(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Welcome back to the love grip easing podcast. (upbeat music) So Nathan Bellengrad is my guest. I told you I was running late today. How are you? - I'm great. Thanks for having me on. - Sure thing. I wanted to get you in. Because for one reason is your book "Crypt of the Moon" spider just landed. - Yeah. - Right there, people. And thank you for sending it to me. And I loved it. - A lot. So let's talk about that. And then you and the strange and your past work and what's coming up. All that good stuff. For those who don't know who you are, could you tell the audience? - Yeah. I'm a writer of kind of like horror dark fantasy type stuff. I've got three books previous to "Crypt of the Moon" spider. Including "North American Lake Monsters" and "Moon's". Both of which are short story collections. And my first novel came out last year. It's called "The Strange". And yeah, "Crypt of the Moon" spider is a novella. - Yes. - So don't pick it up expecting anything very long. It's a pretty brief read. But it's the first part of three novella sequence, which I'm calling the lunar gothic trilogy. - And that's really all the only important stuff about me. You know, I'm working at a used bookstore in Asheville. I'm a dad. My daughter is in her early 20s now. - Oh, wow. - And yeah. - Same. Same except mine's a son. - And you know, that's all I need to know, I think. That's all that's interesting. - I'm sure you can yield a girth to me, but it was like last week that he was three years old and, you know, wasn't as tall as my waist and now he's two inches taller than me. - Yeah. I've been looking at my closet and getting rid of old stuff and, you know, just trying to pare down my life. And it came across a box of things from when she was very small. It's just, it feels so recent. - Yeah. - As you say, it feels like last week. There's a, I was just thinking about this the other day. There's a, there's a scene in Doctor Who. I don't know if you watched Doctor Who. - Are you? - Yeah. It's, it's from a few doctors back. It's right. It's in the episode, first episode with Peter Capaldi. - Yeah. I was gone by that time. - Oh, okay. - I'm having a tough day. And I watched a couple of the David tenants and then. - Yeah. - Then, then, you know, I was about it. - Well, everyone's got their favorite doctor. But his companion Clara is getting used to the fact that he's now a new, he's got a new body. And in her mind, she's thinking, is this, is this really the same person who I've been traveling with for all this time? And then she gets a phone call on the TARDIS phone and it's the previous doctor. And keeps a long story short, he's phoning her from, you know, before the change happened because it's a time machine. So I guess he can get phone calls from other times. And she says, why would, why would you do this? And he said, because I think you might be scared. And, you know, please, the man you're with, please help him. You know, he needs you. And she gets off the phone and then the new, Capaldi says, was that the doctor? And she says, yes. And he says, well, are you, are you going to help me? Are you going to help me? And she said, you shouldn't have been listening. And he said, I, I didn't have to. That was me on the phone talking. And then he, he gets pretty sad and he says, you, you can't see me, can you? I'm right. I'm not on the phone. I'm right here in front of you, but you can't see me. Do you have any idea what that feels like? And then she goes up and she kind of looks in his eyes for a minute and everything. And then she gets this huge smile on her face and she says, thank you. And he says, for what? And she says, phoning. So that was what she needed. And I thought of that in relation to, I've got a, I've got a 22 year old kid. He's about to turn 23 in a few months and about six months. But I look at photos of him on the wall, as I'm sure you do, or photos in your phone from, you know, 15 years ago, whatnot and or clothes, little bitty clothes in your case. And sometimes you can get pretty nostalgic as a parent for those times. But I have thought of this scene over and over again, and it really helps me. And I replaced the line in my mind. I think he's not in a picture or a video. He's right here standing in front of you. Yeah. And that, for whatever reason, has helped me a lot when the nostalgia hits me. You know, so. Yeah, that makes sense. I have not, I didn't see that episode. So I, you know, I don't think of it in that context, but I have tried to, you know, keep my mind focused on that same reality. You know, whenever, whenever I, you know, whatever, I get nostalgic when I read, I miss the old days. I mean, they're still happening. They're right now. It's just, yeah. Yeah. This is how it's supposed to be. You know, if you're a parent, you really, really love your kids. This nostalgia is going to hit you. But, yeah, but anyway, let's talk about your work. So let's start with crypto the moon spider. First of all, great title and great artwork. Who did the art? Sam Araya is his name. He's done a lot of art for different writers in the genre. And AR, A-Y-A, as I spell his last name. If you look him up on long, we'll see the works in a variety of styles. And he's got just a volcanic talent. I was very lucky to. Yeah. You writers and publishers listening to Google him because this is great. Yeah. And you will recognize other things that he's done too. I'll look him up when we're done talking or later tonight. Could you tell the listeners kind of a spoiler free? Give the listeners kind of a spoiler free synopsis of crypto the moon spider. Yeah, I can give a set up. It takes place on the moon in 1923. I love that. Yeah, it's an alternate history. And it's more than an alternate history, actually, because it's actually very strange. We've been traveling to the moon for a while. I don't really know how long it's not, doesn't come up on the story. Right. The moon is a place where you can breathe. There are forests on it. And there is a, there is an asylum there called the Barrowfield home for the melancholy. Run by a guy named Dr. Barrington Cole. And our protagonist is a woman named Veronica and she is being interred there by her husband kind of committed there. In a very sort of callous way because she is suffering from what we would recognize now is depression. And, you know, it has, according to him. Prevented her from fulfilling her responsibilities, her duties as a wife in a marriage. And, and frankly, he's just kind of bored of it. And so he's washing his hands in the full thing. And, and she has been. Living under this impression and under these beliefs for so long that she's kind of internalized them. And she believes them herself. She believes that she is a couple, though, for all of this and, and deserves whatever fate awaits her. And so that's the setup. And then, you know, the, the novella takes place as she learns a little bit about. Who and what is who Dr. Cole is, what he's doing there. And it turns out to be something a little bit more sinister than she realized. And. There is. Well, I'm not doing this concise at all, actually. No, that's okay. There is a point there was a giant moon spider. Who is apparently dead now. And there are some, there's a sect of cultists who sort of worshiped this deceased spider called the Alabaster Scholars. And one of them has been sort of dragooned into working for Dr. Cole. And, and things proceed from there. They don't go the way anybody wants to predict. Well, you know, I thought you had the first of all, some interesting things to say as it were about depression. And I really enjoyed that. What you said about she's internalizing a lot of this, you know, and it said that depression can be anger turned inward. You know, and it's, it becomes fairly obvious, pretty much from the outset that her husband is just dumping her here. You know, he's not in love with her anymore. He's pissed off at her for this, for this condition that is not her fault at all. But she thinks to him, she's made it into her fault. You know, so the other thing I wanted to ask you, and I think I know the answer is. Are you a Ray Bradbury fan? Oh, yeah. That's what I thought. Yeah, I'm definitely a Ray Bradbury fan. Well, I'm a huge Ray Bradbury fan, too. So I love to this little novella, this novella. Uh, yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say the Ray Bradbury influence, certainly in this novella, even more so in the, in the novel that I put out last year. Um, yeah, he's a. He's, I think he's kind of like, just kind of like seeped into my bones at this point. It's like, what I'm writing is, is influenced by him, even when I'm not aware of it. You know, he's one of those writers from. Sure. The, it's just very. It's very magical. The setup and I don't mean, you know, this, you know, the standard magic and. In fiction, I just mean that kind of magic and nostalgia that Ray Bradbury had in his writing. Um, and. Yeah, I can see that you're influenced by him, but you know, you've put your own twist on it. You know, Mars in the Marshall Chronicles. He never addresses. You know, the lack that there's air and there's atmosphere and it's breathable and everything. You know, he never goes on about. The gravity is lighter, so maybe people can jump really high, anything like that. He just throws all those questions out the window and. You know, it's not hard science fiction and that's, that's not, I'm not, that's not a negative. When it comes to Bradbury and when it comes to crypto, the moon spider and. And the strange. Yeah, I think, you know, I think that. I suspect for him, it's certainly true of me that I'm just putting, getting rid of those questions that don't have any relevance to the story. You know, I don't care why you can breathe. It doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter. I don't have any obligation. I don't feel any obligation rather to explain it. And I think that once you start explaining things like that. You open yourself up for. More questions that are not conducive to really. Getting in flow of the story, you know, if you acknowledge the fact that there shouldn't be air on Mars or on the moon. Then you are acknowledging. You're kind of like undercutting the suspension of disbelief. You know, you're asking the reader to believe in this. It's a fantasy, really. It's not science fiction, it's fantasy. Just using this tropes of science fiction. And, and, and I think that if you go all in right away. The more seriously you take this fantastical set up, the easier it is for the reader to also take it seriously. But if you start questioning yourself and questioning your, your, your structure by saying, well, how did this come to be? Why are there trees here? Then you're just, you're putting all kinds of little Swiss cheese, you know, holes in your, in your foundation. And it's not going to stand up. You know, there was never air, or rather, there was always air on the moon as far as this story is concerned. There were always trees in there, you know, it's like. And it, you know, it's, it's utterly, to me, the question of how this came about or why it is utterly beside the point. Yeah. And, you know. Those things get in the way, or can get in the way of a great story. Yeah, yeah, it's, as I say, don't confuse me with the facts when you're telling me a great story, in other words. Right. I'm much more concerned with, with the story itself, whether the story is good, whether it's compelling, whether it's psychologically true. I'm much more concerned with psychological truth and scientific truth in these kinds of stories. So, yeah, that's, I guess that's, that's why I don't, I don't ever think about those things or care about them, even. Well, you know, you're not concerned with, with, with the, with atmosphere or forest or say things like that on the moon. But what you don't take liberties with is how a depression has affected her. Right. You know, that's very true to the real world. Because that's what the story is really about. Yeah. And so I want to take that seriously. And I think you have to take, you know, each story you're going to have your own, the rules that you were going to abide by and the ones you're going to ignore. And, and you have to be the ones you are going to abide by. You have to be, I think, very strict with yourself. Because again, if you play loose with those roles, you're going to lose the trust of the reader, you know, the readers are going to know when you're, when you're skating or faking it. I think that. Let me just say quickly to you, please. Depression. It was something I take very seriously. It's played a large role in my life, both personally and with people that I love. And continues to. And. You know, that's something that I care about, you know, whereas I don't care about, you know, the trees. Right. On this, the depression I do. So that's the, that's the real core of the story. There's a place for hard science fiction. In movies and in stories and in novels. But, and those books can be very, very enjoyable. But as you said, that's not what this is. And, you know, I can imagine someone who's never heard of you, never heard your writing. You know, but they get the books synopsis and they think, wow, that sounds really campy. Which it's not at all. But. I guess I'm trying to, to compliment your writing and. What you bring to the reader in that none of this force on the moon atmosphere, none of its can't be at all. It's a very serious story dealing with serious things. It's something, it's, I appreciate that. It's something that I'm trying to. Do more often and all and more recently in my career is just, is. Employee that, you know, the kind of like the tools of pulp fiction, which I love so much. And use them. Use them as if they were serious, you know, use them seriously. Not as if they were serious, but taking them seriously in the story. Sure. You know, I'm looking at. I love the old DC horror comics, whether they were science fiction based or horror based, suspend stories, all that stuff. But I find that. I love the covers and the arts more than I like the stories. The stories are usually very just quick and gimmicky. They're meant to like, you know, they're like little. Right. Little darts. And you know, it's coming, you know, it's coming from page one, the first panel, but that's okay. It's, it's fun to get there. Right. But I like. I like the environment and the atmosphere of those covers of that art. You know, so much that I've lately been wanting to. You know, take that atmosphere, take that environment, take those. All those in wild, over the top, imaginative suggestions, everything that they ever think that they plant in my mind and still use them to tell stories about serious serious ideas, no characters who are dealing with things that we all deal with. And, and, and do it in a way that takes the artifice of the pulp scenario as if it to a serious. You know, if take for taking Veronica, putting her in this, in this crazy setting. But never winking about it, you know, never, never suggesting to the reader that, yeah, I know this is all over the top, but just bear with me here, you know, never, never. Breaking the fourth wall of my way, so to speak. Taking it as seriously as you would take it, if it was set in some, you know, corporate boardroom in New York or something. Yes. Because for her, it's real. And so. That's what I've really been doing a lot lately and really having a lot of fun doing it. You know, that was true with the, with a strange as well, you know, this is, it's just different Mars. It's an impossible Mars. It is drawing from certain Western traditions as well. But it's all very real to those characters. And. Yeah, I just did the trick is just for me to take it seriously. And I think that the more successful I am at that. The easier will be for the reading or also to fully buy him. There are definite elements of cosmic horror in this book as well, because of you watching and maybe you're not a Bradbury fan, but maybe you're a cosmic horror fan. But if you're both, yeah, you've really got a lot of themes, themes that you love. There's a, there's some people watching live and a few things here. Phil John says, will it be available in paperback in Canada? I, right now we haven't sold any other foreign rights. We just sold the rights to the, to the UK. I certainly help hope we're going to sell more. I suspect it depends on how well it does. So, of course Kindle is available pretty much anywhere if you're on Amazon. Yeah, but not everyone wants Kindle edition. Okay, a couple of comments from, from Grant. First thing he says is the pulpy mad science threat of moon spider was great. And he also said a few minutes ago, let me find a grant. So, we were talking about nostalgia being apparent and all that. He says, I'm quoting, if the nostalgia gets too bad, see Dr. Cole. He can help you with those nagging memories. That's true. You'd be more than happy to help you out with that. Yeah. Never help you with nostalgia again. It's, it's, it's book one in a trilogy. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about what's coming next? I'm glad it is because so many times you read a book and you're just like, you finish it, get to the last page and you're like, that was magical. I wish this was longer. I wish there was another one. And this time I didn't have to wish. I know that two and three are coming. So. Yeah, they're coming. I can tell you a little bit about it. I'm, I'm writing the second one now. And it's called cathedral of the drowned. And the idea is. Of the drowned. Did you say? Well, as in. Yeah, as in. Yeah, ground cathedral of the drowned. That's another great title. It's a, it takes place about a year later. It is. So. They tell a cohesive story, but each one is going to focus on a different character. Okay. And there's going to be a little jump in time. So. They need to be read sequentially, but it's not the sort of thing where we're going to pick up and see. You know, what's Veronica doing now? It's not that kind of trilogy. Right. So the second one takes place. One of the characters, one of the side characters in crypt is in his name is Charlie Duchamp. Yeah. And we are going to be following him. And the second one. This is a minor spoiler, but not, you know, nothing I think. Too crazy. Part of Charlie's mind is sent in a satellite to the moons of Jupiter. And we will pick up with him landing on Jupiter. It's kind of a volcanic jungle moon. And there is a cathedral ship. Basically, this great big spacefaring Catholic gothic cathedral, which is crashed in the ocean. Kind of on the shore. So it's sort of beached half in the literal zone. At the shoreline. And. And. Yeah, I guess I can't say too much more yet because a lot of it I'm still. I'm still. Moving pieces around as I kind of as I kind of. Try to bring it to a close. Very happily saw when I got to the end of crypto the moon spider that you've got. Chapter one of the next one. By the way, it's titled Red Hook. 1924 folks. So. Yeah. Yeah, it's. Yeah, he's a he's come from the Brooklyn docks in the Red Hook district and. And so he's got. He's got ties there. That will be coming into play in the second one. And the third one is pretty abstract in my mind right now, but we will be. The idea right now was that the primary character there will be Dr Cole. And we will be joining him outside the orbit of Pluto. Question on. Crypt of the moon spider and I guess the entire trilogy. None of these questions are criticism from just genuinely curious. This is like as you said more of a fantasy, but it's a fantasy set in space. And it's extremely interesting to me that it's it's set in. 1923. You know, a very different path that the human race has taken. What was behind the decision to set it. There instead of say a hundred years from now. And don't be wrong. I love that it's 1923 in the book. Yeah, I think that by setting in the past, you immediately. Severe any connection with plausibility. In the future. Then people are going to be trying to, you know, they're going to be spending time. Trying to figure out, well, how do we. Terraform the moons of the there are trees kind of goes back to what we were talking about before. People start asking questions that are the story doesn't want them to ask. Because they're not relevant. So anything in the future, people are going to be looking for scientific exam or justifications for what's happening. But if he said it a hundred years in the past. That's all out the window. You know, we know that none of this happened a hundred years ago. We know that this setup that I've got here is is impossible. So we know right away that we're in a fantastical setting. And in addition to that. I liked kind of going back to what I think of the Gothic. I think of the past, you know, for obvious reasons, but also beyond those obvious reasons. A lot of my, you know, inspiration comes from the universal monster movies from the hammer horror movies. And especially with the universal monster movies, 19. You know, I guess they were more the thirties over they really kicked off. But the 20s seeing the appropriate sort of energy. The idea of being committed to an asylum because you were inconvenient. Was something that was. More of a. An obvious thing in the past. The role that women are that took in the past were forced to take in the past. Yes, that's very relevant here. Yeah, and I like and I just like the feel of it. I like the feel of this is why I do it with a strange too. I like the feel of. As kind of a retro future, you know, you know, what if. You know, what if the world of Jules Verne and H2O's. Cooked up, what if what if that was actually the world we moved into. You know, it's just fun. It's just a place I like to for my imagination to. Spend time and it's fun to read too. You know. When I read, I often. Think it's more. This is just me, another person might find it silly, but. That. I'm exploring and I look at my bookshelf over there any bookshelf. And there's a ton of books fiction books sitting on it and I think how wonderful it is that. Inside of each of these books is a different universe. A fiction fictional world. And there are so, so many just in this room, much less, but all the books along the planet. And why not a Mars that has an atmosphere? You know, it, you know, we don't. It's just a different reality. Not the one we're used to, but it comes down to the quality of the story. And man, I have to tell you, there are many books that are sent to me and I love a lot of them. But man, I'm, I'm all in for this trilogy, Nathan. This was just beautiful. It really was. Beautifully written. I just people watching and listening, you need to pick it up. And it's pretty inexpensive. Since it's smaller and especially inexpensive on Kindle, if you're a Kindle person. So when will book to be out? Well, not until next August. Even though those are speaks based a year apart. So next August for part two, August following for bar three. Hopefully, if they sell well enough, they'll, they'll decide to put them together in a single book after that. But who knows, we'll see. Martian chronicles. You have a favorite story or stories from that book. Oh boy, I'm coming on the spot here. I should have told you that I was going to ask you this. Probably my favorite story is the one that it's probably in the moon be still as bright. Because that phrase in the strange. Yeah, that's the graph in the front comes from that one. It's got that sense of. That sense of dreaming melancholy that I love so much. And there's another one in there. Oh, I can't remember the title of it though. Maybe you will if I describe it. It's the one where. There's a diner on Mars, which is actually, you know, the seed for the whole, the whole strange so in love with Bradbury's diner. On Mars. That's. That this book kind of grew out of it. And the diner that in my, in my book is, is a, you know, an homage to that one. But someone leaves the diner. I can't remember what brings him out. I think there's, there's a lull in business. I can't remember what it was. But he essentially encounters a ghost for the past, a Martian. I have right in front of me. I've got a question. I wanted to read a passage from this story and compare it to a passage in the strange. And it's my favorite story in the entire book and what you're talking about. It's called night meeting. Yes, that's it. That's it. There was a, there was a smell of time in the air tonight. From that story. Yeah, that's my favorite. I was just, I was sitting here kind of hoping he's going to pick night meeting for one of them. He's got to. It's so, so, so eerie and, and sad and, and, and pretty. Yeah, pure Bradbury. Well, he, the, the protagonist gases up on this, you know, gases up his pickup truck on a really lonely road in the middle of nowhere that there's this gas station. And it's run by an old man who, he says, the reason why he's at Mars, he took his retirement and went to live on Mars. And he opened up this, this gas station. And here's what I wanted to read and compare. I'm not surprised at anything anymore, said the old man. I'm just looking. I'm just experiencing. If you can't take Mars for what she is, you might as well go back to Earth. Everything's crazy up here. The soil, the air, the canals, the natives. I never saw any yet, but I hear they're around the clocks. Even my clock X funny, even time is crazy up here. And then he goes on about how happy it makes him. And he says, you know what Mars is? It's like a thing that I got for Christmas 70 years ago. Don't know if you ever had one. They called him a kaleidoscope. And he says, well, that's Mars. And so, there's a passage in the strange. Yeah. And where, gosh, I was reading it today, and I've forgotten the protagonist's name in this one. The little girl, the animal. The animal, right. She's looking for something I'm not going to give away what it is near the beginning of the book. But there was nothing, of course, other than the long coils of sand that seemed to extend. Extend into the night like mystical winding trails. There far ends connecting to mysteries and riddles to fantastical cities or to the long death of the world. And I immediately thought of this passage and night meeting. Not that they're similarly written in any way, but the mystery and the magic of it. Both that passages hit me that way. So anyway. There's a, there's a short story by James P. Blalock. Let me see if I can remember what it's called, but people that get on a bus. And they end up taking this bus to Mars. Oh boy. I'll read you something while you look for it from Grant. The book isn't where the book isn't. They never are when you need them. Grant says, although events of the strange, that's what I was going to ask you. Although events of the strange happen a few years later. I can't wait to find out that the radio silence from Earth has something to do with moon spiders. You won't roll that out. Well, before you answer his question. Do does the strange and the trilogy exist in the same universe? I don't think so. I think I'm asked this question a lot. And it's an actual question to ask because there are obvious similarities between. Between the two, they're both retro futuristic science fiction stories. There's still some horror in the strange, although not as much as in. Moon spider, but no, I don't think that they are. I think, I think, and I think is, is the lunar Gothic trilogy goes on. I think it'll be. Come clear that. This setting is a lot more. A lot darker and more. Well, Gothic than the strange is. And the strange I did think about tying them together early on. But they just seemed the strange seemed little. More naturalistic and grounded. Sure. Then then crypt and. So yes, I don't think I don't think I don't think they're going to be tied together. And I, the reason that. The experience, the silence, the radio silence in the strange is meant to be unanswered. Because, you know, I don't really know what happened. I have some ideas about what it possibly was. As I'm sure readers probably do. But part of that journey for Annabelle was. Coming to terms with the fact that she's not always going to get answers. She's not always going to get the justice she wants or the satisfaction she wants. And some questions are going to be questions for the rest of her life. And that's just. That's just how it goes. Which happens in weird fiction a lot. Yeah. It happens in real life a lot, you know. A lot of things that I have questions for are, are never going to be answered to my satisfaction. And, and I think this is part of. Letting go of a, of a simpler way of apprehending the world. So I don't know why the silence happened, really. And, and I think, you know, we're not meant to know. Because they, they didn't find out that you got to get on with them. As far as grants question, do you want to answer that or take a, you'll have to read it and see answer. He asked if you would, I hope it has something to do with the moon spiders won't rule that out will you. I guess you actually answered it. Since they don't, they don't, they're not in the same universe. So. Apologies to grant if he's disappointed. Isn't there a rebrabary story where this one has been, I think decades since I came across it again. Where in the story, they resurrect a certain writer, a real famous writer, because they want him to write another story. Is that Ringabelle? I, it doesn't. It certainly, I believe he probably did write a story like that, but it doesn't ring a bell. Well, I thought, as I'm reading The Strange, and after I got done reading Crypt of the Moon Spider, that if they did that to rebrabary and they're like, okay, you got, you got to hear, we need you to, till you have to, till you're dead again. We need you to write some stories, man, we need more rebrabary. But seriously, I thought if rebrabary had sat down to read, to write these, this is what he would have come up with. And that's the highest priest I can give, because I love rebrabary so much, and I grew up reading all those stories and his novels. And I just... Yeah. I'm honored that you, that you would think so. I love him too. Like I say, he's in my DNA now, and it has been since, you know, for a long time. You know, I love the lyricism, the beautiful prose. I love the fact that the stories are always about feelings and ideas, not science. You know, they're always people forward, not idea forward, if that makes sense. And I love the playfulness, just the, you know, you get a sense of a little boy running excitedly, you know, through the fields with all the stories. He just jumps from here to there, spooky to far future, to dinosaurs, do you know what have you? It's like you, it's a big toy box, but it's full of beautiful poignant things. And yeah. Not only do you get that feeling of a boy running around like what you just said, you get actual boys like that in Greentown, Illinois, and something wicked this way comes. And so forth. Yeah, and there was a time when I, you know, when I was a little bit younger, in my 20s and 30s, when I was reading Bradbury, and I was just so turned off. I was just like, this is just, I found it. I thought that it was simplistic. I thought that it was too saccharin. And, and I think, I thought at the time, well, I've come to Bradbury too late. I'm too old to read Bradbury. And I think there was truth to that, but I've also discovered that I was also too young to read Bradbury. I think that there are times where you get it. And those times are when you're younger and when you're older. At least that was the case for me. Other people might not have the same reaction that I had when I was in my 20s and 30s. But, but I thought that I had passed him, I thought that my chance for him had had, I had missed my chance. Right. And I started reading him when I was older, getting gray. And suddenly I got it. You know, suddenly it was full of wisdom and beauty and, and nuance and, and I realized I had been a fool. You know, I often think not, not about writing in particular, but just applies to a lot of things. That there's a, there's a simplicity on one side of wisdom and there's a, there's a simplicity. When you get that wisdom in life or whatever and you go back to keeping things simple. Because I'm not explaining this very well. Taoism or Buddhism, that sort of thing. You just made me think of another quote and this one's from something wicked this way comes. I do a lot of highlighting in my kindles. The bartender asks Holloway, the father of one of the boys, have a drink and he says, "I don't need it, but someone inside me does." He says, "Who?" The boy I once was thought Holloway, who runs like the leaves down the sidewalk, bottom nights. But he couldn't say that. And we all have to grow up, but we don't have to lose the magic. And in a way, that's what you're saying. In your 30s, you thought you were almost too grown up for it and now you realize how beautiful it is. In my 30s, I would have heard that sentence, the boy in me that runs down the sidewalk like the leaves and rolled my eyes. That's just so overcooked. But now I hear it and I think it's perfect. You know, I know exactly the feeling. I know exactly, it's so pointy. It just rings like a bell in my head. And maybe you have to, I don't know, as I say these things, I'm second-guessing myself internally. But I think that you respond better to those kinds of passages when you have started to feel the breath of mortality. When you really start to start losing things and recognizing beyond just the intellectual sense, but in a visceral sense that you're in the autumn of your life. And things will be closing down sooner than later. And that changed the way you read it. Yeah, I explained that horribly, but that's another version of the simplicity that comes with wisdom is something along the lines that I, what I meant to say. And it's a different kind of simplicity that you have when you're young. Absolutely. I have to tell you something, I have never told you, I don't know that I've told anyone this. You and Dale Bailey wrote a story years ago and it was published in one of Ellen's, Eladetto's anthologies. I forget the exact title of that particular one. Yes. Sorry. No, I meant the book itself. Oh, Lovecraft Unbound. Yeah. If you guys haven't read it, you should definitely pick it up. Some really great short stories in there. But they're Kavos. You and Dale Bailey wrote this together. Yeah. And I picked up Lovecraft Unbound. Probably a year before I started the Lovecraft using didn't even know we were going to move. Once we moved down to Texas, I just thought, well, I can do this now. I've got the time to do this. And that was 2011. But I read the Kravos and such a beautiful cosmic horror story without the Lovecraft trappings and creatures and what have you. But I thought to myself, what a wonderful story it was, and that if I had to pick one story, you know, written in the modern age that would, that epitomizes the kind of cosmic horror that I love, it would be that story of the Kravos. And I said to myself, wouldn't it be great if people could read a story of that quality or endure that quality, and it's just free online. They can just pop over and read it. And once I had that thought, I thought, yeah, it actually would be great. So I'm going to try to do that. What I'm trying to say is the Kravos inspired was the beginning, inspired everything. It inspired me to start everything I've done for the last 13 years. I did not know that. I don't think I've told anyone that. I should probably tell Dale too. But I just thought, yeah, that's the kind of cosmic horror story I like. And there's nothing wrong with, you know, stories that feature the gods of Lovecraft and the creatures of Lovecraft and so forth. My friend, Pete Rawlick writes that kind of thing, and he does it extremely well, and it's very great, very readable fiction. And he knows, we talked about this a lot, but my favorite is when it's just about the cosmic horror, not necessarily about playing in Lovecraft's sandbox as much. And I thought, this is what I want to do when we, you know, if I can. And of course, I had the magazine from then on till about 2016. And then I thought, I'm having so much fun with podcasts. And so it was everyone else, it seemed like, that, you know, I can't do everything with my health problems. So I'm going to focus on what I want to do. And it's a lot of work to publish a magazine electronic or otherwise. And celestial pilots can take up a lot of time. And so I'll actually be bringing the magazine portion back, but there'll be a lot less of it. So this isn't about me, it's about you, but I just, I wanted to tell you that that story got the ball rolling for me. So. It's wonderful to hear, and I'm grateful for you even even saying so. I love it because I think you've done something pretty extraordinary with Lovecraft easy. I think it's become, I mean, obviously it's become something kind of foundational monumental in the, in the genre. And yeah, I couldn't be more honored to hear it. I thought just earlier this morning, and I thought I've never, I've never told those guys that. So thank you. On the live chat, even she, I'm sorry if I'm saying your name wrong. From the first, excuse me, from the first paragraph of the crypt of the moon spider, it flows like syrup sublime writing. So pass that on to you. The sound of language is when I'm writing is very important to me. The sound of, you know, I think a lot about rhythm and flow and just, and, and, and, I like, I like prose that has a kind of music to it. And it's my favorite time to read and, you know, that's what I like to write as well. So thank you. Another guy I knew wrote like that to Joe Polver with all that stuff was very important to him. Yes, he was. Yeah. So what's we know book two is coming next. Is there going to be, bear in mind, I'm about 75 pages into the strange. Is there going to be another story in that world in that universe? Probably not. There are no plans for it right now. You never know. You know, I would, I would never say absolutely not, but I don't have any. I'm not pulled to in that direction right now. I have two others that are in. In process. Pardon me. And I have. Ideas for a couple more behind that. So that's a lot of writing for the next few years that has nothing to do with Mars. Can you talk about the two that are in process? I can say that one is featuring a character from a short story called The Atlas of Hell. There's a book dealer named Jack Olyander who has also. He gets caught up in this with this artifact that comes from hell. And, and I've got an idea for a few stories for him, a few short novel stories for him. I've got, I've got an arc planned that I would like to realize for that character. And there's a lot of meat on the bone still from that, that setting that sort of like hell. Infused setting that I'd like to, I'd like to work with. And the other one is a standalone. It's a modern world. It's about a kidnapping man who kidnaps his son. And it's a dark fantasy sort of story as well, but I don't want to get too much into that one yet. Because there's still so much I'm figuring out as I read. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. I'm sorry. Those two stories have taken a backseat for a while for these other projects. So, yeah, I'm anxious, I'm anxious, especially for the kidnapping one. I'm anxious to really kind of get my teeth back into that one. I asked this question a lot of creators that come on the show. And the question is, what does success mean to you? I feel successful. You know, one person might answer, might be money oriented. And, you know, if I feel successful, if I make this much a month or whatnot, others, it could be something else. I'll feel successful if I'm the best dad I can be, mom I can be. So, in terms of your writing and your personal life, without getting too nosy, what makes you feel successful? I think what I have now, really. I feel really satisfied because, you know, at one point, I would have probably backed her money more prominently to the answer. But, you know, I got lucky a couple years ago and I made some money with the movie and a TV show. And then the money was here and then it went away and it was nice while it lasted. But it didn't feel like, it didn't feel me up the way I thought that I was going to, you know. And now that it is gone, mostly gone, it's like I don't feel like, you know, I don't feel bereft. I definitely wish I had some so I could, you know. Well, we all like more money. Money is a good thing. Yeah, but it wasn't the answer, you know what I mean? And I was saying this, I was doing a reading a couple weeks ago and I was talking about the same sort of thing. It's like, if the result, if the finished book, the finished book, of course, is very satisfying. But if the feeling you get from that and the brief little window of attention you get from that, like being able to get on podcasts and having people come out to hear you read and say nice things to you. That's not enough either because it's so brief, you know. You publish your book, publication day is here. People are talking about it for a while and then their lives move on. They read your book, especially the book like crypt, it takes them, you know, less than a day and it's over. And as you get back on online a week later to later, like are people still talking about it? Well, no, because they've finished it and they're reading other things. And so that that moment is so ephemeral. It can't be about that moment. It has to be about doing the work itself. And so doing the work, knowing that it's read by people, knowing that it means something to them. That you're proud of, that's it. And, you know, I have that now and I'm happy. I'm extremely glad to hear that from you. I don't hear that from everyone that I ask. A lot of times it is a version of that. But to hear that you feel like you've arrived at that place, that's a wonderful thing. It's not something that a lot of people get through experience, I think. Yeah. And it just, it just, it feels good to be able to recognize it. And like I said, there are, there are certain things I would still wish might happen. Hope will happen a greater level of success in the sense of income and comfortable stability rather. It doesn't mean you don't still have goals just because you feel successful. But it's like, but the heart-filling thing, that's already happening. And so even if that other stuff doesn't happen, you know, I'm still getting the thing that feeds me. I looked around, especially the last few weeks. I mean, it's like I vocalized to myself something that I realized subconsciously for a while. And that sentence was, "I'm living my dream life." And, of course, I'd love it if somebody hands me a million dollars. And, of course, I'd love it if, you know, a doctor comes up with a magical drink that I can drink and suddenly I don't have any more health problems. But those things are gravy. They're just on top of what's real and really important to me. And, you know, I wasn't a person who was always happy, especially in my youth. Of course, at the top of that list is I've really got an incredible wife who, after almost 30 years, I'm still in love with her more than ever. Great son, and I get to do this. But it's a nice thing to realize. And it doesn't mean that, you know, you say that. It doesn't mean, don't you wish you were me? You know, I'm better than everybody else think. It's that it's more of my personal definition of success and having a wonderful life. Oh, my gosh, I'm there. And yes, they still have goals, but I'm there. And problem with, I think a lot of people as they get something that they want or have wanted for a long time. And they're happy for a while, but they let themselves get used to it. You know what I mean? And so they don't look around and say, you know, a year later. Wow, isn't this still as wonderful as the day I got it? I'm glad I still have this. It's, I think one of the secrets to happiness is not letting yourself get used to the things, the good things in your life. You know, it's been 30 years, but I still remember what it was like to come home to an empty apartment. You know, I think it's, I think it's that. And I think it's loving the process. You have to love the doing of it. Because that's what it all is. That's what most of it is. And, and everything else is just, you know, I think else is a femoral, but you're going to spend your life, you hope in the doing of it. And if you can love that, then you're going to be okay. A couple more questions if that's okay. Sure. I'll put you on the spot again with Bradbury. I asked you about favorite stories in the Martian Chronicles. Is there a favorite story in your mind of the rest of his work or is just, I love Bradbury so much in general kind of thing. It's more the latter. It's more just the idea of everything that he's done. Boy, there's a story in the illustrated man that is not one of his, like, I guess not recognized one of his best stories, but it's one of my favorite stories. And again, I'm a struggle to remember the title, but I bet people listening will recognize it. It's about astronauts. We're talking to each other. Just after their ship has blown up. Oh yeah. I know what stories are. Yeah. They're all drifting apart and they know they're going to be dead in a very short period of time. And it's just them talking as they drift further and further away from each other into the. They're in their spaceships and their spacesuits. They have oxygen and everything, but what they don't have anymore is a ship. They don't have a ship. And they're all going in different directions. Yeah. They have limited reserves of oxygen and then it's not going to last them forever. Right. And, you know, and they know, they even talk about, I think at one point or think about that their trajectories, the chances of even them taking them to ever even touch a planet are infinitely small, you know, but it's going to be drifting forever. It's just this really sad, beautiful story. It's, and it's the kind that it never would have occurred to me to write. I never would have had that idea. But what an idea and what a strange little story. And one of those, one of those astronauts is, I don't know if cynical would be the word. But if he, he says whenever he's away from a friend, they're dead to him, you know, in his mind or, you know, if he goes to visit France when he's not in France, it's dead in his memory. But when he goes back, it's alive again, that sort of thing. And near the end of the story, he's basically saying, I'm the only one in existence. You guys are figments. You know, it's, but yeah, that's a, that's a pretty cool story. Thanks for the, I don't know what they call it, the little thing you can do money-wise in the live chat. Thank you for that. Even appreciate that. That's nice of you. He does have a question, another question for you. Are you a full-time writer? Two questions, answer that one, I guess. No, no. I worked full-time at the use bookstore and I worked 40 hours a week there. I say you have a cool job. It's not a bad job. It doesn't, doesn't pay much, but it's, it doesn't, but it's a, it's a, it's a very good job otherwise. And yeah, I'm happy in it and I just do my writing after I get home. Well, you're around books all day. You're not working in a factory or anything. That kind of thing. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but just for people like us to be at a job where we're surrounded by books and talking about books. That's pretty cool. Yeah, that's really cool. Um, they also ask also, let's say from wounds to where you are now. Are you happier and more comfortable and confident in your writing craft? Quite a scope was that story Felix says. Quite a scope. That's right. That's exactly right. Which is funny because Claudisto came up in the. Yes. To answer that question. Absolutely. I am. I'm much more comfortable. I just became more comfortable and I became less self conscious. I became less worried about what people were thinking about what I was writing and just. Just decided to, to have fun and to do what I wanted to do. I attribute this. Never comes up to reading. Mike. I was reading them one day. I was just reflecting on the fact that, you know, some of these stories are folklore. Some of them have big Nazi robots. Some of them are, uh, you know, uh, well, it. Occults, you know, Lovecraftian stuff. Not just the thinking. Maniola. He just writes. He just throws in everything he loves. He just writes about everything that he loves and puts it in there. What a way to have a career. Writing what you love, you know, you know, it should be obvious to all of us, but it was not obvious to me. And then I just started doing that, you know, and that's where stories like the butcher's table and skull pocket came from and cryptid the moon spider. And, uh, and I've just decided since then I've become much more comfortable doing it. You know, I was. Strangely nervous about doing it at first. And then I just, it's just so much fun and I enjoy it so much more than I used to. So what, what made you nervous about it at first? Because, uh, I had what little reputation I had was kind of built on. Stories like that you find in North American Lake monsters, which are very sort of like grounded in reality. A lot of blue collar characters. And, uh, just grounded in realism, basically. And where the supernatural was a sort of like a, a smaller or brush up sort of a. People would brush up against a supernatural on Friday stuff. Right. And, and in these other stories, it was just almost like a comic book atmosphere, you know, Satanists and. Pirate ships and towns run by ghouls and. Spiders on the moon and all this kind of stuff. And, uh. I just felt when I was writing the stories like I'm sabotaging myself. I'm like, you have a saying to myself. I. You've made this nice little reputation for yourself. People like and respect what you do. And now you're just. Just shattering it by writing these crazy stories that no one is expecting and probably no one's going to want. But I did them anyway, because, uh, I just really wanted to. And, um. That's a really great reason to create because you wanted to. You wanted to. Or put another way about writers. Writing the book that they would like to read. If someone else wrote. Yeah. And I loved it. And it turned out plenty of readers did too. I don't know if they're all the same, but. But it made me happy. And so. That was the one here in general. My policy is. It, it. So much of it is subjective when I like that movie. Well, I didn't. You know, it's subjective. Uh. So I, I sort of this policy to never. Comment on a book that I don't like. Because. I've been lucky enough to have a following and. But yeah, but what if the other nine people who read it, they love it. And I've just, I've just done my small part to sabotage what this writer is doing. So I'll just keep it to myself and. For me, that's the way to go. But when I on the flip side, when I really, really enjoy a book, I want to. Scream it from the rooftops, so to speak. And, uh, I love Crypt of the Moon Spider-Man. I really do. And, uh, yeah, Crypt of the Moon Spider. By Nathan Ballingrewd. Is it Ballingrewd or Ballingrewd? I'm sorry. Uh, no, you're fine. Uh, Ballingrewd. Okay. Um. Laird, uh. Wrote something about this the other day on his Patreon too. So. You did it. Yeah. Um. I guess my last question is. Who is. This is one of those questions I should have said, hey, Nathan, I'm going to ask this. You might want to think about this. But who, who are some of your favorite writers that are still around today? That you like to read? What have you read lately? Maybe is a different question that you really liked. Um, however you want to answer that. Okay. The, uh, so. Yeah, there's still a lot of writers in the genre. I still think, I still think. To me, the gold standard of, of, of. Dark fantasy horror fiction right now. Still Laird Baron. Um. I still, you know, live you a little well and. Uh, all trendblade, of course. Uh, there are writers, uh. Outside of the genre. Um. That I think genre readers would, would dig. Uh, one of my favorites is Julia Elliott. Uh, she wrote a book of short stories called the wilds. And a novel called new and improved roomy fudge. And she has a new book coming out, uh, next year. Another book of short stories and, uh, she writes in the Southern Gothic vein. Uh, very lush, very strange. Uh, it is not horror, but it is not so far removed. Uh, that. That it will be like a foreign country to readers of our. Uh, I just wrote her name down. I'll definitely check her out. She's great. Um. Let's see. By the way, while you're thinking of others, um, saying to. People in the who are listening and watching in this genre. You know, hey, this is outside of it, but if you like this, you're probably going to like this. That's a wonderful thing to hear. You know. For readers. Yeah, I, you know, I always appreciate it. When I, when I hear someone talking about something that's kind of peripheral so that I maybe. Yeah. We'll get something new. Um, uh, Thomas Lagati was a, is a, I'm sorry, not Thomas. Definitely Thomas Lagati, but, um. Yeah, he's, he's, he tries. Okay. Him and Larry are trying. You know, they're going to be, they're going to be successful one day, if they. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I was reaching for was actually a Patrick McGrath. Uh, he is a. He's been around for quite a while. He writes Gothic fiction. He wrote, uh, spider, which David Cronenberg based his film on. Uh, but he is a, uh, he's a Catholic writer who I. I love quite a lot. Um. And, uh, see, Karen Russell was one of my favorite writers. Uh, it's a very strange, uh, surreal, gorgeous prose. Uh, just stories that just make me so jealous. You know, uh, she wrote this one story called vampires in the lemon grove. Um, and it's this old man, this old vampire sitting in this, if I recall, it's an Italian lemon grove. And I'm not going to give you the story, but you know, one of the, one of this, the thing is that biting into the lemon will. Will cut the, the, the need to, to feed on blood. Wow. And so he's just sitting there, you know, biting these lemons. And, uh, it's such a, that was just a strange, beautiful story using vampires in a way that, you know, I hadn't seen before, but it was very. You know, very much a vampire, you know, it was, it was. And it's like, you know, when you read something like that, you're like. That is so, it's so obvious now. You know, why don't I think of that, you know, kind of a story, you know, vampire. Yeah. It's not a scary story. It's not a, but you know, the vampire is not, it's not meant to be a horror story. It's just a story about a vampire. Uh, and it's a very, you know, human, uh, kind of moving story, uh, which also brings to mind, uh, Marine McHugh. Uh, she is a science fiction writer. I'm sorry. Can you spell the last name? Mckugh. M C H U G H. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. And, uh, and I don't think she's written anything. A while in a while that I've seen anyway. Uh, but she has a, she's got a few books up. Uh, trying to mount in Zhang is one of the most popular ones. Uh, it takes place partially on Mars. Uh, but she has a book of short stories out called Mothers and Other Monsters. Uh, full of these heartbreaking, beautiful stories, uh, kind of like. There's science fiction, but they're very, uh, almost like very near future. Type stories where there might only be one or two small science fictional elements. Right. Um, there's one that's a kind of where Wolf story called Laker comes back safe. In that book. In that book. Yes. Yeah. Um, yeah, I recommend that book. Well, one of the biggest, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get it. One of the biggest, uh, faux complaints that I get is that. The show adds to people's TBR and their TBRs are, are, uh, overflowing. Yeah. So, uh, we're helping you with that guys. Um, uh, do you know, Kelly Young? Kelly Young? Yeah. Uh, no, I don't think so. Hey, he's a, he's, he published Strange Eons Magazine. And, uh, yeah. Well, he's a good guy. He's been around the genre for longer than I have. Uh, but he, uh, why bring him up is, I think it was yesterday. Maybe it was this morning. He sends me a photograph of somebody's symptom of a spider. And he's like, well, I guess I'm the spider guy now because everyone's sending me spider crap, even you Davis. And, uh, it, because he recently wrote a book called The Secret Language of Spiders, which is a wonderful book. Yeah, actually you might, I'm thinking you might like this. I think you'd like it. It's okay. Yeah, guys, check that out, by the way, after you get done reading Nathan's book because he's the guest. So, um, but he just published Secret Language of Spiders. You know, everybody loves it. So everyone's sending him pictures of spiders. What I sent him was, uh, another person on the panelists on another panelist friend of mine on Sundays. Her and her husband, um, they've got, I guess, uh, one of those doorbell cams. Yeah. And the motion thing went off in the night and it actually was a spider over the doorbell cam. Yeah. Yeah. So I sent it to Kelly and he's like, that's absolutely horrible. And I'm like, yeah, well, you know, you're the one that wrote the book, man. Yeah, it's your fault, man. Yeah. So, uh, I don't know, maybe crypto the moon spider. Maybe people are going to start sending you a look. Nathan is a cool spider. Maybe they will. They don't. Well, they bother Kelly and that's why he wrote about him. So, yeah. No, I love. Uh, well, again, folks, if you're coming in here late, it's called. Crypto the moon spider. Uh, book one in the lunar gothic trilogy. Do I have that right? Yeah. Um, and book two will be out next year. I absolutely recommend it. And, um, it is a novella, not a novel. So after you're done with that, if you've not read, you know, you like that. You know, it's, it's in set in 1923 on the moon. And all that stuff that we've been talking about. Uh, pick up the strange visits, as you said, not the same universe, but. In that vein, it's, it's very similar. And I am enjoying the hell out of the strange. Nathan, really. Thank you. So, and it's a good size book, so it'll keep you occupied. A little bit longer than the spider will. So. So anyone, uh, anyway, thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. I'm, I'm happy that we, we were, we had a lot of like behind the scenes. We had a lot of like, yeah, we had setting up the schedule and having to. One of us or the other of us had to, had to punch her for a while. Love we could find them. Uh, I, I'm really happy to be on. Well, thank you. And, um, hey, everyone, thank you for watching and listening and we will. See you next time. See you next time, actually, um, those who are regulars know that you'll see me tonight at 11 p.m. eastern. Um, because that's my Thursday night, late night show. But anyway, Nathan, thank you for doing this. And thanks for everyone for watching and listening and we'll see you later. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
