The Darkness: Giger, Texas
by Joe M. Solomon
Date of
Publication: October 3rd 2017
Publisher:
NES Publishing, LLC
Cover
Artist: Syneca Featherstone
Genre:
Horror/Supernatural
The
Book Junkie Reads . . . Interview with Joe Solomon
How would you describe your style of writing
to someone that has never read your work?
There
is always a certain willing suspension of disbelief required on the part of
readers when it comes to fiction. Readers must suspend their disbelief that
vampires or werewolves or other creatures exist, for example, when reading
fictional tales that involve such. So I like to inject as much realism into my
stories as I can. To that end, I don’t
just include good guys in my stories, or characters who are heroic through and
through. I also include reluctant heroes. People who seem weak in the
beginning, but show strength as the story progresses. Characters who are only
looking out for number one. Characters who want to save everyone they can. And
a few nefarious characters like those who always seem to surface during chaotic
times to take advantage of the situation.
I also
like to paint characters into corners that seem impossible to escape and take
readers on a wild ride, as I did in The
Darkness: Giger, Texas. I just love
seeing how ordinary men and women respond to challenges like these.
What are some of your writing/publishing
goals for this year?
This
year, The Darkness: Giger, Texas is
the only work that will be published. But
for next year, I am currently working on an anthology and another novel, The Light: Houston, Texas.
Do you feel that writing is an ingrained
process or just something that flows naturally for you?
I think
it’s something that flows naturally for me. I’ve always had a very vivid
imagination and enjoyed creating stories. The same things that appeal to me in
favorite movies always seem to find their way into my own tales without effort.
Like George Romero’s Night of the Living
Dead, for example, my book contains an ensemble cast with a wide variety of
backgrounds and personalities. In some instances, you’ll see friends banding
together to help each other. But I also like to throw characters who would
ordinarily loathe each other together and allow dubious bonds to grow as they
fight together to survive.
Do you have a character that you have been
working on for a long time that still isn't quite ready, but fills you with
excitement to work on the story?
No. I
tend to favor ensemble casts, so the characters tend to come to me that way
while I’m puzzling out a story.
If you could spend one-week with 5 fictional
characters, who would they be?
I would
choose Dante, because he’s really been through it. Stephen King’s Randal Flagg is another,
because I would like to talk to him and see if there is a decent bone in his
body. Edna Pontellier, who is the main
character in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening
would be the third. I think there are
even more layers to her than what Chopin put on paper. I would like to have a long talk with
Dostoyevsky’s disgruntled nameless character in Notes from the Underground and enlighten him on the West. And I would also like to spend time with
Sonya from Uncle Vanya. I know she
may not be a big character in the long history of fiction (and neither is Edna),
but I would nevertheless like to explore who she is beyond the surface.
Where would you spend one full year, if you
could go ANYWhere? What would you do with this time?
South
Korea. I visited South Korea a couple of
years ago and loved it. I would explore
the culture much more than I was able to in the short time I was there and turn
out some short stories and a novel.
Can you share your next creative project(s)?
If yes, can you give a few details?
Yes. As I mentioned, my next publication will be a
collection of short stories. One the short stories begins with the main
character as a passenger on a plane that has left Seoul, South Korea. Communication
has been lost with all of Asia, and the blackout is spreading west towards the
States. Roach in the Light is about a Donald Taylor, a community
college professor who is displeased with pretty much everything from his job to
the house that he rents. The one thing
that is sacred to him is his breakfast. But suddenly even that is ruined when
he sees a cockroach trapped in the long fluorescent light overhead, running
back and forth. It seems a relatively easy irritation to eradicate, but soon Donald
finds himself in a struggle for his life.
Tom is a janitor in an
elementary school. He’s also a slacker with bad hygene habits who wants to fall
in love. Everything changes when be finds
himself a few new pets.
BLURB
When night falls in Giger, Texas,
shadows gather as they always do in dim corners and other areas bereft of
light. But this time they consolidate and attack any who tread too close.
Michael Warren, a twenty-four-year-old resident of Giger, finds himself at the
epicenter of this horror and is stunned by the losses suffered overnight.
Then the sun sets and the shadows again coalesce, growing more aggressive, the
darkness eviscerating anyone it touches.
His only weapon light, Michael
struggles to survive and searches frantically for his girlfriend, aiding
friends along the way. When Hurricane Daniel roars ashore, wind gusts
shred trees and tear down power lines, plunging all of Southeastern Texas into
blackness that only feeds and strengthens the encroaching darkness.
Rising floodwater provides easy thoroughfares from which the darkness can
strike as Michael and his friends contend with the elements, clash with
criminals, and battle their way to his residence where they will stand against
the darkness and fight to survive.
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Excerpt:
Startled,
Eddie blinked and wiped at his own eyes. “What was…? Hello?”
No answer.
His pulse
picked up. “C-Curt, you in here… you a-a-a-asshole?”
A box
fell behind him.
Eddie
spun around, body tight as a knot, eyes wide as their sockets would allow.
“Wh-h-h-h-who the hell’s that?” he demanded with as much sternness as he could
inject into his quivering voice.
Soft
whispers trickled out of a minuscule pocket of emptiness near the back door on
the farthest wall. There, amid the gloom, something progressed toward him. At
first, its movements appeared mechanical, inelastic. Then it evolved into a
smooth flow. A soft ripple. A consolidated wave of darkness.
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Author Info
Joe M. Solomon earned a
bachelor’s degree from the University of St. Thomas, followed by both master’s
and doctoral degrees from Rice University. Joe’s supernatural thriller The
Darkness: Giger, Texas released in 2017. A second novel—The Light: Houston,
Texas—and a collection of short stories that arise from the macabre will soon
follow.
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