Ed McKeown (I Kill Zombies & Hellbeast)

1. 1)How did you come on board the Sha'Daa project?
   

I was one of the original crew of Sha’daaists recruited by Mike Hanson who approached me out of the blue ether of the internet.  After I decided this was not a version of the Nigerian Bank Scandal I became a very enthusiastic part of the process.  When it became obvious that we had vastly overrun a one volume anthology I gradually migrated to the role of Editor of the work freeing Mike for more of the creative genius stuff that is his forte.  We became the Yin/Yang of the Sha’Daa.  Mike had the vision, got us the cover art and the original team of writers, I gained us the agent, the publisher, some of the additional authors we needed, and finally the introductions by two SF greats, Mike Resnick and Catherine Asaro.

2. 2)How did you come up with the idea for your Sha'Daa story? 
   

The first story, “The Dive” with the NY Sewer Workers was one of a list of possible scenarios that Mike promulgated,  I snatched this one as I’m from New York and the middle-class workers of that great city were the people I grew up with so I felt very comfortable with a sardonic, blue-collar thrill ride through  the underbelly of the city.   Ditto for “Hellbeast” a story set in war-torn Iraq, there I modified the story from being a tank (with its impossibly lethal 120-mm gun and impenetrable armor) to a tank recovery vehicle where the focus became the raw nerve and smarts of the enlisted men that manned this glorified tow truck.

“I kill Zombies” was something different.  Johnney Perkins had done the cover art for Sha’Daa.  I looked up his work and saw an image of a sexy brunette literally up to her butt in zombies which she was cooly blasting away with two pistols.  I guess you could say she was packing a pair of 44s and some guns too.  She was the classic teenage male fantasy image of that type of female character currently filling the bookshelves, hard-bodied amazons with supernatural strength slaughtering supernatural evil while also dating it.  So I decided on a satirical take on that sub-genre with Raven Blackstone, the dream girl of a twelve-year-old boy who is swept up in the beginning of the Sha’Daa.  Raven ended up on the cover of LAST CALL in a new painting, turned around to face the audience guns leveled.  Our publisher did make us put a little bit more clothing on her. 

3. 3)What is it like to work on a shared-world anthology (as opposed to writing your own standalone short stories)?
   

The fun here was finding ready-made plots and concepts to exploit, I can sit down and write reams of character and dialogue at a moment’s notice but to find a plot to inhabit, aye there the rub.  The group was loose, wildly creative and inspiring to work with.  This could have been a straightjacket but with Mike’s easy hand on the tiller, was a tuxedo instead.   It was only limited by one’s imagination.  That said I think there might be only so much to be said with this concept and I have said as much as I can think of…at least until the next idea comes along.

4) What do you think the appeal is of the concept of an "Apocalypse?" 

I believe it is because this event could precipitate any of us out of our ordinary lives and into direct conflict with the forces of evil.  All of a sudden, a la Buffy the Vampire slayer, the ordinary world around us becomes the extraordinary. These forces, unlike wars between humans, are unmitigated evil.  There is no moral ambiguity, the enemy has no civilians for collateral damage.  This is battle with no quarter asked and none given.  One may strike this enemy as hard as one can and with no fear of morally tainting one self.

The reality of the event, of course, would be quite horrible as are most adventures, so the Sha’Daa is better read then experienced.

5) Why do you like writing dark fantasy? 

I am more of an SF writer in the novel format.   Short stories came to me as a way to build  a writing resume than I found an appreciation for the medium.  I started in SF but found that I had a talent for urban fantasy - my work of that genre owes more to the modern form of dramedy than the classic Lovecraft, Merrit or Poe.   So my fantasy is less dark then perhaps its humor.  There is after all little difference between the alien that hunted Ellen Ripley and a demon.  What I did insist for my own stuff was an acceptance of the laws of physics or as Swartznegger said, “It it bleeds we can kill it.”   A vampire might be animated dead tissue but a Marine SAW will simply rip it in two in a storm of 7.62-mm.   Werewolves may regenerate but I can’t see it surviving after a hit with a grenade.  In short, my monsters depart as little from the “real world” as I can make them.  If they move in the Realm of Earth they must follow its laws.  

6. 6) What upcoming projects do you have in the works? 
   

My plan for 2011 is to break into novels.   I have two series.  In “Transitions” a disgraced military pilot, Wrik Tregardt, befriends an ancient and deadly alien android, Maauro, who adopts a female appearance to travel the worlds of Confederacy of Species.  The two of them must battle crime syndicates and governments to stay free.  It’s the story of the redemptive power of love and friendship.   In the other series set in the same universe,  privateer Robert Fenaday searches the stars for his lost wife, Lisa Fenaday, a naval intelligence operative who disappeared in a war.  His quest is aided and made more complicated by  the beautiful, genetically engineered assassin, Shasti Rainhell.

7. 7)Are you ready for The Sha'Daa, and, if so, what preparations have you made?
   

Curiously enough a result of my work in the Sha’Daa, and a time-travel story I did called “Must Have Own Weapons,” I did a sort of inventory check, that if I had to leave for such a deadly adventure, with just what was in the house in a mere hour, how would I fare?  Some preparations were innate, formerly an expert shot, currently a black belt. Others were related to equipment: M1 Garand, only 50 rounds of ammo though, shotgun, large variety of swords and knives, lots of black clothing... well, you get the idea.  Of course I would ask my wife to make me a nice lunch first and I would promise to call as soon as I was through and on my way home… 

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Bruce Durham (Deathstalk)

1) How did you come on board the Sha'Daa project?

I remember seeing a forum for Sha'Daa on the SFReader.com site and asking Crystalwizard what it was about. Needless to say I found the premise intriguing. Some time after 'Tales of the Apocalypse' was released Ed McKeown contacted me, asking if I would be interested in writing a piece for 'Last Call'. I believe I have Crystalwizard to thanks for putting the bug in Ed's ear.

2) How did you come up with the idea for your Sha'Daa story?

I wanted to write a tale about everyday people and how they would react when faced with a descent into pure horror. Placing the story on board a seemingly deserted Halifax Class Frigate gave me the opportunity to throw these people into a situation where they had no choice but to forge ahead, investigating alarming and increasingly bloody clues, before ultimately confronting their goal. In this case, an evil dwelling deep within the bowels of the ship. It was important these characters were no heroes, but were forced by circumstances to rise above fear of the unknown and do what was necessary to survive. On a side note, researching the Halifax Class Frigate and the Canadian Navy proved to be extremely rewarding and eye-opening. It turns out I knew more about the American Navy than my own.

3) What is it like to work on a shared-world anthology (as opposed to writing your own standalone short stories)?

Fortunately I have a lot of experience with shared world ventures, so being constricted by rules was nothing more than a simple challenge to adapt and blend in. I contributed to the shared-world 'Freehold' series by Carnifex Press, and until last year I spent 8 years Moderating the After Action Reports forums for Paradox Interactive. My claim to fame there was running a collaborative project called 'The Free Company', a mercenary group that operated within an alternate history world based on the PC game 'Europa Universalis (1,2 & 3). So, collaboration is no stranger to me.

4) What do you think the appeal is of the concept of an "Apocalypse?"

To me the appeal is simple. It's man and woman stripped of the luxuries of civilisation and forced to struggle day by day in a hostile world where your next step could be your last. Your neighbour today could be your enemy the next, all over that last bit of fuel, or the remaining box of ammo. And of course, the Apocalypse is fertile ground for the imagination. In essence, anything goes.

5) Why do you like writing dark fantasy?

This is arguably my first story that could be termed 'dark fantasy'. I typically write something more akin to sword and sorcery. However, as genres go, there's a lot of similarities between the two. I like to write tales that center around man's ability to survive, even while facing impossible odds. Usually my characters are 'everyman', someone thrown into a situation not of his choosing, and forced to survive by whatever means available. Dark, grim, unrelenting opposition and horror on a personal level strikes me as more rewarding than a tale where someone saves the world against some global threat. I prefer the personal voyage.

6) What upcoming projects do you have in the works?

I'm currently working on a Lovecraftian horror story, as well as a couple more tales of Dalacroy and Moirya. One of these days I'll start the Dalacroy novel I've plotted. There's also a couple of graphic novel scripts I've written, one horror, one S&S. All I need is a reliable artist to collaborate with.

7) Are you ready for The Sha'Daa, and, if so, what preparations have you made?

Definitely. I have my .50 Cal mounted on my roof, enough supplies for 48 hours, salt, silver knives, iron blades, a pentagram, the Necronomicon and above all, Ash and his 'Boom Stick'. Come get some.

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Jordan Lapp (Reach In The Acid)

1) How did you come on board the Sha'Daa project? 

Ed McKeown, an author I knew from SFReader approached me soon after I won Writers of the Future with an invitation to write a piece for the next anthology in the Sha'Daa series. I was impressed with the reviews on the first Sha'Daa anthology, and with the fact that he was able to secure an introduction from one of my heroes Mike Resnick, so I accepted right away.

2) How did you come up with the idea for your Sha'Daa story? 

Mike Hanson provided a list of story prompts, and naturally, I chose the most outlandish amongst them: an astronaut gets trapped on the moon during a demon apocalypse. I ran into problems right away. First, I was pretty burned out after attending the WotF workshop and Clarion West in the space of two months, but I also found that I might have bitten off more than I could chew story-wise. The Sha'Daa takes place in a contemporary setting and we don't even have plans to go back to the moon for twenty years. I ended up doing a lot of research on the type of moon base that we could set up today, so the base that appears in Reach In the Acid, while a stretch in terms of size, is mostly accurate from a technical and even geographic standpoint (it's located at the bottom of a crater where we now know there's a deposit of frozen water). 

The concept of demons in our culture has been somewhat Buffy-ized, so I wanted to tackle my story from a truly horrifying standpoint. The Salesman that appears in Reach In the Acid is a much darker, more terrible version of what probably appears elsewhere in the book, and editor Ed McKeown had his concerns, but in the end he let me go with it, and I'm pretty proud of the result.

 

3) What is it like to work on a shared-world anthology (as opposed to writing your own standalone short stories)? 

You're only God in the worlds you create. Since I didn't create the Sha'Daa, there were a few rules I had to deal with that I'd normally brush aside. I mentioned previously that Ed had concerns about my take on the character of the Salesman. Without spoiling too much, the Salesman is a being with powers beyond anything we can conceive of here on Earth. I argued that a being with that much power from birth wouldn't share our world view. Things that this creature might view as ethically acceptable, we might find abhorrent because we have access to less information. The Salesman is like a well-intentioned giant playing with an anthill. From the ants point of view the giant has potential to do great good, but in doing so, might unintentionally kill a few members of the colony. 

4) What do you think the appeal is of the concept of an "Apocalypse?" 

Apocalypse stories are like Westerns that are palatable to the world outside of North America. In fiction of the American West, Death is literally in the room all the time--one wrong word, and some cowboy'll blow you away. Unfortunately, cultures that never had cowboys find it hard to empathize with them (before anyone tries to argue with me, this is clearly visible in the box office receipts of Western films that do far better in North American than they do overseas. As overseas markets have become more and more important, Westerns have faired poorly). In Apocalypse fiction, you can once again explore a realm where every decision has lethal consequences, and I think that's very appealing to a lot of people.

5) Why do you like writing dark fantasy? 

I like writing it because it's one of the only genres where mood is super important (although one could argue that it's important in all genres, but audiences are more forgiving in, say, epic fantasy). Edgar Allen Poe felt that every word should contribute to generating the "mood" of the piece. In Reach In the Acid, I struggled to horrify my readers, not through shock horror, but by gradually dialing up the level of creepiness in the story. Stephen King did this masterfully in what I feel was the greatest Lovecraftian horror short story ever written (including those written by Lovecraft himself) "Crouch End". 

6) What upcoming projects do you have in the works? 

Since I wrote Reach In the Acid things have really exploded for me. I have a Graphic Novel currently in production with Luke Eidenschink, an award winning illustrator I met at Writers of the Future, and another one with another artist that's in the development stages. I'm in the middle of writing a horror novel, and have recently made a few pro-sales of my short fiction to AE - The Canadian Science Fiction Review and Larry Segriff's StoryPortals.com

7) Are you ready for The Sha'Daa, and, if so, what preparations have you made?

I don't think it's really possible to be “ready" for the apocalypse, but if Johnny shows up at my door I'll do whatever he says.

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Paul Barrett (As You Sow...)

1) How did you come on board the Sha'Daa project?

Editor Ed McKeown is a member of the writing group I’m in and he mentioned the project was happening and asked if I would like to submit a story. No guarantees it would get chosen, but I guess I did okay with it, because it got picked.

2) How did you come up with the idea for your Sha'Daa story?

This was one of two ideas I had--maybe the second will show up in the next book :-) -- and I liked the idea of going with someone who wasn’t your typical hero and, indeed, had pretty much given up. It was only when he found something worth living for did his true nature come out, his last shot at redemption for a life squandered, really.

3) What is it like to work on a shared-world anthology (as opposed to writing your own standalone short stories)?

I’m actually someone who likes rules and limits given to me for my writing, otherwise I can tend to wander. I like playing in someone else’s created world. They’ve done all the heavy lifting, so I can just come in and decorate. If I could spend my time working in shared worlds (especially RPG-based worlds) I would be a happy camper.

4) What do you think the appeal is of the concept of an "Apocalypse?"

It’s just human nature to wonder if we could survive in such a situation and how we would cope. We’re fascinated with the unknown and drawn to devastation for some reason, and there’s nothing more devastating than an apocalypse.

5) Why do you like writing dark fantasy?

I like writing all kinds of things, this one just happened to be dark fantasy. But I do enjoy exploring the idea of people up against incredible odds and seeing if they can come out of it. In that, though, I don’t think I’m that much different than many other fantasy authors.

6) What upcoming projects do you have in the works?

I have a trilogy about a necromancer who has to, well, I don’t want to give anything away. The first book is making its second trip through the writing group. I also have a couple of YA ideas, but they’re in the planning stages right now. I also occasionally produce movies, so we’re working on getting our next script funded.

7) Are you ready for The Sha'Daa, and, if so, what preparations have you made?

Good heavens no. First thing I would do would be to head for the house of my friend who is on the SWAT team. At least I know he has weapons.

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Sarah Wagner (In The Chamber of Skulls)

1) How did you come on board the Sha'Daa project? 

 

Ed McKeown approached me with the premise of the Sha'Daa collection and I thought it sounded like great fun. The first book was really neat and different and I jumped at the chance to be a part of the second one.

 

2) How did you come up with the idea for your Sha'Daa story? 

 

I've had this particular title in my head for years and I searched for the right story for it, and this project presented the ideal tone for it. As it happened, I was also able to use a particular scene that had been in search of the right story for a while as well, one that started simmering in my head in 2005 when I took a trip to Arkansas and wandered around the Toltec Mounds for an afternoon with my family.

 

3) What is it like to work on a shared-world anthology (as opposed to writing your own standalone short stories)? 

 

Honestly, I think playing in someone else's playground is a lot more work as you can't just bend or break the rules of that particular universe. It is interesting to have set parameters to work under though - something of a fun challenge.

 

4) What do you think the appeal is of the concept of an "Apocalypse?" 

 

For me, the best Apocalypse stories are the ones that highlight the very human will to survive, the small glimmer of hope in that darkest hour. If there can be hope when the world is crashing down around you, when all seems lost, and we still manage to persevere, what can't we face? Humanity has it's darker side, certainly, but it also has this ingenious talent for surviving against the odds and I find that comforting.

 

5) Why do you like writing dark fantasy? 

 

Probably because I enjoy reading it. I enjoy the thrill that comes with monsters and mayhem. The dark that comes in books and movies is a release from the dark of the real world. We can't always control or even effect the things we face in the real world, but when we read, those big baddies almost always get what is due them. There's a greater sense of justice, of balance, when you read dark stories - fantasy or otherwise - than you find in our everyday lives. At least, for me.

 

6) What upcoming projects do you have in the works? 

 

At the moment, I'm focusing more on novel length work and we'll just have to see how that goes.

 

7) Are you ready for The Sha'Daa, and, if so, what preparations have you made?

 

Not particularly. I am prepared for a winter time power outage though.