you're like,

(26:40):
wait a minute, I thought there were snakes killing people.
I don't really care who you're sleeping with or what
you're doing. But you know, so far, I've yet to
find a great snake book.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
I wonder if it's the uh, you know, the phallic
sort of creature who.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Knows as a symbol for sex. But yeah, I there
should be snake books worth without all that, right, like
you know, just tied some variety.

Speaker 4 (27:03):
Yeah, and you know, my snake limiting is limited because
that is my personal phobia. So who knows. Maybe there's
some great masterpieces out there. I just have not made
it too yet. I will tell you the Curse Too
is probably the definitive in terms of my own personal
horror snake movie. I mean, it's no relation to Curse One.

(27:24):
Curse one was adaptation of HBO Lovecraft's Color Out of Space,
but Curse two had a guy who was bitten by
like a mutated radioactive snake and one of his arms
becomes a snake, and at the end of the movie,
a snake crawls out of his mouth and that it
terrified me so much as a child that I mean,
it just took the phobia as I already had and

(27:44):
made them worse. But that was a horrific movie.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
I was gonna ask if maybe that was the source
of your.

Speaker 4 (27:51):
The source was running around in under Rus Superhero under
Rus when I was probably like four or five and
standing on the head of a copperhead and having it
strived at me as I ran away.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Oh damn yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:01):
And then my grandmother came out and killed it, put
its body on the steps at her house, and it,
of course it was gone because you know the neurological stuff,
and snakes carry on for a while after you kill them,
so its body had wandered off, and who knows it
was always coming back for me. That's terrifying.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
That would terrify me too. I imagine where you live,
though you probably have a lot of snakes, don't you.

Speaker 4 (28:26):
More than I would like. The house I currently live in,
we had one coming through a window about three four
years ago and it wrapped itself around the curtain bar,
all the curtains, and we were watching TV in the
living room when we heard something fall and let the
kitchen area where it came in and we walked in
there and there was this gigantic, like five six foot

(28:47):
black snake. Just wrap the curtain rod and we walk out.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, talk about animal attack and real life.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
My wife will not let me live down the fact
that I was on top of the sofa screaming like
a baby. She dealt with it. But yeah, you know,
I save her from spiders all the time, so she
owed me that snake. That's my story and I'm sticking
with it.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
Do you have like favorites though? Favorite types of animals
for an animal attack book?

Speaker 5 (29:16):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (29:16):
You know, I like them all. Dogs are probably my
favorite because I've read, I own like all the dog
books except for maybe one or two, and there's quite
a few of them. But something about dogs because when
I was a kid, I was afraid at dogs. I
spent all my life except for like the last two years,
hating dogs. So I got the dog I currently have,

(29:37):
and she changed my view on all dogs. So dogs
are the probably a different way the scariest to me,
because I mean they are kind of killing machines, nothing
compared to a house cat, which we will get into
when we get to our favorite books. But dogs can
be pretty vicious and they're loud and they snarl and

(30:00):
that no novel pitch there from my home book. But
you know, dollars just streaked me out.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah, dogs are like one of my favorite animals for pets.
But you know, like TikTok and whatnot, often forget you know,
if you watch I watch a lot of TikTok videos,
and I watch all the cute dog videos and whatnot,
but they leave out the scary dogs because there's plenty
of those.

Speaker 4 (30:20):
Yeah, that might be an aspect of why they're so scary,
because they're man's best friend and we totally forget that.
You know, there's still animals and given the right circumstances,
even your precious baby can turn on you.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
So.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
Actually, my grandmother she had this dog. It was like
a toy something or other.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
It was a small dog, and she walked it every
night and she was attacked by another dog which mauled,
knocked her over, and mauled her dog to death. This
is when I was like a kid, I was like
three or four, and she couldn't do anything about it.
Like if it was me walking it now, I would
probably be able to defend that little dog.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
She couldn't and it was like killed right in front
of her. And that's awful, right, Like.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
It's terrible and it's sad, but it's also nature that
we have to live with.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
It's something that happens, and I think we need to remember.
I keep going back to this, but I think we
need to remember that, all right. So I want to
know something because I once wrote a short story about
a cute animal that became violent, and I submitted it to.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
A critique website. I don't know if you ever heard
of critters dot org.

Speaker 4 (31:35):
Maybe at some point my career kind of sounds familiar,
but I'm always be kind of a loner, you know.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, I don't even know if they're still out there.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
But when I was young, I was in the HWA
or as an associate member before my career took off,
for maybe about a year or less, and I hated it.
There was too much politics and backstabbing and you couldn't
trust anybody, and oh, yeah, you know, and then I
tried to I thought about joining the science fiction because
I way qualified for that, and people were like, oh,
you need to, and I was just even though the

(32:04):
science fiction people are a whole lot nicer than the
hard people, and there's not as much backstabbing. I guess
I've always just been a loner. I mean, so I
don't really do critique groups or writers' groups or even
join the organizations apparently.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, well this.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
I submitted that story to critters for feedback right, and
a lot of people who who critique the story for me,
they went on about how you can't make a fliffy
animal like a like a bunny rabbit scary, and that
really stuck with me. I don't know why, but you know,
there's some example in children's fiction where are scary?

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Right?

Speaker 4 (32:41):
Like you clearly haven't read The Folly by David Ann.
It is about genetically engineered rabbits to eat people. It's
a very famous.

Speaker 5 (32:49):
Mesh, but it gets really, really weird at the end.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
I won't spoil it for you, but it goes beyond
just the bunny rabbits. But you get lucky. You can
probably find a second printing on eBay for around thirty bucks.
But that first print that's pictured in paperbacks from Hell,
I've been looking for a year and I've never seen
on the market anywhere. Yeah, because the second print just
has like a forest is to cover. But the first

(33:15):
one actually has like this stilly eyed blood dripping from
its mouth. Rabbit and yeah, it just doesn't.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Exist, which you know it should, it should, it should.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
But I was wondering, how, you know, gaining from your
expertise here, how would you go about making like a
cute little animal like a hamster or something into a
scary monster.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
I want to erase the.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
Let's do hamsters no pressure at all, no pressure at all.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
You know, make it make a hamster scary Eric, Well
might need you know, a.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
Few more gallons of coffee before you know what.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
I think I can sure.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
There's a way. I'm sure someone did it. At some point.
It will be done. I think I can do it
every animals, because.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
Anyone who's owned hamsters has pets know that they can
be little, nasty little beasts.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
They will bite.

Speaker 6 (34:12):
I actually had I just just go with the lats
formula and have them swarm you. Right, Yeah, you don't
want to be stormed by that's for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
Uh do you? Uh?

Speaker 1 (34:26):
What do you think about?

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Like symbolism that can be used in animal attack books,
Animals often represent humanity, spheres of the untamed wild, loss
of control, or even societal pressures.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
Oh yeah, I mean, I mean most animal attack books
are just pulpy fiction for the fun of it and
for the gore. But I mean there's most of them,
well not most, but a lot of them have a
clear eco message too, about hey, we're screwing up the
planet and if we don't stop screwing up the planet,
we are severely gonna pay for it. You know, whether

(35:02):
it's animals, plants, or insects. That that is a reoccurring
constant theme in this specific subgenre. But you know, it
also gets into you can go with trust issues when
you're coming down to the dog stuff, you can go
with you know, the just the humane answer more. I
can't talk.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
Morning, and I'm having.

Speaker 4 (35:24):
Trouble, but anyhow, you know, I mean, there's lots of
themes that can be explored, but I'm gonna go with
the eco when being the prevalent one, because.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
A lot of sense.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah, especially when it comes to like mutations and whatnot,
and toxic waste, toxic waste by the way, and the.

Speaker 4 (35:43):
Fear of losing our civilization as we know it. You
know that going back to the wild and just how
scary the wild is.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah, And before I move on to your own work
within this, you mentioned plants.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
That's something I didn't think of. Can you give some
examples of plant attack? Now? I know some myself, but
I want your expertise on that.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
Harry Adam Smith I think that's his name, wrote a
book called Fungus and that that is a great book.
They have the Triffids, classic definitive, Yeah, classic definitive plant
attack book, but Fungus is horrific because yeah, it's not
the fungus so much actively attacking you like an animal.
It's growing on you and eating your flesh on you

(36:32):
and turning you into this mindless plant zombie. And it's
just a cool book.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
I mean. And who's the author of that again?

Speaker 4 (36:41):
I think it's Harry Adam Knight. I think.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Awesome.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
Did you hear any of plant books. I think there's
one called Dust that's fairly more modern, but I can't
remember who wrote it. And if if I stepped away
from my screen, I could go tell you a lot more,
but I'm not leaving my screen.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
Yeah, did you know have you ever heard about the
zombie ants where fungus control like kills and then yeah,
the zombie or the ants. That's terrifying on its own.
That's the fungus thing, right, But.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
I mean.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
That specific premise, though I don't recall which one it is, right.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah, but that's that's real life stuff, man, that's terrifying fungus.
Fungus is both helpful to us, but it can also
you know, kill us.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
So I wanted to talk about Snarl a little bit
because that was a passion projects of yours. But there's
some interesting things in that, and we kind of brushed
upon this already, so I guess maybe I should skip that,
but I wanted to talk about, you know, how we've
made things to Disney, but I wanted to talk about
your because you kind of go into it in your
introduction about dogs and the possibility of dog attacks, and

(38:00):
would you like to talk about that a little bit more.

Speaker 4 (38:04):
Oh gosh, yeah, I'm holding upside down here. Star was
indeed a passion project for me because you know, as
a kid, I was attacked by a dog, not as
viciously as the copyhead thing, but you know, my grandmother
had a big dog and it was just so huge
it would come like roll me over. And why it
wasn't actually aggressively attacking me. You know, as a little kid,

(38:25):
you can't tell the difference and there's a big dog
in your face, and you know, movies like Kujo and
stuff really drive that point home. And yeah, not liking
dogs for the bulk of my existence on this planet
and finding them either scary or evil, you know, and
reading all the animal attack stuff that I have in

(38:45):
the last year, I really wanted to write a book
that was dogs, kind of like when I did Bigfoot War.
You know, a Bigfoot War comes from me having nightmares
about sasquash from living in this rural area of North
Carolina and thinking he was going to come through my
bedroom window and smash through the wall like the Kool
Aid Man and just tear me apart and snarl. Is

(39:06):
kind of my take on my childhood fears of dogs,
but amped up. You know, it's not rabies. The rabies
is sick and vicious, but this one's actually a bio
weapon that functions much like the rage virus in twenty
eight days later, and it just drives all the cadines
into this feral attack mode and you get all these

(39:27):
horrific scenes of people's pets turning on them. And yeah,
I really, I won't lie. When I was writing Snarl,
I went back when I finished it, I went back
to the beginning and went through every scene and tried
to make it gorrier than the first time I wrote.
And that is the first time I've ever done that

(39:47):
in my career. So Snarl, Lord Willing is the goriest
thing I've ever written. It's probably not because I've written
so many books in the last twenty some years, but
it was the one I put the most effort into
being the most visceral, disgusting thing that I could, because
I really wanted to hit the eighties vibe. And I
don't know if you're aware of this, but like in

(40:07):
a lot of animal a tactbooks in the eighties, whether
it was Killer Moss like in the Block by Mark
Saunders or Dog books, you have all this visceral attack
of the genitals and all these private area parts. They're
just kind of like, ah, you know, for a little
of that with Snarl, not not as bad as the
eighties books, but I wanted it to feel very much

(40:28):
like an eighties read when he picked up a Snorrol,
and I wanted it to be an homage to paperbacks.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
From hell I.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
As I mentioned earlier, there's an intestine scene in there
and involving a dog and the woods, and that's going
to live rent free in my mind for a long time.

Speaker 4 (40:47):
You know, Lucio Folshi was known as the King of
eyeball gore in Italian cinema. And one thing I get
a lot in my feedback from readers is, at at
some point in my career, I think I'm becoming like
the people think, I have this upset session with guts
and intestines because there's so much intestinal gore in my books,
and I just like tearing open the stomach, you know,

(41:08):
for that effect and doing all these crazy horrible things there.
So I guess it full she was the eyeball king,
I'm apparently becoming the guts king. It's kind of just wrong,
but I'm going rung with it because it's my job.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
So yeah, Well, intestines are fun to play with in books.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
You're going to see in books. You know in real
life too, that's gross, but you're gonna you're gonna see.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
You're going to see some intestines in my latest installment.
In her book there, I'm just gonna warn you, but
it was Snarl was a lot of fun to read.
As I mentioned, do you remember the actual seed that
spawned it? Was it your I guess it was your fear.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Of of dogs? And yeah, yeah it was.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
It was not licking dogs for all those years. And uh,
you know, and I Will really wanted to play on
that how much society puts dogs above of children in
some cases at this point, and how for some people
dogs are their children, and how much we've humanized canines.
I wanted to strip some of that away and show

(42:16):
what canines actually could be in a very fearful manner.
Like there's one scene in the book where this lady
was just driving down the road in her car and
her little poodle hops up and like rips out her
throat and the car crashes.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
I remember that scene.

Speaker 4 (42:34):
Yeah, well it's not a huge scene, you know, it
speaks to the core of what I was trying to
do with Snarl, and how that even though we love
them and they love us, they're still animals. And in
the case of Snarl, again, it's a virus type thing,
not them turning on us just out of instinct, But
it shows what could happen even out of instinct if

(42:56):
we did something wrong.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
Yeah, so, and that book Grim as well, but I
love it.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
It's one of my favorites.

Speaker 4 (43:05):
Well, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
All right, So I think we're Do you have anything
else you want to add to animal attacks?

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Anything that I might have missed?

Speaker 4 (43:14):
No, No, you have mentioned doing our top three, so
I am prepared for that.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Do you have honorable mentions as well?

Speaker 4 (43:23):
Well? Honorable mentions? I will have to think about that
as we're going here, But I will tell you in
Paperbacks from Hell, Grady Hendrix mentions a book called The Cats,
which was written by Nick Sherman. And I will tell you,
if you've never read an animal attack book, Cats is
not that bad. It's decent. But if you really want

(43:44):
a cat book, I'm getting the wrong book picked up here.
You need to read clawl. This takes place on a
small secluded Idam island where the people can't get off
the island during the storm. And it's a fishing island
where cats have just been let loose to breed and
breed and breed. And there it is a small town

(44:08):
overrun by cats. And of course it has your typical
cats eat a baby trope that was in the eighties horra,
But I mean it's visceral, it's action packed, it's apocalyptic feeling,
and it just blows the heck out of Nick Shermond's
The Cats. I mean Jack Younger, I think that's the
author's name, just did a master work of cat fiction here.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
That's awesome. I have a few here.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
I wanted to talk about Meg by Steve Alton. That
book is a lot of fun, and they, of course
they made that into a movie. It's about the megalodon
shark not being extinct after all, and of course attacks
like an underwater science type station. I watched the movie

(44:55):
first and then I went back and read the book
and I just had a lot of fun with it.
You know, it's not very gory, though it's I guess
it would be hard to be gory, But the book
goes into more of the killings like that the movie
only touches upon, Like when the megalodon reaches the beach
in the movie.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
They not always not to have the go the gorse
is an added bonus sometimes, oh for sure, yeah yeah,
But like when the megalodon reaches the beach in the movie,
I don't even know.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
If it does reach I can't remember but I know
it does in the book, and it gets pretty nasty
there a bit, but it's just a fun book.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
The next one I have here, I don't know if
it counts.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
Because it's it's like a beast that doesn't actually exist,
but I put it here anyway because it reminds. It
has that animal attack feel to it, and that's Croda
by El. Going back, this book has some pretty interesting.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Gore to it. Like I am a bit of a gorehound.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
When I go into these books, I'm reading them because
I want. I want to be uh, I want I want,
I want the gore. Honestly, I want the fun, and
this one has some of that.

Speaker 4 (46:06):
He's a brilliant writer. I would admit I haven't read
that one, but he's a brilliant writer.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Sure Quota is awesome. I highly recommend it.

Speaker 4 (46:13):
And one of mine if you're good ahead. So when
I first started reading Animal Attact books, right after paperbacks
from Hell, this book here is the one I started with,
trying to get it close to the cameras who you
can see all the little bats on the color. Yeah,
so this is about yes night Wing. There's a movie

(46:33):
of it. The movie does not do the book justice
in any form of fashion. The movie is actually kind
of slow. It's a cult classic, but it's not one
I can just say, yeah, you need to go watch
Night Wing. But the book is amazing and it yes,
it's about rabid bats spreading rabies across the entire state,
but the core of the book is its characters. It

(46:56):
is focused on indigenous Native American people and their culture.
I think it's the Hoppy Tribe, but I can't. I
can't remember. I've read it so many times. But anyhow,
it kind of talks about how, you know, white cultures
taking over Native American culture. And the whole premise of

(47:16):
the story is a Native American shama and who decides
that the world needs to be wiped out and only
his people survive, so he kills himself in a big
ritual to summon all these bats. That's the premise of
the attack. And you have the other main character is
a Native American who's in position of law enforcement and
he's the only one who really understands what's going on

(47:40):
with the bats and the curse. The shaman has a summoned.
But it is an intense character book. You will love
the characters and the characters make the story. Yeah. It
breaks my heart to say this when talking about animal
attack books, but with night Wing it's the characters who
make the story. Animals in the door.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
So it was a very moving one for me, and
like I said, it was the first one that read
when I really got heavily back into it and it
just blew me away. I was like, Wow, this guy
can ride. Is Martin Cruise Smith. By the way, he's
famous for like Gorky Park and a lot of other books,
but to me, not with his masterpiece.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Is that Cruise with a Z.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
It is Cruise with a Z. Martin Cruz Smith, Cruz Smith.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
My next honorable mention. Here is a very thick book.
It's a it's a it's a doorstopper. It's The Terror
by Dan Simmons.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Of course this is about the Franklin Expedition. Uh.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
And it sort of goes into maybe what happened, of
course it's it's not what happened, but it's it's a
fun take on it. And there's a giant polar bear
in it that's a definitely a mythological type of creature,
but it's still taking out the crew and It's just
a lot of fun reading it.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
I've talked about it quite a bit here.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
It is a beautiful historical read. I mean, I'm a
sucker for period piece and Simmons is a great writer anyhow,
So I absolutely absolutely agree that Terror is.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
A fantastic Yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
I don't know if people would totally see what major tops, Yeah,
I don't. I don't know if people would think of
it as an animal attack book, but there's definitely that
element in.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
There probably, I mean, there's elements of it, but that's
not what the book is, is how it would go.
There's definitely elements that come across as an animal tack book,
but but it's not officially in that genre.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
So yeah, do you have any other honorable mentions?

Speaker 4 (49:43):
What else? Since we were going in top three? One
that actually scared the heck out of me and bothered
me as a human being was Slime by John Howck,
and I did not pull my copy of it. But
it is about killer jellyfish. And most of of these
animal attack books are set in Europe because you know,
that's where the big trend was, but they actually the

(50:05):
jellyfish go from the salt water to the fresh water
and later on in the book. So just kind of
like in that famous Sean Hudson Slugs where people are
ingesting the slugs and it's killing them. The same thing
happens with jellyfish and slime, and it's as gory as
slugs is, and as iconic of animal attack book as

(50:25):
slugs is. Slime is far more disturbing. It was how
can at his best?

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Awesome?

Speaker 3 (50:33):
All right, right, do you have any other honorable mentions
or should we move on to the top three?

Speaker 4 (50:40):
Oh? I just did my top three.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, I'll go.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
Back Younger night Wing by Martin Cruse Smith and Slime
by John Holkins for my top three. So I was
going in and I apologize.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
I'll go into my top three. Then at number three
I have The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.
This is I think, a brilliant take on the slasher genre,
but it's also a person taking on the form of
an animal to get the revenge of something that happened

(51:19):
during a hunting expedition that a young that a group
of indigenous friends went on. If you know anything about
indigenous peoples when they hunt, they often do it respectfully.
When they kill an animal, they use the entire bodies,
and they also thank the animal for you know, giving well,

(51:42):
they apologize to the animal and they're thankful for what
they get. But during this hunting expedition, things go out
of control. I'll leave it at that, and sort of
like the spirit of these animals take the form.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Of this crazy and spooky looking woman with an elkhead that,
like Greeks, havoc on these four friends. And it split
up into like four or five different parts, so you
could read it as a collection of stories. It's not
necessarily linear, but there's some pretty creative kills in this

(52:18):
book and it's one of my favorites. By Stephen Graham Jones.

Speaker 4 (52:22):
Stephen Graham Jones is on my read list for this year.
So many people was told he's fantastic, that his work
is fantastic, and I've looked him up and he seems
like a great person from his interviews. So hopefully I
will get to experience that one soon. And on a
side note, you know you couldn't tell it from looking
at me. I'm as white as you know. Why comes

(52:43):
as a southern redneck guy, But if you go back
enough generations in my family my however, many times great
grandfather back was actually a fairly famous Native American indigenous
medicine man shaman who traveled this region where I still live,
you know, like helping people. Yeah, maybe that's part of

(53:05):
my why. Yeah, because I'm a fan of indigenous culture,
because I think they've got a much more grip on
what's going on than we do at times with nature.
So that hopefully no when thinks I'm culturally appropriating, you know,
when I say I don't even know what I'm saying,

(53:25):
just edit that out.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
If it's in your blood, it's in your blood right,
and you have appreciation for.

Speaker 4 (53:32):
I truly appreciate indigenous Native American cultures where I'm trying
to come from, I.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Have the same thing.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
I truly appreciate, and I like learning about it too.
I've read a few books.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
Both fiction and nonfiction.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
It's it's a very rich tapestry of culture that I
think is is deeper than our own. And we could
probably make an episode of that all on its own.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:00):
The eighties animal tags genre was rampant with indigenous vengeance stories,
and a lot of them had no idea about the
culture they were writing about. They were just running on stereotypes,
and I mean, I'm sure it gets pretty insulting, but
you know, at the same time, there were a few
that were written by actual Indigenous people, even in the

(54:21):
eighties that they're just fantastic books.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Also in the nineties, that's when Al going back I believe,
started writing, and his books are really good. I maybe
should even put that in my It was hard making
my top three. I'm just gonna say that I went
with only Good Indians because that story is it's a
little bit deeper and more in depth than Croda was.

(54:46):
But Crota was a lot of fun and there's a
lot of great characterization in that as well.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
But my number two goes to Devolution by Max Brooks.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
I have never read that when I did not know
that one existed actually until you mentioned it.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
It's really good. It takes you know, you know World
War Z.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
That, Yeah, it's it's a similar concept where it's like
found footage.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
The found footage being.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
This this group of people are living in a cabin
for a certain period of time and a volcano blows
near them, and that drives First of all, the volcano
blowing traps them where they are, and it drives all
the animals out their way, and this includes a family
or a group of sasquatch who began attacking their cabin.

(55:41):
And so later on, after all the debris has been
filtered through and they find uh that these people are
missing or maybe it's even they find their bodies. I
can't remember that. But they find like the records of
what they kept while they were being attacked. And it's
a very awesome book. It's like, uh, it's like adrenaline,

(56:02):
you know. It's uh, once it gets going, it's cass
kind of like a slow start to it where they're
like admiring nature and stuff and that I have to
admit that that part kind of annoyed me a little
bit because it just goes on and on.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
But uh, but once the attack starts.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
It gets very relentless and the the intensity just remains
throughout until the rest for the rest of the novel.
So I highly recommend that.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
And my my number one is a book.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
I I'm a big Stephen King fan, and uh, but
I'd never read Kujo because the idea of reading Kujo
scared me.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Because I knew how it ended. I know.

Speaker 4 (56:46):
Yeah, the movie changes that.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Yeah, the movie changes that.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
But that's what I was afraid of reading, especially after
I had my son, right, But I ended up tackling
it anyway last.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Year and I absolutely adore this or oh my god.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
Of course it's Stephen King, right, But what you get
is you get like a family drama that's completely hijacked
by a rabid dog. And my biggest complaint about this
book is the ending kind of drags out too long.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
He creates his tension and he holds onto.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
It for maybe just a little too long, but it
ends up going where it goes, and it's it's not
quite as tragic as I thought it would be, although
it is. I'm gonna spoil it here, so anyone who
hasn't read Koujo and doesn't want to be spoiled, fast
forward maybe a minute or two. But I thought that

(57:40):
the boy was going to die via the dog, like
finally getting him into its maw. And the reason why
I was, like, you know, when it comes to like
maybe a book that you would write if you know
when kids are being killed, it's more in a fun way.
But I knew that Stephen King would make it personal,
personable somehow, sort of like pet cemetery right, And I

(58:01):
was afraid of tackling like getting attached to the boy
and feeling like their family on their own, you know,
humanizing the kid to death and then having the dog
molum to death. But the way he actually does die
is is quite more simple than that. It's dehydration, and

(58:21):
it's tragic still, but it's not as violent as I
thought it would be.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
But still this book, it's kind of makes it more
poignant for sure. Yeah, but the book is.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
It's it's funny that he doesn't remember writing it because
he was so drunk when he wrote it.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
But it's like I wish, I wish I.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
Had that sort of brain power because because if you're
that blackout drunk while writing a book and.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
It's still that good, it's like nobody can do that.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
Not well, King is like Lovecraft. He he is a brilliant,
brilliant writer and just not a great person. But that's
just my opinion, mind you, but brilliant, right, not a
great person. And as an alternative to Kujo, I've got
to mention this book. It probably should have been in
my top three, but it's man Stopper by Douglas Borton.

(59:13):
This book is about four attack dogs who are trained
to kill people by a corporation, a corporation that trains
security dogs, and the truck carrying them to wherever they've
been sold to rex and they get loose in a
small town and their work as like this highly trained
military pack, just tearing everybody apart, and half the book

(59:35):
probably sold from the perspective of the dogs. There's a
Doverman pincher named Razor, and if you read this book
and you don't fall in love with Razor, there's something
wrong with you as a human being. But anyhow, I mean,
after reading that book, it's not only my favorite dog
attack book, but it really wanted me to get It
really made me want to get a Doberman pincher because

(59:56):
that's why Razor is. And my wife, unfortune she loves dogs.
She had some trauma with a Doberman as a child,
so as you was like, you were never getting it.
But I mean, The Man Stopper is a fantastic dog
book if you're looking for a dog breed that's alternative
to Kujo. There's no poignant death of a small child

(01:00:17):
from dehydration, but there's a lot of emotional stuff with
the dogs because it's not the dog's fault that they're
they've been trained to do this, and you kind of
have a dog perspective on what's going on in Man.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
And my message about be wary of animals, it really
all goes down to the training. I don't think any
dog breed is inherently evil.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
It again goes back to what the the breed like.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
I'm going obviously going into some breeds that have been banned,
and it's not the dog's fault. It's that they're often
used for fighting and and and that's obviously wrong for
so many But you get these people who train dogs
to fight illegally, and then they don't like leash their dogs,

(01:01:08):
and then of course the dogs go out and attack people.
But it all comes down to training. If we could
just take care of our animals to be loving creatures.
But then there's also the idea that some animals aren't
just like they're kind of like humans, they're just not.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
Righting the head. Doberman's are a breed that's very stereotyped
as being a super aggressive killer dog because they are
used so much by security firms and the police and
military as attack dogs, just like German Shepherds, and they're
both highly intelligent breeds, so I mean, yeah, I mean
whether or not they are. My wife swears that they're vicious,

(01:01:45):
but like I said, bad experience with him. But I
would hope that, you know, if they were raised in
a kind of loving environment, you could have a wonderful
pet Doberman, which I will never be allowed to have.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Well, they look scary too, right, they do.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
They're sleek and beautiful.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
I think often they're used as like hounds of Hell
in movies. If you're going to have like a hound
of Hell, it's got to be a Doberman with the with.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
The clipped tears and the clip tail, and you know,
it just looks like an evil dog right there.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
But often they're just little cuddle bums, like like any poodle.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
Right, going back to the greed thing, I think part
of that is what makes Quto work so well. Yeah,
the Saint Bernard, Yeah, because you don't typically think of
the Saint Bernard as the attack dog.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
They're giant dogs, but they're.

Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
Very kind of cute, lovable dogs.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Yeah, exactly, absolutely, And.

Speaker 4 (01:02:42):
Would they rescue dogs at one point?

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
I think they were used for that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:46):
Yeahs like Warner Brother cartoons, or there's Saint Bernards that
carry the little keg under their neck and the Arctic.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
I think King used the Saint Bernard in order to
like subvert the the expectation of that, right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
And it works brilliantly. I mean the movie version.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
The dog just looks almost possessed, right, It's like it
gets all gray and covered in mud.

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
And speaking of dog attack books, I've got to throw
in one more, and that's The Pack. I think the
writer's David Fisher. It actually predates Kujo, and it is
a fantastic book and I'm gonna spoil it for you
because it's worth being spoiled for. Okay, it was written
in the seventies, yet a time where women don't quite

(01:03:30):
have everything they do today in terms of their riots
and how our cultural culture sees them. But in the Pack,
it's not the gun loving hunter brother, or the tough,
gnarly grandfather, or even the dad who saves the day.
In the Pack, it's the mom who steps up and
saves the survivors of the family from the dogs. And

(01:03:53):
I mean, to me, that was a very awesome thing
to be in that time period and have and a
strong female character who wasn't there for political reasons so much.
It's just it was realistic that the mom was gonna
be the one who saved your children, you know. And yeah,
that book just struck me as an often an underlooked

(01:04:15):
book that is a good representation of women as something
other than a screaming trope, you know, like you know
what I mean, the fall Down Girl, the girl who's
running and falls down, the Serial kill one movie. Yeah,
it's the mom taking charge of going you ain't eat
my kids.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
You know. Mom's in the human animal kingdom can.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
Be very, very very protective of their their kids, just
like beavers.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
You don't want to mess with the mom.

Speaker 4 (01:04:48):
Actually, it just struck me as a very you know,
ahead of its time novel because it is the female
protagonist who steps up at you well, I mean, the
female character steps up and save s the dame becomes
the main character of the book.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Yeah, and that's The Pack.

Speaker 4 (01:05:08):
The Pack. Yep, there was a movie made in the seventies.
I think the name is David Fisher. It's spelt with
the Sea, I think. Okay, there are two books called
The Pack. The other one is written by guy named
Essex and I think that's his last name. And while
it is also a good book, it's not to me

(01:05:30):
as cultural culturally important as the pack. I mean, it
wasn't carrying that kind of a message, but and it
has kind of a weak ending. But the other pack
by Essex is also worth reading. It's just not as
amazing as Fisher's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Are there any more books you'd like to discuss.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
Or have we I think we've covered a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
I think we have.

Speaker 4 (01:05:57):
Yeah, yeahs immediately to mind.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
All right, So I think I think we've we've nailed this,
this topic of animal attack. I want to thank you
for coming on and sharing your expertise with this and uh.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
Yeah, so uh I think that's it. If you're done, Yeah,
I'm good.

Speaker 4 (01:06:19):
Thank you for having me on the show. I really
appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
All right, And as always, you're always invited to come back.
Just let me know and we'll schedule something in the future.

Speaker 4 (01:06:29):
And I'm sure that we will keep the viewers posted
on our collaboration and when it comes out this fall summer,
because it absolutely fun Animal Attacker, all.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
Right, and thank you again for everything.

Speaker 4 (01:06:42):
Thank you, Jason, and.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
I want to.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
Thank Eric for coming on the show, and for uh,
you know, just being my friend, and also for co
writing an animal attech book asking me to come along.
It's a funny story. People might think that I was
bugging him to do this, but no, he would He
bugged me. He wanted me to do this with him,

(01:07:16):
and that took me by surprise. He actually brought that up.
I think it was late twenty twenty four. He was like,
we should write a story together, and I was like, really,
I didn't think he actually wanted to do that. I
think he was just being nice and so I was like, yeah, sure,
we'll do that sometime. Just let me know when you're ready.
And it took a few months, but he was finally like,

(01:07:39):
all right, let's get this thing going. Do you have
any ideas where would you like? Where would you like
to go? And so I shot him an idea and
we've gone with it. And that's something I was not expecting.
It came out of left field, but I'm very happy
that it has happened.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
It's going to be a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
If you and gory animal attack stories, this one will
be right up your plate. I would say it's probably
a little on the extreme side here, and there, and
that's perfectly fine. I know there's an audience for it.
I am one of those audiences. I like fun, gory books,
but I you know, obviously I like the serious books

(01:08:21):
to the slow burns. But I am a man of
many tastes. So thanks again to Eric, and thank you,
dear listener, for listening. I can't tell you how much.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
I appreciate you. Guys.

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
If you want to help support the show, if you
want to support what I'm doing here, you can do
so for free. It's very easy, and as I just said,
it's free. All you have to do is go on
to Spotify and rate the show, or you can go
to and this more than fifty percent of my audience
are Apple listeners, so they listen to my podcast mostly

(01:08:59):
on Apple. So if you could go there and rate
the show and give it a review. If I get
enough of those, then Apple and Spotify both know how
to share my show with other people who might like it,
and that helps the show grow. I would love to
see this show become bigger than it is and to

(01:09:23):
reach a wider audience, and I hope that you would
want to help me in that venture as well. So
until next time, I hope that you all are having
a fantastic week. And I should mention before I go here,
there's going to be an extra episode tomorrow, and that
is my conversation with Michael David Wilson on his latest book,

(01:09:43):
Daddy Boy Daddy's Boy. It releases tomorrow as of the
drop time or date of this episode, so that's Tuesday,
May sixth, and you will also be able to listen
to Michael David Wilson and me discuss many things tomorrow.
We talk about a lot of stuff, including his latest book,
Daddy's Boy. It was a fantastic conversation. I was so

(01:10:06):
happy to talk to him for a second time as well.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
So go do all the things.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
Please do all the things, and I will catch you
guys next time. But until then, keep being weird, my friends,
because being weird in today's world is so very important.
And I I'll catch you guys in the next episode.