Caging the Yeti: Introducing Simon John Cox

The Kindle All-Stars Carnival of Cryptids interview week continues! The anthology is available from Amazon. Please note that I've only interviewed half or so of the authors, so there are even more cryptids, subgenres, and styles on display in the anthology than I've shown this week.

This will be my last interview, but this weekend I'll be reviewing the anthology.

The Kindle All-Stars are a select group of authors from around the world who donate their work in the name of charity. All profits from Kindle All-Stars anthology are donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Today I'm talking with Simon John Cox, author of the "The Cage" in the anthology. He was born in Tunbridge Wells, England, has a degree in chemistry, a job in marketing, and a black belt in Taekwon-Do, and has been writing fiction for as long as he can remember. He has had various short stories published and is currently focusing on writing novels.

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1) Please give a brief blurb about your story.

A ringmaster in a travelling circus is quickly making his fortune from a captive yeti, but when he discovers something shocking about the creature his plans - and his perspective - are thrown into disarray.

2) The Yeti is among the most famous of cryptids. Even people who otherwise have no clue what a cryptid is probably have heard of it. Do you feel this added any pressure to your story depiction that may not have been felt by some of your fellow authors who wrote about cryptids  that are a bit more obscure?

I don't think so - at least, I didn't feel it - as for me the story isn't really about the yeti being a cryptid, it's more about the idea of keeping an intelligent creature in captivity. Rocky isn't really about boxing - it's the same kind of thing. Except that the yeti is a better actor than Sylvester Stallone.

3) One of the interests of this anthology is the varied tones and angles the various authors utilize in their stories. You went for a more philosophical approach. Tell us a bit about why you decided on that course and a story featuring a cryptid either facilitated that or made the task more difficult?

As I alluded to above, what interests me most about the yeti is that it could feasibly be a "missing link" or a near relative of homo sapiens (I have a deep affection for Tintin In Tibet, which also makes that point), and as a result I think the approach wouldn't have worked with most other cryptids. I couldn't see it working with the Mongolian Death Worm, for example.

4) Do you feel your particular setting was critical for the themes you were exploring, or was that more an aesthetic choice on your part?

It was mostly an aesthetic choice, as I just think that something that sets up for one day and then disappears the next is somehow magical and unreal. That said, the circus has traditionally been a place for freaks and sideshow acts, so the yeti seemed to fit nicely into that as well.

5) Please give us a brief overview of your other works.

All of my other works are linked to on my website, www.simonjohncox.com, but the one I'd most like to draw attention to is my novella The Slender Man, which is a horror story based on an internet meme - and what could be more exciting than that?

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Thanks, Simon.

Check out www.simonjohncox.com for more from Simon.

The Carnival of Cryptids is available from Amazon.

And The Secret Ingredient Is WHAT!?: A Kindle All-Stars Interview With Matt Posner

The Kindle All-Stars Carnival of Cryptids interview week continues! The anthology has been released earlier than anticipated at Amazon.

The Kindle All-Stars are a select group of authors from around the world who donate their work in the name of charity. All profits from Kindle All-Stars anthology are donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Today, I'mm talking with Mat Posner, who contributed the story "The Paring Knife" to the anthology, a dark satire on modern competitive cooking shows.

1) Please give a brief blurb for your story.

In a mysterious future, underground cooking show The Paring Knife has the flesh of mysterious animals for ingredients. Who will win the contest? Who will be peeled away (and attacked by knife-wielding children)? And will announcer Bruce ever stop insulting his sister?

2) You actually feature, in a way, multiple creatures in your story. How did you decide what to feature?

Mostly, I wanted to use cryptids that wouldn't be represented in other stories. But the one, skunk ape, was a natural for a cooking show because the stench would be a challenge for the chefs to deal with.

3) The cryptids are, in a way, less of a central focus in your story given that it's more a dark satire of competitive cooking shows, and arguably even Food Network's Chopped, in particular. Do you think that not having the cryptids would radical alter the themes of the story, or do you think they are vital for what you're trying to convey?

I think the cryptids are necessary for the reason that Bernard highlighted in his introduction. This show has removed a sense of mystery from the world. The unknown, amazingly fascinating animals are now nothing more than grist for the consumerist mill.

The challenge for a cryptid-based anthology is not to have every story be about a person stalking a cryptid or a cryptid stalking a person. I'm relieved that I was able to come up with something different. If I hadn't been able to, I might not have been able to produce anything for KAS 2.

4) One major stylistic difference between your story and the others in the anthology is rather noticeable, in that you've written it as a television transcript rather than as a conventional short story narrative. Why did you decide to approach your story in this way, and is this an off-shoot your previous stylistic experiments with scripts inserted into narratives featured in some of your previous works?

I didn't think a standard narrative form would work for this story, because although it has characters and conflict, its primary source of drama is the same as shows like Chopped -- who will win? There are subtexts, of course. As far as other writing in this format, there's a chapter written in film script format in my third novel, and I do often think cinematically, although the screenplay is not my native format. I wrote plays as a young child before I wrote fiction. I like to tell a story through dialogue; I always have.

5) Please give us a brief overview of some of your other works.

I've been publishing the School of the Ages series of novels and short stories since 2010, about a magic school in New York City. I'm also the co-author, with that gem of a human being Jess C. Scott, of Teen Guide to Sex and Relationships. Everything is at Amazon; my novels are also for Nook; and Teen Guide is available everywhere in all formats. In India, School of the Ages is available exclusively from Times Group Books.

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Thanks, Matt

If you'd like to see more from Mat, please check out his previous interview about his School of Ages series and his website http://schooloftheages.webs.com/.

Carnival of Cryptids is available at Amazon.

Carnival of Cryptids Day 2: The Jungles Are Not a Place For the Arrogant: Introducing Jeff Provine

The Kindle All-Stars Carnival of Cryptids interview week continues! I originally said it would be out on the 1st yesterday, but I've heard it may be available for sale as soon as later today. Again, a reminder:

The Kindle All-Stars are a select group of authors from around the world who donate their work in the name of charity. All profits from Kindle All-Stars anthology are donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

I'm only interviewing four of the authors, so there's even more cool experiments in style and cryptids from a variety of authors in anthology (which, I'll be reviewing this weekend).

Today, I'mm talking with Jeff Provine, who contributed the story "Where is Captain Rook?" to the anthology, a slightly subversive take on the great jungle adventurer genre of old.

Jeff Provine was born May 2, 1984 (thus sharing a birthday with Catherine the Great and The Red Baron), in the wide, open plains of Oklahoma. He grew up a Country Boy on the old family farm, running barefoot through creeks and climbing trees. All the while he seemed to like best making up stories, writing them down as soon as he learned to hold a pencil. Carefree childhood days gave way to education, and Jeff graduated high school with two diplomas: one from the Oklahoma Bible Academy and the other from Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. In his senior year, he began writing Celestial Voyages: The Moon, which would be published as his first novel at the tender age of 18. Jeff attended the University of Oklahoma, getting a Professional Writing degree (He was going to write anyway, so he might as well study it). Jeff spent a year abroad at the University of Hertfordshire, just north of London, England, and spent several months traveling and writing. He is currently a lecturer in Composition and Mythology and works remodeling his home and writing in every spare moment.

1) Please give a brief blurb for your story.

River-guide Joao Paulo Nativo recalls the story of famed Amazon explorer Captain Rook's final adventure, hunting the elusive giant ground sloth, believed to have been extinct for thousands of years but known to tribes as Mapinguari, the fetid beast.

2) While far from an expert on all legendary beasts, I am genuinely surprised when I run into one I'd never heard anything about before, such as the creature in your story. Why did you decide to feature this creature, and how did you come across the legends concerning it?

I've been fascinated by the mylodon, and its bigger brother the megatherium, ever since first seeing them in the back of one of my dinosaur atlases as a kid. Then I heard a little blurb on the History Channel about a band of conquistadors supposedly fighting one (the natives said arrows just bounce off it; the Spaniards laughed until their own musketballs bounced, too), which pretty much sealed the "awesome cryptid" deal for me. When I heard of a cryptid anthology for charity, I knew exactly which cryptid to feature. Most of my research was online, digging through various cryptid websites, an old Brazilian newspaper article about a rash of Mapinguari attacks on cattle in 1937 (coinciding with a drought), and an online copy of the 1896 Orchid Review that gave descriptions of real-life adventurer and orchid-hunter Charles Fosterman to provide a feel of exploring the Amazon.

3) You've gone for a very classic jungle horror/mystery approach to your creature here. What attracted you about that particular style of engaging with your creature?

What interested me most about the pulpy classic jungle story was that there were actual explorers like Fosterman and Percy Fawcett who saw strange things no one has been able to prove. I was expecting to set my story earlier in the '20s, but once the legend popped up about Mapinguari hating water alongside the drought and the attacks in the 1930s, I had to make it closer to WWII. Why I wanted this time period overall was to give a hint of historical while fairly modern (we still use many of the same handguns developed even before then). The arrows of the natives and the musketballs of the Spaniards supposedly bounced off the creature's hide, which fits the "dermal ossicles" of the mylodon, bits of protective bone grown like armor plates inside the skin. The question I wanted to ask was, what if someone shot it with a .45?

4) Should we parse any of this story with a socio-political subtext, or is that just reaching on my part?

My story's definitely got its share of socio-politics. Originally, I was just going to have leather-jacketed Indiana-Jones types shoot the mylodon and then find out it had magic powers. As the story was rewritten, though, it became clear that it wasn't interesting enough. Instead, I wanted to look at the socio-political situation of Brazil and changed the protagonist to the mixed-race guide who saw the best and worst of living on the edge of civilization. It discussed a good deal of imperialism with the Great White Hunter getting in over his head and then losing it. Perhaps my favorite line in the story is about Mapinguari's powers over the rain to end the drought as well as potentially reaching to Europe to cause a war to bring back the Rubber Boom. Who's really controlling the world then?

5) Please give us a brief overview of some of your other works.

My first major project was Celestial Voyages, a trilogy of steampunk about interplanetary expeditions in 1900 with ant-men dwelling in caverns in the Moon, treelike Venusians who take "knowledge is power" literally, and Martian greys living on a world that has long past its prime. Currently, I'm at work on my webcomic about a magnet school, The Academy, and This Day in Alternate History, a blog taking events of a particular date and twisting them, such as "What if Will Rogers had survived his plane crash?" I've also released an ebook, Dawn on the Infinity, about a fourteen-year-old girl kidnapped by inter-reality pirates with zombies, hackers, vampires, robots, fairies, spaceship battles, and trolls, oh my!

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Thanks, Jeff.

If you would like to learn more about Jeff, please check him out http://www.jeffprovine.com/.

The Carnival of Cryptids is now available at Amazon.

Two-Fisted/Six-Gun Alt Reality Meets Lovecraftian Menace: Introducing William Vitka

As a perusal of my old Magical Mondays segments might indicate, I've more than a passing interest in various mysterious monster beasties and their related legends. Thus, I was very excited to hear about the second upcoming Kindle All-Stars Anthology project: Carnival of Cryptids. The anthology is scheduled for release on February 1st.

The Kindle All-Stars are a select group of authors from around the world who donate their work in the name of charity.  All profits from Kindle All-Stars anthology are donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

This week I'll be interviewing four of the Kindle All-Stars who contributed to the Carnival of Cryptids and reviewing the anthology this weekend.

Today, we're starting off with William Vitka, author of "Six Gun Diplomacy" and an NYC-based journalist and author. He's written for CBSnews.com, Stuff Magazine, GameSpy, On Spec Magaine, and The Red Penny Papers.



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1) Please tell us about your story. 

A human town is haunted by monstrous natives who dwell in the waters off their shores. Two diplomats arrive in an attempt to establish peace between the species … But it all goes very wrong, very fast.

2) What went into designing the cryptids/monsters featured in your story? Though the tone is obviously quite different, would it be incorrect to say there's a bit of Lovecraftian literary DNA in there, as it were? 

Yeah, you could argue that there's a touch of Lovecraft in all of my fiction. Not in terms of tone, as you noted. Lovecraft was my first introduction to Horror fiction. In fact, I can still remember my old man reading The Colour Out Of Space to my brother and I when we were younger – I think I was 9 or 10. Why he thought this was suitable bed time material, I'll never know. But I'm quite glad he did read it to us.

As for the creature design, it seemed logical because of where and when I wanted to tell the tale. I love huge tentacled beasts (Thanks, Lovecraft). Hence our Kraken. Then I wanted to make things even worse. Hah! The best part is that The Kindle All-Stars lets me get away with all that. I wanted to tell a story not just about monsters, but also about a place and a time. An alternate Galveston felt right. Especially since it was the site of the devastating 1900 hurricane. There are more than a few allusions to the storm and even the founders of the city. Lafitte, for example. The history of Resilient takes its cues from the real history of Galveston … To a certain extent, at least.

3) You have a lot of elements here, horror, steam punk, and alternate universe travel. When you were writing the story was there a particular aspect or element you were more concerned with coming across than the others?

My primary concern with writing is: Does it feel possible? Or at least real within the world you're presenting to the reader? I always want my writing to sound like it's some crazy insanity we're telling each other at a bar. Dialogue, action and characterization are always at the forefront of any story. Elmore Leonard's novels are the best teacher for this. Hell, you can go from writing shit dialogue (which is a goddamn plague in Horror and SciFi) to great if you read enough of Leonard's work.

But as for the particular elements in Six-Gun, no. I wasn't concerned that one would overshadow the other. The only reason I wasn't, I think, is because I tried to make sure all of the characters treated it nonchalantly. Time travel? Sure. Alternate Earths? Okey dokey. Cross-species Squidmen? All in a day's work. Jack, Catarina and The Collective are cogs in a bigger universe. They're in their own stories as well. I've written an entire novel about their past and their rise as heroes. My biggest concern with Six-Gun was that the universe itself stayed intact.

4) Part of the mystique of cryptids, one could argue, has to do with their typically mysterious nature. In your story, you've approached the mystery from a different angle, with the "creatures" far less inscrutable than they might have been in a different type of story. Please tell us a bit about your thought process in that regard. 

'Supernatural' explanations are bullshit. In fact, they're not explanations at all. If you've got a monster, a really great monster, and you end your story with something along the lines of: The monster was a ghost the whole time because at one point 300 years ago a girl was sad and she killed herself but now we're gonna have cake because we found the lost jewels that make her happy again … Then I'm going to be pissed off as a reader. You aren't telling me anything. And you've been lying to me the whole time I've been studying your words. My characters and my monsters always, always have some kind of traceable biology and physiology. If I, as the author, can't actually explain what's going on in my story, then I shouldn't be writing it. Thus: "Six-Gun Diplomacy" adheres to its own internal logic.

5) Jack and Catarina are engaging characters who happen to be visitors to the particular setting of this story. Are they characters you've developed for other works and/or do you intend to use them in other works? 

They're two kids from Brooklyn who had to grow up very fast. I mentioned above that they're the stars of a separate novel. Along with Jack's brother, Caleb Svoboda. All three have appeared in their own short stories. And I found them all engaging. So I said to myself: You've got three humans who are Super Heroes, in a way. You better explain that. Their origin story is called EMERGENCE. The cover is being worked on as we speak!

6) Please give us a brief overview of some of your other works.

My first novel, INFECTED (http://www.amazon.com/Infected-ebook/dp/B00A2WKI7G/), is about what a journalist would do during the apocalypse. So, far, it's gotten 5-stars across the board. Cherie Priest and Jonathan Maberry endorsed it. It's been a thrill, and everyone should just go buy it! THE SPACE WHISKEY DEATH CHRONICLES (http://www.amazon.com/Space-Whiskey-Death-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00AXTOBUS) is a collection of my stories. Several of which feature Jack and Catarina. They're all part of my weird universe building. 

Of course, I have to mention Kindle All-Stars #1 (http://www.amazon.com/Resistance-Front-1-Bernard-Schaffer/dp/1469927098), because that's what started my wild relationship with all the awesome authors involved.
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Thanks, William.

If you want to find more from William Vitka, please visit http://vitka.tumblr.com/.

Carnival of  Cryptids is available at Amazon.