ABSURD interview: Eric S. Brown

What can be said about Eric S. Brown but that he is a master of the quick action novel filled with monsters. He's taken on everything from Bigfoot to aliens to zombies to werewolves with great success. There are more Eric S. Brown books out there than you can shake a stick at. And he's bringing out his own comic series now as well. I cornered Eric for a full ten minutes when he wasn't producing, and crawled into his mind. Here's what I found.

RCT: You’ve had great success with American subculture monsters like Bigfoot and werewolves. What interests you about beasts with teeth, and are there any other American mythological creatures you’d like to write about in the future?

ESB:  I spent years writing zombies but Bigfoot was the one monster who truly scared me as a kid. I love Bigfoot because unlike other monsters, he is arguably real and that's super scary if he's as violent and deadly as he is in my nightmares. Thus blending him into a book about zombies like Last Stand in a Dead Land was a VERY easy and fun thing to do.  As for werewolves,with my A Pack of Wolves series it wasn't so much about rebooting the werewolf mythos as it was just about trying to produce an honestly hardcore fun and action-packed read from page one of the book to its final page.  At this time, I am working on something completely different from the material I have written in the past.  We'll see how it goes. 

RCT:  Aliens are invading and you can only choose one weapon: A plate of spaghetti or a kitchen apron with a picture of ALF on it. Which do you choose and why?

ESB:  I would have to go with ALF because I loved him as a wee child and have always, always hated spaghetti.  Who knows, maybe the invaders have been watching old Earth TV shows and know ALF themselves.  

RCT:  Your novels are so full of action and yet manage to fulfill the need for a fun story. Why do you think action is so important and what’s your philosophy behind too much or too little action?

ESB:  I don't think there's ever too much action.  I love movies like Blackhawk Down where the war and violence just comes at you from the beginning and rages all the way through to the end.  I grew up reading folks like David Drake and tons of others in the military SF genre and you can see a huge influence in my work from those guys.  I like to make the reader freak out, jump, and most of all go to bed dreaming about the battle they've just "lived" through.  

RCT:  I know you like comics so here’s a tough one for you. Wally West and Barry Allen are dangling above a pit of fire ants. You can only save one. Who is it, why, and what do you say to the other when he gets out of the ER with bites all over him.

ESB:  Dear goodness, that question is evil.  We know for sure that either could save themselves as they both are the Flash but I'll pretend otherwise for the sake of this question. Ha. I love Barry for the crazy level of his powers. He could easily go toe to toe with Superman and take down so many others heroes like Green Lantern for instance without much of a fight. However Wally is the Flash I spent most of my life with and like me, he's a married man with two kids. Thus, my answer, though it pains me to say it, would be Wally.  

RCT:  Who are some of your favorite literary influences and why?

ESB:  I think you can see a lot of both David Drake and comics in my work.  I was reading comics by the age of four.  Been addicted to them ever since.  And Drake is my hero.  It was his style I was trying to copy as a teenager when I was learning to write.  

RCT:  I can’t find my Reebok socks…where are they?

ESB:  Perhaps the dryer monster ate them, but if they were Flash’s socks, it's possible they just moved so fast they disappeared into another dimension and time.  

RCT: Where do you come up with the ideas for your characters?

ESB:  More often than not, they just kind of come alive inside in my head out of nowhere and scream, “put me on paper!”  

RCT: You can grant the power of speech to one of the following. Which do you choose and why? An alligator, the mirror in a sleazy hotel, or a penny that’s been dropped off the Empire State Building.

ESB:  I think I am going with the sleazy hotel mirror.  There would be so much drama, action,horror, and sickness that it could share about after it finished its years of therapy, that I am sure I could pull several story ideas from its injured mind.

RCT:  What’s your take on the current state of horror fiction, and what advice would you give someone trying to start out?

ESB:  I don't really read enough horror to address the state of the genre today from a writer's point of view. I can say it's a tough field.  No doubt about it. You just have to write as much as you can and focus at getting your work published with everything you’ve got.  Determination and an honest,sincere love for what you're doing are the two keys to making it to any realkind of level of success.  

 RCT: What’s next on the agenda for Eric S. Brown?

ESB:  Bigfoot War IV and Bigfoot War V are both coming out from Coscom Entertainment. Grand Mal Press will be releasing a collected hardcover of my A Pack of Wolves series, and my novelization of Brian Jayne's 2011 Boggy Creek: The Legend is True film should be out soon as well.  As to what I am writing at the moment, I am working on the longest book I have ever tackled.  It's a Military SF book that I hope will leave folks saying, I had no idea he could tackle that genre too.