Conversations - David Agranoff

This in-depth interview explores the work and creative philosophy of author David Agranoff, known for blending horror, science fiction, and political commentary. The discussion covers his literary influences—ranging from heavy metal and punk rock to authors like Alistair MacLean and Philip K. Dick—and how they inform his fast-paced, visceral writing style.

0:00 - Intro
1:28 - Heavy Metal
4:14 - Alistair MacLean Influences
7:05 - GD Killing Machines
8:53 - Last Night to Kill Nazis 
17:06 - Childhood
18:07 - Hunting the Moon Tribe
19:40 - Style of Writing
24:58 - The Vegan Revolution...with Zombies
32:26 - Punk Rock Ghost Story
46:24 - Paperback Warrior on Last Night to Kill Nazis
1:01:16 - Great America in Dead World
1:06:19 - Nightmare City
1:07:58 - Bizarro
1:11:43 - Dickheads Podcast
1:14:11 - Conclusion
Get the Book: https://amzn.to/4po8Szm
David Agranoff Online: https://www.facebook.com/david.agranoff.5

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Eric with the Paperback where
your blog podcast YouTube channel. As you can see here,
I've got a guest with me today. His name is
David at Granoff. He is the author of one of
the best books I've ever read, The Last Night to
Kill Nazis. He's an award winning author. He also hosts
the Postcards from a Dying World podcast. He's a blogger, screenwriter,

(00:29):
and he's a punk rocker.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hey, David, not very often anymore. I'm too old. I
a lot of times going to shows. I'm just like,
I got a cross town that rocks. I do that
for basketball, but not for shows.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, yeah, you know. It's funny. My wife and I
had bought tickets I think it was last year. We
bought tickets for a like a Misfits. Oh no, it
was Ramones was Ramones cover band and a Misfits cover band,
and it was we'd already about the tickets, like twenty
bucks a ticket or something, and then it's like seven
o'clock at night and we're like, well, they got to
get off the couch and get ready and drive downtown,
and like, well, we could just watch another episode of

(01:10):
this on TV. And then by the time we do that, man,
we just don't have it anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Our jenemy got me out of the house. I went
and saw our chianemy last year's but it's easier. I actually,
you know, truth be told, I'm more of a metal
head that I am a punk rock I liked the
punk rock scene and I did grow up in punk rock,
but just pure musically, I'm more of a metal guy actually.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
But yeah, I could tell from uh because I we'll
talk about your books, but I was recently reading one
of your books, and it's reading some of your books
is like you need a soundtrack to go along with it.
And you were talking about Slayer, and then you were
talking about a band I hadn't played in a long
time called Earth Crisis. So I've been playing Earth Crisis
the last three or four days now because I kind

(01:59):
of forgot about them. And one of your characters is
playing earth Crisis as they're driving down the road, I think,
just like shooting and stuff, and I was like, man,
I haven't played earth Crisis in a long time.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
So yeah, Hey, Earth Crisis was a local band for
me in the nineties, so and one of my all
time favorite bands there. They were big influence on me
becoming vegans. So that's one of the reasons why I
had to shout out Earth Crisis.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
I always do.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, man, well listen, I will tell you they are
often hidden Earth Crisis lyrics as easter eggs in a
lot of my novels.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
And they are there for only serious.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Earth Crisis fans to find. Well, they were subtle and
from deep cuts, but they're there.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
But they were really kind of ahead of their time. Yeah. Yeah.
I came out in ninety five, and they kind of
led the way for you know, metal cores in in
hardcore bands.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oh man, I first Earth Crisis in ninety three, so, uh,
ninety five was they were already doing it for a
couple of years.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Man, I saw them.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
I saw them probably the first time I saw them
was late nineties. They headlined in South Carolina and they
had Inflames and skin Lab. Yeah, skin Lab or Pissing Razors.
I can't remember who, but well.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Carl, the singer from Earth Crisis co wrote a fantasy
novel I've got right here called The Unraveling. I haven't
read it yet, but I did pick it up. I
didn't realize that the Council of Crows.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
So it's a.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Kind of middle grade fantasy novel. But yeah, but he's
an author as well, so interesting.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, it's cool. He's doing other interesting stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
And plus they're still two in Earth Crisis, so they're
they're there are actually many to or soon, so you know,
shout out to Syracuse.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah that's right after the nineties, so I've got a
lot of love for that city.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
But yeah, yeah, well you uh you and I had
we touched base. Maybe it was last year after I
reviewed The Last Night to Kill Nazis, which was published
in twenty twenty three. I bought it last year with
my my annual Christmas gift card to Barnes and Noble,
and I was sitting here that my twenty dollars card,

(04:30):
debating on what book to buy, and then that cover
of that book stood out to me so much and
it's amazing cover, and I was like, Okay, I've got
to have this and read it was blown away by it.
It was a combination of For me, it was a
combination of everything I love about high adventure, like Aliston McLain,
Desmond Bagley, Jack Higgins meets you know, something like Brian Lumley,

(04:57):
and then you know Dracula. It was just a crazy,
crazy domination. So where where did you come up with
the idea for this?

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well, you should know that I when I was growing up,
one of my favorite genres of movies were the World
War Two mission movies. And because of that, uh like,
I had a Beta Max tape that had taped off
commercial TV Guns of navarone Force ten from navarone on

(05:29):
one on one videotape and I watched those many times.
Although when I was a kid, I thought Force ten
from Avrone was a cooler movie than Guns of Avarone.
And but because my father, who was an academic and professor,
pushed us to read. He said, well, you know those

(05:50):
were based on novels. You should read the novels. And
somewhere along the way I read the Alistair McLean novels
and got into Where Eagles Dare like all all that stuff,
and I loved that genre moves and it was something
my father and I could both watch. So pretty soon

(06:11):
after we watched the navarone ones, we went to a
very early proto video store and we rented Where Eagles Dare.
We watched Where Eagles Dare together, and to this day
where eagles dare I think and forced him from Navarona
are two of my favorites. And I mean there's there's

(06:32):
not so subtle easter eggs to Navarone. The fact that
the British character in Last Night to Kill Nazis was
named Mallory specifically because as a homage to you know,
the main character of the Navarone books, but in films.
But you know, I loved those things like long before

(06:57):
Inglorious Bastards. You know, I love those mission movies. And
this wasn't my first time wanting to pay tribute to them.
My first class book is a science fiction novel called
Goddamn Killing Machines and Goddamn Killing Machines.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
The whole concept.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Of that book was what if Alistair McLean and Philip K.
Dick collaborated on a book?

Speaker 3 (07:29):
Was my concept.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
I wrote it as a screenplay first, Actually killing Machines
I did, and so I kind of like what I
was going for was and I pitched it at the
time as the Dirty Dozen meets pk D. And there's
a specific PKD short story that it is kind of
influenced by.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
But it's a.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Huge spoiler to say if you know what story, so
I won't say which short story, but none of the
US Goddamn Killing Machines was the first time that I
kind of did like a sci fi take a twenty fourth.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Century version of Alisair McLean.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
And what's funny is is that book it got a
couple of reviews, a couple of people read it, but
I don't know if anybody picked up on it. Although
the structure of it is exactly the same as that.
It's kind of the dirty, doesn't There There there there
war criminals who are given this suicide mission, but in
their case it takes three hundred years traveling to another

(08:33):
planet and cryo sleep, and you know, they're given the
suicide mission and on this hostile planet. And it's very
Alistair McLean, but super sci fi. And that's a long
way to get back to Last Night and Killed Nazis
because I really wanted to do a straight up World

(08:58):
War two novel. That was originally I just wanted to
do a straight up, no supernatural, no nothing. But then
I realized, But in the back of my head, I
was like, no one's going to publish. No one that
I know is going to publish a straight up World
War two novel, and I kind of chased this idea
and I may may write it someday about a group

(09:22):
of recruits from a Japanese internment camp.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
I have to.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Infiltrate a Japanese base, and I like really wanted to
write that, but I knew no one was, you know,
And plus I wasn't sure that I was the guy
to write that. A Japanese writer might be the person
to do that, but I was I was at the time.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
I was.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Really just trying to come up with something World War
two and a friend of mine was talking about some
vampire movie and he said, it's it's I think it
was blood Red Sky, the movie Blood Red Sky, and
he said it's like Air Force One with a vampire.
And he joked with me, like my buddy even Zurich,

(10:15):
who we usually are talking late at night about Blazer
games for the Trailblazer Games, and he said this to me,
and he said, almost any movie could be better with
a vampire. And you know, at the time, I was
trying to come up with this World War two idea,
and literally the title and the concept came to me

(10:38):
within ten minutes.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Wow, the idea of a Jewish commando and a vampire.
All right, did our signal?

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Mm hmm, Yeah, we buffered a little bit there, Okay.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
So so basically I had this idea of like a
Jewish commando and a vampire on the last night of
the war trying to kill as many Nazis as possible
before Gerbels can write the surrender, and then the title
the Last Night to kill Nazis like immediately came in
my head. And the actual, like the actual plot of

(11:23):
it took a little while for me to outline and
refine and all that and where to put the characters
and and all that like took a little bit of time.
But from the germ of the idea to a completed
manuscript was about two months. It's the fastest I've ever

(11:43):
come up with an idea and completed it. And it
just happened to be that I had just finished a
screenwriting project that had gone nowhere.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
And it's a long story, but.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
We just we had a screenwriting project that went nowhere,
and then I was coming off of that and had
this little niche time and I had already done killing
machines with clash books, and I knew.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Christoph would get it right. I knew Christopher.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
I knew this idea was something that Christoph, who's like
one of the the editor owner co owner of Clash Books,
that he would get it. And both he and Liz
are in the tribe. So I thought, you know, and basically,
and Christoff will tell you that Last Night to Kill
Nazis is the only book that Clash Books has ever

(12:42):
published entirely on a pitch because I had finished the book,
but I called up Christoph and I wanted I wanted
to buy ads somewhere for killing machines, but ostensively that's
what I called him about. But then I said, hey,
can I pitch book to you? And they had just

(13:02):
picked up the national distribution with Barnes and Noble, and
Christoph said to me, well, you know, our schedule's really full.
We don't really have you know, time in our schedule,
David like, we're booked out for two years.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
And I said, well, hey, just.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Let me tell you the title, right And I told him,
you know, the book was called Last Night to Kill
Nazis And then he said, okay, keep going, and and
this was in twenty twenty one, and then by the
end of the conversation he said, how does August twenty
twenty three sound, and and he was like, I got

(13:43):
to read it. I got to make sure you can
pull off the ending. But that's the date. Send me
the book. I sent it to him, and then he
sent me a contract within a couple of weeks, and
we did hold to that August.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Twenty three release date, and uh, yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
And the rest is history, the the development of the story,
you know, in that those two months. Like it's funny
because Christoph and I get a we Christoff did a
lot of work with me on Killing Machines, and we
changed a lot of the structure and everything in the
editing process, and there was, you know, a lot of
stuff we did. Uh, Killing Machines was pretty much unchanged,

(14:29):
like we were on the same page with it and
pretty much from the beginning.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
And yeah, and there were certain things that.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
I really needed to figure out in order to structure
the story, but those were all things that were mostly
done in that outlining phase. And I'm a big outliner.
There's a lot of moments in the book that happened
that weren't in the outline. But because I believe that,

(14:58):
like the outline is like a half of the city,
and you can look at the map of the city,
but until you like get in there, you're not gonna
really see what the city is like until you walk
the streets. And and for me, there is still a
lot of creative process involved, although a lot.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
Of the major beats were were in the outline to
begin with.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Uh, you're you're You're. I don't know if this is
a spoiler or not, but you're one of your main characters.
Is your your account to writer, your your vampire character,
and are we going to see him again?

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yes, yes we will. Uh.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
There is a sequel that has already been greenlit, written
and finished. We don't have a date yet, Christoph and
I haven't like sat down and ironed out dates yet,
but it is finished, and you know, Uh, there's definitely
I mean, writer survived, survives, the book survives the events
of uh in the novel, So there is something that

(16:01):
happens in the epilogue, but the events of the sequel
take place between the end of the main part of
the novel and before the epilogue of of Last Night
to kil nazis So, and it's kind of implied that
writer and Noah had had a lot of Nazis to

(16:22):
hunt when the war was over, and so I don't
think that's a spoiler.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
I think that's yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, I'm I wouldn't actually talk about what happens in
the epilogue that I consider a spoiler.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
But yeah, but I think.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
The fact that the two of them survived it, I
don't think that hurts.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
I don't think that'll hurt the the experience of reading
the novel. And I do think, you know, with The
Last Night to Kill Nazis, a lot of it is
the journey.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Uh you know.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, there are definitely things that I think are a
little bit uh spoilery and in that book, but not
not that.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
How certain things go down and how certain.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
People, uh meet their fate maybe, but yeah, but yeah, yeah,
I yes, we will that there will be a sequel
and there maybe U boats and mummies involved.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
H So.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Is your your account writer? I'm assuming you were. You
grew up in Indiana, so you probably all the old
Uh what was it was a play on cemetery. There
was the guy that they had the Sammy Terry, Yeah,
the horror host that talks to Spider. Yeah, was that

(17:44):
Samit Terry?

Speaker 3 (17:45):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, Sammy Terry is actually mentioned in my novel People's Park.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
So yeah, it was an horror host that show from
in Indiana.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
I grew up on Sammy Terry. He was our horror host, okay,
that hosted horror movies every Friday night at eleven o'clock
and would talk to is by our named George.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
So you've got your diet of vampire movies through Sammy
Terry right.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
All the Hammer horror movies, from Twins of Evil, all
the Dracula, Christopher Lee absolutely were a huge part of
growing up. And in fact, my first, the first novel
I ever wrote, was a love letter to basically Channel
four on Friday nights because every Friday night after Sammy

(18:36):
Terry they would have a black Belt theater.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
On.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
And so my first novel, Hunting the Moon Tribe is
like a combination. Is a Chinese vampire novel that kind
of combines the love of because when I was growing
up a lot of times if I was tired from school,
I would just set record on Sammy Terry and then
so I ended up with all these double features of

(19:05):
Hammer and Shaw Brothers movies because as soon as Sammy
Terry was over, they'd have Black Belt theater on.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
So I'd have like all these.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Amazing double features of like Twins of Evil and Chinese.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
Super Ninas or.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
You know, uh, you know, the heroic ones and Dracula
has risen from the grave, like I just I have
all these And so my first novel, Hunting the Moon Tribe,
was basically a Woo Shoe vampire novel crossover. I will
say that one is probably I'm pretty sure it's out

(19:42):
of print and hard to get, and uh, you know,
I would love to get that one back in back
in print.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
With maybe a new edit.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
But but yeah, my first novel was also was Chinese Vampires.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Well you know, China. To describe you as you know,
you're it's really hard because you're kind of all over
the place. You write science fiction. You've got a zombie novel,
you have this this World War two high adventure thing
with the with the vampire. You've got almost like a
post apocalyptic thing going on. You're cut and you know,

(20:20):
it's funny because we were before the interview, we were
talking a little bit about about Joe Lansdell, But you
really are kind of like for me, like Joe Lansdell,
because you write in all these different styles, and and
you've got this other thing which we're going to talk
about in a minute called bizarro, which I'm not totally
familiar with the bizarro subgenre. But I hope that's not

(20:41):
I hope that kind of you know, it doesn't mean
that you're misguided or misdirected by any means. It means
that you can you can write your ass off with
any kind of style or genre. And it's amazing to me.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, I mean, if if I could, if I only was,
if I was going to be confined to one genre,
I would probably want to write science fiction. But I
love action adventure stories. I love eighties action movies. I
grew up on. You know, Commando is one of my
all time favorite movies.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
I like.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
I love like shitty action moves. That's one of the
reasons why Paperback Warriors speaks to me. But because I
grew up on that stuff. So I love writing action novels.
I like writing action stories. That being said, I also

(21:36):
grew up on science fiction, reading science fiction. I was
reading Isaac asthmov when I was far too young to
be doing that, and I like philosophical science fiction. You know,
I'm known for being a massive dickhead in the sense
that you know, right back here are all my Philip K.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Dick novels. I do a podcast about Philip K. Dick.
So obviously I like.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Philosophical science fiction, and my most recent novel is actually
a philosophical science fiction novel that has no action adventure
in it.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
You know, I like to do different things.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
I you know, like I said, if I was confined
to one genre, I would choose science fiction because I
can write action adventure in science fiction. Horror was very
important to me growing up, and horror is basically how
I broke in when my first book deal with Eraserhead Press,

(22:38):
which was a five book deal. You know, Eraserhead wanted
me to be the punk horror guy. So the first
couple books were punk rock themed horror, and that was,
you know, a deliberate thing, which I was fine with
because I grew up on punk rock and I grew

(22:59):
up on horror, so I was fine with that. But
it's funny because at some when I did Ring a Fire, like,
I had a lot of friends joking with me because
there was no punk rock in the title, or there's
no punk rock in it, and and and then it
got nominated for a Splatter Punk Awards, so it still

(23:19):
got connected the punk in one way.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
But uh, but yeah, I I don't know.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
I mean, for me, I'm chasing the idea. I'm chasing
the thing that's fun for me. You know, I have
a couple of novels that I've written that I don't
even know how to find homes for because they're so weird,
and you know that are just sitting on my hard drive.
I have one horror crime novel that I did finish,

(23:49):
but halfway through I decided that it wasn't working, but
I finished it anyways, and then, you know, so it's
just I follow the muse where it goes, just like
anybody else. Now that being said, my time is pretty
limited these days. So if I don't think I'm at

(24:12):
this point, if I don't think I'm going to find
a home for a book, it's not likely that I'm
going to sit down and take the time.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
To write it.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Partially because I had projects like Unfinished PKD. My non
fiction projects like Unfinished PKD and the Philip K. Dick
Encyclopedia are taking up a lot of my time. And
but you know, for example, for the Last Night to
Kill Nazi sequel, I put a pause on all that
and just focused on on the next Night to Kill

(24:41):
Nazis and and and you know, just did that for
for a little bit and then came back to everything.
But yeah, you know, and that's the thing is a
lot of times too, with short stories, you get to
experiment with a lot of these things, you know, and
you can experiment and styles and things like that. Yeah,

(25:02):
so that's always fun. But but I will always write horror.
I will always write science fiction, and that's kind of
you know, I'm generally going to find an angle to that,
you know.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, I just I just read The Vegan Revolution with
the Zombies and uh, and that's one of your early books.
And if and honestly, if if it weren't for a
Last Night to Kill Nazis, I probably wouldn't have read
it just because of the title. It was just like,
you gotta be joking. But I read it and I
loved it, I really did. And it was that that

(25:38):
book is a joke. Yeah, it's uh, it's very funny.
It's it's funny, it's satire, obviously, it's yeah, it's brutal,
it's it's but it's what I liked about it, is
it it's the grindhouse kind of thing with the with
the horror references that you have in there, you know,
like Burial Ground and Lucio Fulci movies and and you've

(26:00):
got like the Italian horror thing going on in the background.
But then you've got this character named Magic who just
spouts off all this eighties pop culture, you know, out
of the blue or like, hey, could Patrick Swayze really
hold off of you know, the Red Army and you're
throwing you know, Red Red Dawn from eighty four and
I'm like that that's one of the greatest movies ever.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Mat is a real Magic was a real person that
I fiction I put into my book. He's slightly fictionalized
in the book, but the way Magic and his girlfriend
met in the book is actually how Magic.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
And I met as friends.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Oh interesting in line for a theater screening of the
final season of Battlestar Galactica.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
On the Sci Fi Channel because I got you okay, yeah,
yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
And in Portland they use they some of the movie theaters,
like the big TV shows they'll like do on the
big screen screenings of live TV shows and like they're
three you just make money off selling food and drinks.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
And so I met Magic because he was the.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Only person in line before me for getting a good
seat for Battlestar Galactica.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Oh I see, Okay, well yeah, and folks, if you haven't,
if you haven't read this book. But the the character
we're talking about is Magic. And anytime there's like an
uncomfortable silence or something, he'll just come up with some
kind of random statement or question and it's funny. I
was thinking about him today and I was at lunch
with my wife today and there was an awkward silence

(27:39):
and I looked at my wife and I said, do
you think, Dan, do you think Bob Seeker's still working
on his night moves? And it's like, what are you
talking about. I was like, Oh, there's this book that
I was reading. But yeah, it was just hilarious. And
then you've got these questions in there too, these multiple
choices questions. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
And I actually had.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Magic and we did a reading at Powell's Books in
Portland and I had zombies attack me at the end
of the reading, like a bunch of my friends dressed
up as zombies and magic came in and pulled me
off the stage.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
So that's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, yeah, And I hardly ever think about the Vegan
Revolution with Zombies, to be honest with you, because it was.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
An early, early book.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
And for those if you're listening, if what the Vegan
Revolution was, zombies was was I had my editor, one
of my editors at Eraserhead, suggested to me that vegan
books sell, zombie books sell, and you're a vegan horror writer,
you should write a vegan theme zombie book. And I

(28:50):
didn't want to because I took myself very seriously as
a horror writer. But at the time I only had
a short story collection out, and they that if you
write this one book for us, you can have a
five book deal and then write the other four books
and we'll figure out what those are later. So I
wasn't gonna stay not to that, and then what I

(29:11):
basically came to was that I couldn't write that book seriously.
I had to write it as a funny story. And
one of the reasons why they asked me to write
it is because I had read a short story that
was very comical at a Bizarro event in Portland, and
they knew I could write funny, and mostly I've written

(29:34):
funny short stories, and you know, most of my novel
and stuff is very serious, but I've experimented with that.
I would love to write another more comedic novel at
some point. I have a sign a very comedic science

(29:55):
fiction novel that I outlined literally probably fifteen years ago,
that I would love to write, and there is one
publisher who's interested in it.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
And it's actually it.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Takes place on Hanukkah, but in the twenty third century.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
It's a long story.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
But eventually I would love to write that one.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
And but I but you.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Know, the Vegan revolution with zombies is obviously meant to
be funny.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, And I.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Would say I would say, if you like, you know,
watching from Home or listening to this podcast, I think
if you like Sean of the Dead, or you like
the zombie Lamb movies, I think you'd find these very
very entertaining.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, And there it's funny because there's a Venn diagram
of that novel of the things that people If you
know zombie movies, you'll get a lot of the humor
of it. If you know the vegan culture, you'll get
different parts of it. And if you've lived in Portland,
you'll get parts of it. So if you know all

(31:09):
those three things, you will get all the levels of it.
But it works if you know any one of those
those things. But you know, there's certain things that if
you don't understand, like the animal rights seen culture, you
won't get some of the humor that's in there, because
there's certain people that are satirized that.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
If you don't know them.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
But the people who get those jokes probably don't understand
the jokes about burial ground or you know or whatever.
And so I'm just this weirdo who like fits all
those things. And you know, and there's certain things where
it crosses because like, for example, there always has to
be the person who hides the fact that they've been

(31:52):
bitten by by a zombie. And since the thing that
turns people into zombies is eating like meat, dairy, and eggs,
so a lot of people think the book is about
vegan zombies, but it's the opposite.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
The vegans are the only people who are not zombies.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
In the book, and so of course the person who
hides the fact that they're that they've been turned into
a vegan or I mean even turned into a zombie.
Is is the person who's freakin And if you don't
know anything about freagan culture, and for example, that joke
might not land with you, but.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
I had people Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, exactly, and and so, but that joke is pretty
hilarious to people that are part of the animal rights community,
and so it's okay if you don't get it all, you.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Know, Yeah, it was fascinating to me. And the other
one that I just recently read and I went down
the rabbit hole on because you've got you know, just
sometimes you don't just write a book. You it's an experience.
And punk Rock Ghost Story, Yes, it's a freaking ex experience.
I just so people will understand. This punk Rock Ghost

(33:04):
Story book came out in twenty sixteen, but you twenty seventeen. Okay,
you've filmed a mocumentary about this band. I'm not going
to curse because this would be on YouTube and it'll
get censored, but I'll say The Efforts. You made a
monumentary film about The Efforts, which is a fictional punk band.

(33:26):
And you also so you didn't kind of a Blair
witch treatment kind of thing, and then you also recorded
music by this fictional punk band called The Efforts.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, yeah, we recorded a whole record. We pressed it
on vinyl. I've got the vinyl back here. There were
only thirty copies. We did a whole documentary about this
fake band.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
And Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
When I pitched to my editor at deadI Jeff Burke.
I first, I first wrote the first raft of the
novel I wrote in twenty ten, And I said, I
wrote this horror novel called punk Rock Ghost Story, and.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
I wanted to be one of the the.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Four books that we do after being in Red, but
I need seven years. It's got to be one of
the later ones. And he's he said why, And I said,
because I need to spend the next seven years convincing
people that the band in the book is real.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
And he said okay, and I ended up.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
He said, he said okay.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
He just said, okay.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Well, I explained the whole the whole plan, because I
had the whole thing planned. We're going to record a record,
we're going to press it, we're going to make a
documentary about him. We're going to enlist real life punk
rockers from the Midwest punk rock scene to be in
the documentary and then they're going to talk about this
band if they're real, and we're gonna you know, I

(34:59):
had the whole plan, and I said, but it's gonna
take a couple of years, and we need to spend
the couple of years doing it.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
So it's because if you did it six.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Months before the book came out, then people are going
to be on to you, right, they're gonna they're gonna know.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
But if you.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Spend all these years, like.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
You know, doing And one of the things, like one
of the songs that the band, the fake band did
was this song called fifteen year Old Punk Kid. And
I had this joke band in the year two thousand
called Masha New Oblivion and we did the song fifteen
year Old Punk Kid there, but retroactively, I was like,
oh yeah, Masha New Oblivion covered one of their songs

(35:46):
and then recorded it. So it was like retroactively it
was like, oh yeah, that was a cover We didn't
we didn't write that was that was a cover song.
And all these different things we did to you know,
to make it real. And some of my friends like
totally like I just asked them to record on their phones,

(36:07):
like making up stuff and like there's a whole scene
where my buddy Zepp's who owned a record store in
Indianapolis and was in all these famous bands there, where
he's like literally like and he filmed this thing where
he's like scanning through his records like, oh, yeah, here
it is, and like I didn't tell him to do that.
I just said, like, film yourself talking about this big band, and.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
He totally sold it.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
So yeah, we did this whole thing, and I told
Jeff like I needed this time. And one of the
cool things that we did for Punk Rock Ghost Story, well,
one of the cool things about the seven years is
by the time we were almost ready to publish it,
I wasn't happy with the first draft. So I literally
just threw out the entire draft I did in twenty ten,

(36:52):
and I started from page one and.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
We wrote the entire novel.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
And if I didn't have that seven years, I would
have done the inferior version of the novel. But I
had seven years to think about it after I wrote
the first draft, and I had all these things that
I wanted to do to make it better. And I
was a better writer. I'd learned, I'd written several novels,
and I'd written In the meantime between then, I wrote

(37:18):
Boo Boys for the Wolffrike and the entire amazing Punk
Story short story collection, and I was just a better writer.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Yeah, and so I just started.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Over and in twenty seventeen I rewrote Punk Rock Go
Story from page one, and.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
That's the novel that you read.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
And then by that time we had done the documentary
and all that stuff, and so, yeah, and there's still
people who think the band is real. You'll see comments
from the Facebook video. Oh yeah, I saw that band
and so and So's basement in nineteen eighty two.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah. I told someone I was reading it and they
had just kind of looked it up quickly online, just
as a sky level view, and they were like, oh, yeah,
this is based on a band that disappeared in eighty two.
And I was like really, because I wasn't that far
into it at the time. I was like, oh really,
I said, well, it seems like that's where it's going.
And if and if you haven't read it, it's it's
about this band called the Efforts in eighty two that

(38:21):
that their lead singer basically goes and disappearing after after
the tour in eighty two and.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
They have this white band that it's a haunted punk
rock tour van.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Yeah, it's kind of like you know, wheels. Yeah, I
hate to say Christine. Yeah, a lot of people say
what it's like, No, no, no, no, no, yeah, let's just
say it's not Christine. But but this this current band
called People's Uprising from what two thousand and eight, I
think or two thousand and six, it takes place, yeah, yeah,

(38:53):
before they end up getting the van, end up buying it,
and then they're The lead singer of People's Uprising is
sort of haunted by this nineteen eighty two The Efforts band.
Mostly the singer, the lead singer of The Efforts of Frank.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Efforts, he's the only one that died.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
So yes, yeah, but he can hear the whole band
they like speak to him. But it's it's, it's it's
it really has to be experienced. It you don't just
read this book. It's an experience. And it had me.
It had me, thank you. It had me googling punk
rock bands and basements and dives all across the country.

(39:33):
And I had a little I had a little playlist
I was making based on all the songs that you
were dropping the song titles because I'm not I'm a
metal guy. I wasn't really too much into punk, and
I'm looking up all these punk bands and I'm like, man,
this stuff's really really good. And and you're you're bass
player or maybe it was a guitar player, I can't remember,

(39:54):
but he warms up to a Celtic Frost song, and
so that it put me down the who who rabbit
hole of Celtic Frost because I had I've been listening
to them a long long time ago, but once you
had that him warming up to that song, I went
down the whole rabbit hole listening to Celtic Frost disciography.
But it was a whole thing for me.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
And it's interesting because that was a personal Easter egg
to my buddy John Schipper who lives in Tampa now,
who played guitar and a band that was briefly in
called war Cry, and that was the song he always
warmed up with on guitar at the time.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
So oh interesting that was.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
It was actually a tip of the hat to my
buddy John, who, by the way, is the artist who
drew the artwork on the cover of the Efforts seven
inch actually John did. I did that shout out to
him as a thank you for doing the artwork on
the record.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
So that's h.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
And yeah, that's a that's a that's a cool marriage there,
you know, various things, but again it's you know, I
guess that was sort of your love story to punk rock.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
I mean, yeah, that and amazing punk stories. I would say, I,
you know, the whole reason for when you do a
haunted house story, one of the most important things you
have to figure out is why won't they leave? You know,

(41:24):
you always have to have a reason for why the
haunted house, why they cannot leave.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
They they can't just be like peace out, you know.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
And so I love the idea because I've I haven't
been in a punk rock band, but I have done
a little bit of touring, selling merch with bands, and
so I've experienced tour, and tour is like one of

(41:54):
the most grueling marathons you could ever do, because when
you're touring with a punk rock band, you don't have
an enough money, it's hot, you're living in a van.
It sucks. It's one of the worst things ever. But
if you're committed to completing the tour and doing the tour.
It's one of the most grueling possible things you could do.

(42:15):
So the idea of a punk van being haunted and
just as a metaphor for the grueling experience of being
on tour was part of the idea. But the other
reason why I wanted to write punk rock ghost Story
is because, as somebody who grew up punk rock in

(42:37):
the eighties, one of the things that happened that changed
punk rock forever was Nirvana. Once it smells like teen
Spirit happened. Punk rock changed forever before Nirvana. If you
were a punk rocker, the jocks and rednecks wanted you dead,

(42:58):
and it was like a constant and fight for your
life going to school being a punk rocker, especially in
the Midwest where I grew up, but I know that
it was that way everywhere, like even in La So
there's a lot of glorious retro nostalgia for the glory
days of punk rock in the eighties, but at the

(43:19):
time it was like a fight for your life, Like
people wanted you dead, they wanted to kill you.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
You had to. You know, people can't believe.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Because I'm kind of a peaceful dude, and I'm kind
of a zen thirty year vegan.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
But I grew up fighting a lot.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
I got in a lot of fistfights and stuff because
I was a punk rocker. And so like, for example,
a basketball a lot of times people won't believe, like
they can't believe how tough I am fighting for book
balls in the paint, right, And it's partially because I
grew up fighting for my life.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Right. I can take a punch.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
I got just yesterday in basketball, I got an elbow
straight to the face, and it didn't FaZe me at all.
And part of it is that I grew up in
this age when we were fighting for our lives. And
so part of punk rock ghost.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Story for me was this idea that.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
The ghost story aspect was a perfect metaphor to talk
about punk rock before Nirvana and punk rock after Nirvana.
And so the band after People's Uprising is like, you know,
they're a little emo and they're like, you know, super
progressive and they're non violent, you know, and whereas.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
The band from the early eighties.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Are like fighting people all the time, getting messed up
and like, you know, they were a gritty outfit as
it were.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
And so the difference between then and now was you
know it was weird because you know, that's really.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
What I wanted to write about, was this this kind
of difference between punk rock then and now, and the
ghost story became the metaphor for me.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
So was it a love letter?

Speaker 2 (45:10):
I don't know, you decide, because you know, the quote
at the beginning of the book from the singer of
Bad Religion is people want to talk about the glorious
old school, but we.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
Were fighting for our lives, you know.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
And I don't really have romantic views of how it
was then, you know. I mean the music there's romantic.
I have romantic views for how the music was then,
you know, and all those things. But like the scene
it was, it was a violent, scary, scary time, you know.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
And so and.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
I think I like to write about you know, punk
rock during those eras because it was, you know, different.
But I liked it that way, you know, I like
a violent pit. I'm a weirdo, I you know, I
I mean, I don't go to those shows anymore. And
and you know, in a lot of ways, basketball has

(46:07):
replaced that for me because I like the aggressiveness of
of it in a lot of ways. But I also
like the teamwork because but that's a whole another rabbit hole.
But anyways, like you know, I grew up in a
in a very very violent, you know, punk rock and
hardcore scene, and it was it was very different. And

(46:29):
by the end of the nineties, in the early two thousands,
pup you know, punk rock was you know, very progressive
and it was very different, and I just I thought
Punk Rock Story was a way to do that. But hey,
can I turn this around on you for a minute,
because I read Punk Rock Ghost Story and Vegan rev
a little bit more recently. But but I'm interested because

(46:55):
your review of Last Night to Kill Nazis Is is
my is pretty much my favorite if.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
You've ever read them.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
So yeah, I'm kind of interested in your your experience
in reading that book and talking about you know, because
we've talked a lot more about the other books. But
I'm really interested in your experience in reading last Night
because to turn it around, and hey, I'm an interviewer too,
so I do that. Yeah, for reading last Night, I'm

(47:25):
I'm wondering, as a guy who has read the Alistair
McLean things like how much did you pick up on that?

Speaker 3 (47:33):
You know, I mean, you had to know I was
into that stuff.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right away. And it was funny because
I had I bought that book and I had to
go to Honda because I had to get my car
worked on, and the one that's here in town. You
go to Honda, it's it's literally eight to ten hours
of just sitting in their little lobby there. And I

(48:00):
brought that book with me that morning. I said, I'm
gonna take this book and start reading it while I
was at Honda. And I'm just sitting there and yeah,
the first uh, you know, the first chapter or two,
I'm like, okay, I'm getting this now. And people kept
walking up to me asking me, Hey, do you want
some coffee? You want a bun or some or cinnamon
bond or something. Because they're pretty, they're pretty approached. You know,

(48:20):
they approach you quite a bit at this Honda lobby
because they want you to look at other cars while
you're waiting on your car to get fixed. They want
to try to sell you a car too, So they
kept coming up to me, and I was getting really aggravated.
I was like, man, this book is awesome. I was like,
I showed the one guy. I was like, look at
this cover. Why are you bothered me, like I was
being joking. Yeah, I was joking with him, but they

(48:40):
were like, okay, yeah, you really like your book. I
was like, yeah, this book's amazing, and I could immediately
catch on to you know, it was gonna be a
riveting World War two yarn based on just the first
couple of chapters, and you've got, right at the beginning
of the book, you've got you know, you've got the
Russians right at the door of the Hitler. You know,

(49:01):
right at the very the very end of World War Two,
you've got the Russians surrounding.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
The Hiller shooself.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
On the first page, yes, Hitler's Hitler commits suicide. And
then you introduce h a real guy. Who is Heinrich Himmler,
And uh, you know, he's notorious in history is being
this horrible, horrible, horrible human being. But he's a real
guy and he's and he's in your book. But once
he makes the plan to you know, they're going up

(49:28):
into the into the mountains to try to outrun this
task force that's on their trail, I'm like, dude, I'm
I'm I'm I'm knuckle deep into this thing. You know,
it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
And it should be noted that the history is the
only things that I added were the vampire and the
landing strip at at the Eagles Nets. There's no landing
strip at the Eagles Net not there's not enough space
for a plane to land. And then the Vampire, and
that's it. Everything else is historically accurate, down to the

(50:00):
name on the id that Himmler was holding when when
he died, And that's a huge part of the story actually,
and I don't want to give that away, but but
you know, a lot of the key to the story.
And one of the things I'm really proud of is
that there's certain benchmarks you have to hit in a

(50:26):
World War Two mission novel or an Alistair McLean style novel,
and you've got to have certain things. You have to
have the double agent who you think is on your
side but betrays you that there's certain points you have
to hit. But I had to do the vampire version
of all these things, and I had to do it

(50:48):
within the context of this story. So I like, I'm
one of the things I'm proud of is that is
hitting all those notes within the context of the vampires story.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Yeah, and you're in your vampire. You know, he's not
the typical vampire because he he has compassion. He has
a compassion for humans.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Well yeah, well he thinks he just wanted he actually
did not want to continue to be a vampire.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
He wanted to.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Sleep forever, basically, and then the Nazis took over his
castle and woke them up, and he considers them an
insult to By the way, there's there is also a
major easter egg and homage to one of my all
time favorite horror novels in there, which is f Paul

(51:42):
Wilson's The Keep. Paul doctor Wilson was I took a
workshop from him on on outlining, and I've done a
whole podcast. I did a podcast that is on my
podcast feed where I just interviewed Paul about structure, and
so there's a huge I love The Keep is one

(52:04):
of my all time favorite novels. I consider a top
ten horror novel. And so there's a couple of Easter
eggs to The Keep in there, and and uh, yeah,
there's that going on, and then yeah, he does and
by the way, there's more explanation, there's more connections to
his awakening that ties back into the sequel, so that

(52:30):
actually plays a role uh in uh.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Part two.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
And Uh, however, you know for me, like too like
one of the most important characters for me and last
Night to Kill Nazis, which might not seem so, but
I really knew how to do this novel. There was
one character who was the lynchpin of like being able

(52:59):
to conve of this novel, and that's Alice. And before
I thought of Alice, I didn't really have the structure
for the novel completely set in stone and the inspiration
for Alice. I was doing research and one of the
things I was doing was I was watching this video
and they had these They had an interview with one

(53:21):
of Hitler's former secretaries that was done in the eighties
when she was in her eighties, and the whole time
she was trying to say, oh, Hitler wasn't that bad.
He was actually a really nice guy. At my rhetoric now,
and then you know, we're I was listening to this

(53:42):
interview with her, and Alice completely came to me because
before Alice, I was like, when you're writing a horror
novel and you've got a vampire hunting Nazis, I was like,
how can you have a character who you can have
sympathy for or can be like the point of view
of the not see characters. And then the idea that

(54:03):
this this secretary of Hiller's, was pregnant and she just
wants to survive and get her baby out of the situation.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
And then of.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
Course there's some some chicanery involved with who the father
is and and this all ties.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Into very historical, historically accurate details.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
So a lot of the details about like the bunker,
the eagles nest, some of the names of the characters
and all these things are are very historically They're all
historically accurate, and I did a deep dive into all that,
and I'm very proud of.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
That aspect of it too. But Alice was the key,
Like without Alice, the novel wouldn't have worked.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
And some of my favorite moments of discovery involve Alice too.
My Yeah, my favorite part of the novel actually involves Allie.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Yeah. For me, I really liked her character a lot,
and I'm one of the weirdos that that really likes.
I can't think of her name now because I'm John
a blank. But in the Raiders of the Lost arc,
the love interest Indian love interests. I like her. She's
my favorite part of the movie.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Right well, I like the character and the son of
the vampire or the daughter of the vampire expert in
Last Night to Killed Nazis is an obvious homage to
Marian because she was named Marian basically because as a
nomoge her.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
So.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
But this this book, you know, it's going back to
my My thoughts about it is Wolfenstein because I played
wolf and Stein a lot as a as a kid
growing up playing the game Wolfenstein. And then also, even
though I don't like the movie that much, Operation Overlord
that came out fifteen or ten to fifteen years ago
with Kurt Russell's Sun as they lead Operation.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Overlord, I feel like the right director could outdo it with.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Yeah, yeah it would, that's all right, We're about done anyway,
But inglorious bastards. And then also for me, they also
the other part of it that I thought was really cool,
and it's been a while since I've read it, so
you have to forgive me. But the stuff that they
talk about, you know, you're talking about in the book

(56:29):
with the Nazis uh kind of uh, you know, experimenting
with the occult and experimenting with supernatural that said plot
device that's been used quite a bit, and not only
in horror, but also in men's accident venture novels. You know,
even Alistair McLean kind of fools with that a little
bit in his novel River of Death when you got
the Nazis that have escaped and moved to this you know,

(56:50):
this island to to do these macab experiments. So but
that kind of spoke to me as well. I like
that part of it.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Yeah, and I go more into that in the sequel
as well, So.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Uh great, I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Yeah, we get way more acculty actually with the Nazi
in the sequel. But yeah, I mean I wanted to
play with that a little bit, but mostly it's it's
dealing with the whole the vampire thing and and just
like kind of setting up the lore for for all that.

(57:24):
And you know, I take seriously my vampires. So I
wanted to do it right, and you know, but you
got to get the human characters right too, and you know,
kind of balancing that. And one of the things is
that I didn't want the Nazis to be cartoons either.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
I wanted them to be fully realized characters.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
And and and actually probably one of my favorite scenes
in the book, and it wasn't planned this way, but
there's a scene where Alice first gets to the Eagle's
nest and she sits in the chair where she the
last time she was there, Hitler dictated a speech to her.

(58:12):
And this wasn't planned, but I looked up one of
Hitler's speeches and he had said something about, you know,
exterminating the Jewish race and in this speech, and I

(58:35):
kind of came up with this idea of him saying,
you know, of her having this memory where she's sitting
with Hitler and he says he's dictating the speech to her,
and he gets to the point where he says exterminating
the Jewish people, and then she says, no, my fear,
don't say people say race. And it's this moment where

(58:58):
because we've spent all the time with Alice, and you know.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
She's the character that we're supposed to have.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
Somewhat sympathy for, and we think maybe she's not so bad,
and she's just been along for the ride for all this,
and then and then there's this moment where she where
we see that she's a part of it, you know, Yeah,
she's in her own little way, she contributed to this.

(59:28):
And to me, it's funny because I mean, yeah, there's
lots of gruesome Nazi deaths, and there's lots of action
and adventure and and there's all that, But to me, this,
this scene with Alice Is is to me one of
the most powerful parts of the novel. And it's something

(59:50):
that I'm not sure many readers would catch on to,
but it's for me. It's one of the things that
elevates the book from just being like holp fiction. Although
that's fine, you know, I'm fine with pulp fiction. I
read a lot of pulp fiction, but at this at
the same time like that, it's something that kind of

(01:00:11):
takes takes it up a notch. And and there's some
really interesting places that I get to go in the
sequel and and and Last Night to Kill Nazis. I
hate to get commercial on this, but you know, it
helps us move to the sequel and get the sequel
moving more people buy it. And if there's if there's

(01:00:34):
one book in the cannon that you know, obviously I've
got several books out there, but the Last Night to
Kill Nazis is a great place to start because it
is available nationally at Barnes and Nobles. If it's not
on the shelf and the horror section, they can get
it and ask.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
For it please.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
It always helps for US indie authors if you request
books at the library at your library, so that's always
very helpful. But I think Last Night's a great place
for your listeners to start, because I think the fans
of paperback warrior, I think the two books that I
think will most fit the Venn diagram of interest are

(01:01:17):
The Last Night to Kill Nazis and Goddamn Killing Machines.
So it's funny that we talked so much about pub Eckstor,
although I mean, if people, I know a lot of
your listeners like horror so and so I think that
they'll enjoy that as well. But I do think you know,
and of course I've got a shout out. I haven't

(01:01:37):
mentioned it yet, but my newest novel is Great America
and Dead World, and it was an experiment in nineteen
sixty for Philip K. Dick wrote a five page letter
to his friend Ron Goulart, who asked them for advice

(01:01:58):
on writing a novel, and before that a Phil had
never written down his formula.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
It was completely intuitive.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
He did have a formula for writing novels, but he
never sat down and wrote it out.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
And so he wrote this five.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Page letter to this guy, Ron Goulart, who if you
like funny science fiction, By the way, Ron Goulard, his
science fiction is very funny. But he sent Ron this
five page letter saying this is how I write a novel.
And that letter was basically lost time until a few
years ago. Ron Goulard passed away. And before he passed away,

(01:02:34):
he started selling off all of his memorabilia to you know,
help his family out. And he sold a friend of
mine that letter, and we found it, and so we
knew that the letter was The letter had been mentioned
in his biography, but and part of it was quoted,

(01:02:55):
but no one had read.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
The whole letter.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
And so I basically a weekend murder boarding thirty of
Phil's novels based on this formula.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
And I ended up writing a chapter of a nonfiction
book that hasn't I haven't completely finished yet, called Unfinished PKD.

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
That's all about the work that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
He didn't finish in his lifetime, the books he started
or outlined and never finished. I have a rough draft
of that done well, I have three drafts of it done.
I'm still working on it. But I wrote a whole
chapter on the formula, and then I ended up giving
a power point at Bizarrocon about the.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
About the formula.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
And around the time that I was writing this workshop,
my my co host of Dickett's podcast, Deharlin Wilson, said
to me, well, what good is teaching the formula if
you don't use it? And so the idea for Great
America and Dead World was, I've spent six years immersing myself.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
In Phil Kate Dick's fiction.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
I've read all one hundred and twenty three of his
short stories, I've read almost all the novels I've studied written.
I've immersed myself in his work for six years. Who
better than me to take his formula? And so the
idea was I method acted as Phil and imagined him
traveling from my favorite era of his writing, nineteen sixty

(01:04:26):
three to around the time that he wrote the formula
letter to twenty twenty three when I was writing it.
And how would Phil comment on the modern world? Climate change, Internet,
social media, maga, all that stuff and like what would
he say about these things? And has used his themes

(01:04:48):
of what is human, what is real? What is you know,
all these things that he did to come up with
a plot and a concept and that was Great America
and Dead World And so you know, the jury's out
if I pulled it off. But Lord Running Clam, who

(01:05:10):
is this figure in Philip K. Dick's studies? He wrote
The Pink Beam Companion, which is like a timeline of
Phil's entire life. And when Lord Running Clam said it
was like reading the lost Philip K. Dick novel, I
could die on that hill. It doesn't matter what anybody
else thinks. That he thought that it was a huge

(01:05:31):
deal for me. Not everyone's gonna agree. Some people are
gonna and and I understand the who Hubris involved in
me writing this, And not everyone's gonna think that I
can write a Philip K.

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
Dick novel.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
But what I will tell you is it is it
has my name on it. It's a David Agronoff novel.
But there are definitely it's definitely like nothing else I've
ever written. And there are definitely times where I felt
like somebody else was at the wheel because I've never
written the novel that had this little action in it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
Interesting, I have to check that one out.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
Yeah, and that that's my newest novel.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
And that's and then for those of you who like
the punk rock stuff, my second to most recent novel,
People's Park, is a coming of age horror, bizarro sci
fi novel set in my hometown Wilmington, Indiana in nineteen
eighty nine.

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
And it's it's dicky in but it's not written with
the formula.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
The other one I was going to ask you about
real fast. So before we go, is you know fans
of paperback wheyor love their one man armies. You have
Nightmare City, which came out twenty twenty two. Is that
sort of the one man army vigilanti type of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
No, but if I think paperback warrior folks would like it.
It is currently out of print. We are working on
a new edit and a new edition of it. But
the concept of Nightmare City, the pitch was what if
the wire the wire? If Philip K. Dick and Clive

(01:07:13):
Barker were on the writing staff. Yeah, that's the concept.
So it's sci fi horror, and you know, we wrote
it originally as a TV pilot that we wanted to.
I kind of always envisioned it as X Files meets
the Wire, And so if we got to do more

(01:07:37):
books or got to do a series of it, you
could do Monster of the Week, you could do Mythology,
because there is a mythology and the novel sets up
the mythology of it all. And I co wrote that
with my buddy Anthony Travino, who was one of the
original co hosts of the Dickheads podcast. And it's horror,
sci fi crime. It's yeah, it is currently out of print,

(01:08:03):
but just hold tight. I'm we're working on getting it
back in print and with a little bit better of
an edit. We weren't entirely happy with the cover and
the edit. We wanted a new cover.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
So last thing I'm gonna ask you is briefly describe
what the heck bizarro is. I've never heard that term before. Bizarrow.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Yes, So, bizarro is a genre of fiction, just like
science fiction or horror, and it's a it's a literary
movement kind of like splatter punk or whatever in it
And basically it's surreal, absurdist, weird.

Speaker 3 (01:08:49):
Fiction.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
And it's a movement of different publishers that kind of
work within the Bizarro label and try to support each
other and help each other out. And so you can
write Bizarro that's horror, you can write Bizarro that's comedy.
You can write Bizarro that The only thing that kind
of unites it is that it's weird, and some Bizarro

(01:09:14):
is weirder than others, and some as straight up absurdist.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
Some of it is, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
But The Last Night to Kill Nazis was actually nominated
for the Wonderland Award, which is the annual award from
the Bizarro Writers Association. Is my second time being nominated.
I also have my short story collection, Screens from a
Dying World, was nominated for the Wonderland as well, the
very first or second year of the award actually, and

(01:09:43):
then and then every most years we do Bizarro Con
usually somewhere around Portland.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Last year was in Astoria.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
And but if people want to read Bizarro or get
involved with Bizarro there, it's uh, there's a lot of
really great authors. I have a story coming up in
a Bizarro anthology called Motel Sick. That's all different Bizarro
authors writing about the same motel, different rooms in.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
The same motel.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
Interesting, and I've got a time traveling motel room in
my story called the wormholder in Room. Uh but uh yeah,
probably the vanguard of the movement. There're two authors that
I would point to the kind of the biggest name

(01:10:35):
in it is Carlton Melick, the third, and he became
famous for writing his first novel is called Satan Burger.
But he most you know, he wrote a bunch of
books like Baby Jesus, butt Plug and The Haunted Vagina
and like, you know, just really intense weird stuff. Probably

(01:10:56):
my favorite Bizarro author is an author named Gina Ranali,
and Gina is great. She wrote a book called Suicide
Girls in the Afterlife, which is kind of a classic
Zara fiction. Gina has also written straight up horror. She
wrote one called The House of of Fallen Trees that

(01:11:17):
is a great haunted house novel, and Gina rules and
she's written.

Speaker 3 (01:11:24):
She wrote one.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
Called Wall of Kiss that was about a woman falling
in love with a wall in her house. And if
that's not weird, I don't know what's weird, but uh interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:11:38):
Yeah, Gina is great. She's a great example of Bizarro.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
I would I would point people too, but there are
there are dozens and dozens of bizarro authors. Jeremy Robert
Johnson is one of the most famous. And uh yeah,
it's once you start exploring the bizarrow genre, like you'll
see there's there's really great stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Cool man. Well, I really appreciate you coming on here
and talking with me. I'm obviously a huge fan of
your work. I'm gonna put some uh, I'll put some
links down at the blow for your blog. I read
your blog. You've got some excellent reviews. You do what
I do, your review books. That's awesome. You get a blog.
I'll also link up to your uh, your podcast which
is amazing and uh and then yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
Into Philip K. Dick like we the Dickheads podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
One thing too is that I'm not doing it this week,
but almost every Tuesday night at six pm Pacific time,
we do a live Dickheads podcast and we have different
guests and you can come and be a part of
it and be a part of the discussion. It's all
on Zoom and it's it's usually there's like a dozen

(01:12:50):
to two dozen people hanging out. In the first hour,
we do an interview. In the second hour, everyone just
hangs out and talks science fiction. So uh, people look
for that and get involved with that. I'm very approachable,
uh friendly on Facebook, blue Sky. I love talking this

(01:13:10):
stuff and uh and Eric, anytime you need people to
wax poete Oni. I I've been moving this last week,
so I've packed up hundreds of paperbacks.

Speaker 3 (01:13:23):
I I I.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
There's a reason I listen to your podcast because almost
all the topics are what I'm interested. So I myself
an expert not just in Philip K. Dick, but Richard
Matheson and a lot of the Golden Age and New
Waves authors are.

Speaker 3 (01:13:44):
You know, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
I love talking about lots of authors from back in
the day, Henry Kuttner, your Lee Brackets, all those writers.

Speaker 3 (01:13:54):
Uh. The paperback pulp era is is my ship. I
I'm sorry I got this fart. I didn't curse.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
That's okay, it's stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:14:06):
I love that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
So and if anyone wants to to find me and
talk about this stuff and follow my blog and all
that stuff, I do reviews and that stuff. So and
on the podcast, like for example, we're covering Cordwainer Smith
coming up for the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
We do all that stuff. We talk about the old
school all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Yeah, this may be the first in the series, but
we'll do some themed episodes where we talk about an
author or a series or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
So yeah, yeah, if there's anybody that you want me
to come out and talk about, and like I you know,
there's people you don't have to do the research.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):
I can, I can, I can enlighten.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
You know you said the magic words right there.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
So you like to have these assignments, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
I know, man. Yeah, time is limited though, just like
everything else, man, it's hard to find the time to
do the research and read and then do all the
tech anology part of it too, and artwork and images
and posting and social stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
It's yeah, well, and I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
And the outpouring of of well, the sales after your
Paperback Warrior review were off the rails, so I know
a lot of your followers and listeners did go and
pick up last night to kill Nazis and that means
a lot. And but but hey, you know, word of
mouth is everything. I know this book will sell if

(01:15:32):
people face it out too. So if you're in Barnes
and Nobles and you already got it, face that book out, man.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
Yeah, it's a good idea. Hey, I've meant to ask
you one more thing, and then I got to go
one more thing. Though, Uh, it's such a high concept.
Has it been option jed for a movie.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
But not yet.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
I'm assuming that we'll get more interest when we have
a full franchise, when we.

Speaker 3 (01:15:53):
Have two books.

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
Yeah, Killing Machines came very close couple of years ago,
and I actually worked on developing a limited series based
on Killing Machines with a director who shall remain nameless
at this point, but you know we But I will

(01:16:16):
say that that work on that script is one of
the things that I think helped make Last Night to
Kill Nazi's so so well structured, is because we ended
up working on an original screenplay that director and I
for a project. And I actually think because I finished

(01:16:37):
that screenplay and wrote Last Night, like right back to back,
and I think I had a lot to do with Yeah,
I think it would make a great movie. You know
who I think Duncan Jones, David Bowie's son who did
The Moon. He has said many times that he wants
to do a World War two movie, and.

Speaker 3 (01:16:57):
He would be it would be a great choice.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
I just the one, that's just the one to do.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
Yeah, oh it would make no, it was meant to
be a movie, it really was.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
Yeah, and it's got to be.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
Yeah, and I could write that screenplay in a heartbeat,
so come on, but you can, Yeah, but you can't.
Let's go and then, yeah, Anthony and I have written
a couple sci fi action things for for screenplay that
that we would uh love to and we may turn

(01:17:32):
them into novels eventually, but right now we we we
we've after Nightmare City, we wrote a couple of sci
fi action scripts so that those are.

Speaker 3 (01:17:42):
Out there, so.

Speaker 1 (01:17:44):
Cool man, love to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
But and thank you to your listeners if you made
it this far. You know, Eric doesn't like to go
over now and we went seventeen minutes longer.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
I knew it was going to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
But you know, yeah, you and I could talk all night.

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
Yeah, dude, for real, Like, yeah, you and I have
lots of similar things, like I.

Speaker 3 (01:18:04):
Think, I I think when you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Got that Barnes and Noble gift card, you and I
found a good good friends.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
Yeah, yeah, we'll keep in touch now. I appreciate it, man.

Speaker 3 (01:18:16):
Thanks so much. Paperback Warrior anytime.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Yeah, yeah, and uh, maybe I can get you over
here to Florida so we can do a big book tour, man,
you can. You can visit all these crazy bookstores down
here and see all this crazy stuff going on. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
Oh yeah, my editor, Christoph Paul, he's he's uh he
grew up in Miami and long suffering dolphins and heat
fan like, oh yeah, he does the clash, does the
big book festival in Miami every year.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
So so we got a We've got a Horror convention
coming up in January. I think it's gonna have a
bunch of authors and publishers.

Speaker 2 (01:18:52):
That's going to be there because uh yeah, talk him up,
tell him how much he loved this. But he knows
because he's the one that sent me the review. When
I mean, like, dude, I seriously, you made my day
that day. I think I was having a bad day too,
and like I was, good man.

Speaker 3 (01:19:13):
Hell yeah, this guy gets it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
It's the least I could do. Yeah, at least I
could do. I love that book. So yeah, all right, man,
I really appreciate you coming on again. I'll put some
links in the bottom here so you can check out
more David stuff and h and thanks for listening. We
appreciate it. See you next.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
Yeah, thanks for having me, and please everybody, uh spread
the word.

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
You got it.