Thankfully, the title of this post isn’t too close to the bone, as I felt a little more at home being interviewed on camera than I expected. Or, at least, it wasn’t an excruciating experience, and I didn’t clam up. Here’s the brief interview segment from my local news channel, which contains a bit of a primer for YOU DON’T BELONG HERE, a chat about time travel and Sunday’s FantasyCon panel, as well as an unplanned reveal of the theme of my next novel.
My short piece about John Wyndham’s THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and its influence on my novella, BLIGHTERS, is up now on the Ginger Nuts of Horror site.
Here’s a quick round-up of reviews so far for Blighters…
Ginger Nuts of Horror – “Blighters is an effortlessly readable book sprinkled with subtlety and insight, humour and honesty, and was a very pleasant surprise. It is everything that I was not expecting a book about giant space-slugs to be, and is so much better for it. Gorehounds and schlockfiends steer clear – this is strongly recommended for fans of original and uniquely weird fiction.”
Horror After Dark – “This was a fun, meaty novella that was a creature feature, but SO much more. Highly recommended-especially to fans of the old Sci-Fi/Fantasy stories and magazines!”
And, for the sake of completion, a brief ‘Look out for…’ piece from This Is Horror – “Major is a talent to watch on the British horror scene, so check out Blighters soon.”
I’ll add more as they appear…
Today on Sci-Fi Bulletin you’ll find my guest blog post, ‘Keeping it real in pulp fiction and B-movies’, in which I ramble for a bit about some of my favourite low-budget films (such as The Last Man on Earth and Carnival of Souls) and make a few bold claims about my novella, Blighters.
I had fun creating a soundtrack to BLIGHTERS.
The first couple of tracks and the final one are choices made by the main character, Becky, rather than me – she inherited her dad’s passion for 70s prog rock. Three of the tracks are actually named in the book (‘The Temples of Syrinx’, ‘Cat Man’, ‘Hocus Pocus’). The rest simulate the woozy experience of coming close to an alien slug that, though terrifying in appearance, produces a radius effect of utter contentment. I think it’s fair to say there’s no right answer about the correct musical accompaniment to that.
You can read more about the musical influences behind BLIGHTERS in my guest blog post on the Abaddon website.
Buy BLIGHTERS: UK|US|Rebellion Store
Recently, James Everington invited me to write a piece for his blog to promote the upcoming publication of his novella, Trying To Be So Quiet (Book Books). The theme is ‘What Horror Writers Talk About When They Talk About Love’. Here’s my article.
My second son is due to be born within the next month, so my response to the theme is related to parental love. My reference points in the article are two of my favourite films, Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) and Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979). My favourite part of the article is nothing I wrote, but James’ caption of this photo of Sal Mineo and James Dean: ‘Neither of these men is Tim Major’. Thanks for that, James, and thanks for having me on the blog!
I’ve got an article up on the Hodderscape website – it’s about Martian canals, the 1964 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars, and the borrowing of ideas in science fiction. It’s rather a ramble, but the main idea is that even misconceptions can lead to good fictional ideas that are then developed by writer after writer.
Head on over to the THIS IS HORROR website to read a recent ‘Meet the writer’ interview (with me, that is).
Along with Carus & Mitch, my answers cover subjects such as writing routines, gore vs psychological chills, upcoming projects and favourite authors.
Today on the dark fiction website, Wag the Fox, you can read my post about children in horror fiction.
I wrote Carus & Mitch while my wife was pregnant, so it makes sense that children were on my mind back then. Children and parenthood have featured in most of the stories I’ve written since, too.
But there’s another reason why my favourite scary stories happen to feature children. I like the kind of horror that arises from everyday situations. There’s something about the unpredictability of children that seems ripe for exploitation in horror fiction, allowing scenes to lurch from tenderness to terror.
If you head over to the Liz Loves Books website today, you’ll find my guest post in the ‘Why we write’ series. I’m a bit ashamed to say that I don’t reach a definitive answer to the question. Instead, it’s more a list of things I like about writing, which is a long list.
Today you can also read a short extract from Carus & Mitch on the Speculative Fiction Showcase website.
I’ve written a guest post for the online literary magazine, Upcoming4.me. It tells the ‘story behind the story’ of Carus & Mitch, from its origins as a NaNoWriMo draft of a YA novel, through lots of dithering and deletions, before it ended up as a ‘quiet horror’ novella.
The other authors who have contributed ‘story behind the story’ articles put me to shame in their ambition and methodical approach to writing! But I hope some readers will find it useful to read about the haphazard development of this story and the deviations and accidents that became integral to the finished book.
Over on the Speculative Fiction Showcase website you’ll find an author interview with me, covering subjects as diverse as big-screen adaptations, Scrivener, chickens and socks… Oh, and a small amount of discussion about my novella, Carus & Mitch, which will be released in exactly one week’s time!
The book has also been teased on the horror blog, Wag the Fox. My guest post about children in horror fiction will also appear on the Wag the Fox site soon.
Tim Major 
You must be logged in to post a comment.