The Sharkpunk Interview - C L Werner

I have known Clint Werner since we both wrote for Inferno! magazine back in the early days of the Black Library. So I was delighted when he agreed to write a brand new short story for SHARKPUNK...

Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks?

Clint Werner: I think the appeal of sharks is two-fold. First there is, of course, the fact that your bigger sharks are quite capable of eating a person. As a species we have a vested interest in keeping tabs on the creatures that can kill us and most especially the ones who sometimes add us to the menu. Most of your ‘man-eaters’ are heavily represented in folklore, heraldry and language, as though by invoking these creatures we might also draw on their power and in some way control their ferocity.

The second point when it comes to sharks is that they are largely an enigma. We still can’t say for certain how old or how large some of these animals can get. Their social lives, limited as they might be, are an utter mystery. We aren’t even sure what can drive some species to explode into the gruesome spectacle of a feeding frenzy. These are creatures that defy many of the rules laid down by science. They haven’t changed in any substantial manner in millions of years. It reminds me of Nestor Pavia in the classic Creature from the Black Lagoon: ‘I tell you what I think, this thing is stronger than what you call evolution.’

SP: What was the inspiration behind your story ‘Feast of the Shark God’?

CW: I suppose the germ of the idea began with an episode of In Search Of…, a paranormal/speculative series that aired in the late 1970s and early 1980s when I was growing up. Hosted by the late Leonard Nimoy, the show always presented interesting topics, some more based in reality than others. 

One of these episodes was devoted to Dakuwanga, a shark god worshipped in the Fiji Islands. While presenting this tradition, the show also explored anecdotal accounts that the islanders who dutifully worshipped Dakuwanga were never menaced by sharks, even swimming about in waters infested with known man-eaters. Of course, the catch there is that when they did mention a local who was eaten by sharks, he was of course somebody who’d fallen out of his faith.

So, the idea of doing a story revolving around Dakuwanga was there. Over time, it metamorphosed into a fantasy tale removed from our own world and set in the sword-and-sorcery landscape of Shintaro Oba. I conceived a story pitting the demon-hunting samurai against a fearsome shark god and the community who worships it.

SP: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story?

CW: One of the biggest challenges with my Shintaro Oba stories is trying to maintain a Japanese mindset within them. Prior to the Meiji Restoration which saw the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japanese society was broken into a very strict caste system and the majority of the Japanese people abided by the traditions and obligations of that system. The concept of self, of the individual, was trivial compared to being a part of something bigger, whether that be a farming community or the retinue of a great samurai clan.

I think the big surprise for me when writing the story was realising that, well, let's just say the end turned out a bit different than I’d envisioned it in my outline!

SP: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be?

CW: I’m sure it is as stereotypical as possible, but the Great White. Ever since I was a kid, these immense monsters have been a source of awe. Going to the beach in California, it was always at the back of your mind that these sharks were out there, somewhere under the very water you were looking at. To drive the point home, there’d be news stories when a Great White would hit a surfer or maybe swim up to a pier and nab somebody’s catch.

SP: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)?

CW: Again, I’ll be stereotypical and say Jaws. When I was growing up, the spectre of the first Jaws film and of course Peter Benchley’s novel, still loomed large over the landscape. There were Jaws shirts and toys and such and when the movie played on broadcast TV it was a major event that they’d hype for weeks beforehand and take full-page ads in TV Guide.

And then there was the Jaws attraction at Universal City Studios, the highlight of their tram tour. I’m not sure how old I was, certainly not more than six, when my parents took me to Universal for the tour. Now, I wasn’t so terribly interested in the Bates Motel or the I Love Lucy bungalow, and there was only passing interest in seeing the Munsters mansion. I wanted to see Jaws, and I kept letting everybody on the tram know it. Well, when the time came and the tram approached the lagoon where the mechanical shark lurked, my father took hold of me and held me over the side so I’d get a real good look as Jaws came lunging up from the water. Being a snot-nosed punk I screamed and cried out that, ‘Why doesn’t somebody shoot that thing?’

All these years later, I still like Jaws.

SP: Apart from Sharkpunk, what's coming next from C L Werner?

CW:

Thanks, Clint!

C. L. Werner was a diseased servant of the Horned Rat long before his first story in Inferno! magazine. His Black Library credits include the Warhammer Hero books Wulfrik and The Red Duke, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, the Grey Seer Thanquol and Brunner the Bounty Hunter trilogies. In the Time of Legends series he has penned the Black Plague trilogy and Curse of the Phoenix Crown, the final volume in the War of Vengeance series. Deathblade is his contribution to the Warhammer ‘End Times’ event, featuring the dark elf tyrant Malus Darkblade.  His first full-fledged foray into the gothic sci-fi universe of Warhammer 40k occurred in 2012 with The Siege of Castellax. He is the author of Moving Targets, a novella set in Privateer Press’ Iron Kingdoms featuring the iconic heroes Taryn and Rutger. In the sci-fi Old West of Wild West Exodus, he contributed An Outlaw’s Wrath in the Jesse James trilogy as well as some short fiction for an upcoming anthology. Samurai warrior Shintaro Oba has previously appeared in several anthologies published by Rogue Blades’ Entertainment. More recently, his short fiction has been featured in anthologies like Kaiju Rising, Fantastic Futures 13, Marching Time, A Grimoire of Eldritch Inquests and Sharkpunk.

An inveterate bibliophile, he squanders the proceeds from his writing on hoary old volumes – or at least reasonably affordable reprints of same – to further his library of fantasy fiction, horror stories and occult tomes.

The Sharkpunk Interview - Toby Frost

Toby Frost is well known for his Space Captain Smith stories, set in the comedy science fiction universe of the British Space Empire. So you can imagine how pleased I was when Toby agreed to write a brand new, original Space Captain Smith story for SHARKPUNK...

Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks?

Toby Frost: I think it’s because they seem so deadly, and so unsympathetic. They’re perfectly made to kill things, and they’re completely unlovable. Even rats have nicer eyes. A shark is like a biological missile: they don’t even stop moving around to sleep. There’s a line in Alien about the Alien being unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality – that, to most people, is what a shark is like. They’re perfect villains. Of course, they’re also rather impressive animals, but that’s not the point, at least here...

SP: What was the inspiration behind your story Deep Black Space?

TF: I’d mentioned the void sharks in the first novel of mine that was published, Space Captain Smith, but I felt that I hadn’t quite done them justice. But I needed something beyond them just randomly attacking. It seemed “logical” that someone sufficiently crazy would have been breeding them or trying to domesticate them, with predictable consequences. That sort of thing seems to happen a lot in space.

SP: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story?

TF: It’s surprisingly difficult to make shark-related puns – at least, new ones.

SP: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be?

TF: It’s got to be the Great White shark, hasn’t it? They’re the classic shark, but with all the dials turned up to 11. That said, the basking shark is pretty impressive. It’s rare for an animal to be awe-inspiring whilst drifting through life with its mouth wide open.

SP: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)?

TF: Well, Jaws is the Citizen Kane of angry shark films. But it’s hard not to like the Pathetic Sharks from Viz, and I’ve got a certain amount of time for the bizarre creature in Sharktopus. It must have been very confused, especially since it seemed to have both a mouth and a beak.

Thanks, Toby!

By day, Toby Frost lives the life of a mild-mannered law reporter. By night, he is the author of five comedy science fiction novels about the misadventures of Captain Isambard Smith of the British Space Empire, published by Myrmidon books. He has also written several short stories and the Warhammer 40,000 novel Straken for Black Library. He is currently working on a fantasy novel.

His website is at www.TobyFrost.com.

The fifth Space Captain Smith adventure End of Empires is available now.

The Sharkpunk Interview - Kim Lakin-Smith

Kim Lakin-Smith is a Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy author of both adult and children’s fiction.


Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks? 
Kim Lakin-Smith: In the regimented sterility of the modern world, sharks have come to represent the virile savagery of unpoliceable Nature. They are uniquely designed to represent threat, from their tiny, dead-seeming black eyes to their angular fins, recessed jaw, projecting snout and rows full of oblique, serrated, ever-replacing teeth. Apex predators in the Deep – that unknowable world where the Earth’s crust bubbles and alien species phosphoresce and the darkness stretches – sharks cannot be domesticated or placated. Instead, it is we who are quite literally caged if we dare to go among them.

SP: What was the inspiration behind your story Goblin? 
KL-S: Without giving too much away, I wanted to focus my story on the most extreme version of a living monster. I am always fascinated by genetic modification and biomechatronics; Goblin explores the fragility of the human body and how the power of the shark is sustained even at a biomolecular level.

SP: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story? 
KL-S:  For me, the challenge is always to balance research with storytelling. I find that rooting my fiction in fact is the best way to breathe life into scenarios and characters. This is especially true of Science Fiction; the science is the binding agent which unites the imagination’s creative flow. In terms of surprises, I didn’t expect the ‘punk’ aspect of my story to be in the form of a scary little girl who likes to dance with the devil – especially if that devil lives in a lightless pool in a cavern hundreds of feet below ground.

SP: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be? 
KL-S: Read my story to find out ;-)

SP: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)? 
KL-S: Hmm, a favourite may be stretching it. But the movie, Jaws, did have a profound effect on me. For some unintelligible reason lost to the eons of Time, my dad decided it would be a good idea to take me to see a showing of Jaws at the senior school he taught at. This was around 1976, a year after the movie’s official release. I was four years old. I think it probably goes without saying that I was more than a little traumatised by the event! But what really cemented this event in my mind was the movie themes album my two elder brothers decided to purchase soon after. Blocking both doors out of the living room, my brothers - a.k.a. Dementors - played the Jaws theme over and over while mimicking the snapping jaws of said fish. Hearing the terrifying drawl of those two alternating tuba notes was enough to send me into a screaming frenzy! These days, I am more restrained in my reaction to the Jaws soundtrack. Externally at least. In truth, my inner four year old me is still pegging it for the door before a grinning brother tries to block it!

SP: Apart from your story in Sharkpunk, what's coming next from Kim Lakin-Smith? 
KL-S: This year I am concentrating on writing my latest adult Science Fiction novel. There are historical passages in the book and I need to get the research spot on. It is a bit of an epic. My novelette, ‘Black Sunday’, will be reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, out from Prime Books, July 2015. I’m speaking on panels at various events over the year, including the SFWeekender, the Writers Conference at the University of Nottingham, Eastercon, Edge-Lit, and Bristolcon.

Kim Lakin-Smith is a Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy author of adult and children’s fiction. Kim’s short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including the 2011 British Science Fiction Association shortlisted, ‘Johnny and Emmie-Lou Get Married’ (Interzone Issue 222). Her novel, Cyber Circus, was shortlisted for both the British Science Fiction Association Best Novel and the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel 2012. Cyber Circus’s twin novella ‘Black Sunday’ has been selected for The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, Prime Books 2015.

The Sharkpunk Interview - Richard Salter

Richard Salter describes himself as a 'Writer of sorts...' and he is an editor as well as an author.


Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks? 
Richard Salter: I reckon it's that iconic image of the dorsal fin moving through the water, like a preview of what's to come, a warning flag letting you know it's time to get the hell out of the water. You can draw two sides of a triangle with a wavy line at the bottom, and everyone will know what it is. Also teeth. Lots of teeth.

SP: What was the inspiration behind your story Sharkbait? 
RS: Nothing specific. The idea I pitched was mostly the structure the story ended up with, though my helpful editor helped me define the nature of the titular little girl. I'm not sure where it all came from, other than a feeling of panic that I wouldn't be able to write a story without ANY fantastical elements. So I came up with the idea of the girl who can "charm" sharks, and I knew I wanted her to be called Sharkbait. Everything else came from there.

SP: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story? 
RS: Anything that requires me to do any level of research is a challenge for me. It feels too much like work so I tend to hurl oodles of unreal stuff into my fiction, be it time travel or ghosts or magic, to avoid having to actually know anything. I can get straight down to the fun part, the writing! It was a struggle to ground my fiction in a more "realistic" setting. There are supernatural elements to the story, but they're not overt and most of the narrative concerns a diamond heist that goes wrong and the consequences thereafter.

SP: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be? 
RS: I think Mr Wonderful himself, Kevin O'Leary. Never a dull moment in the Shark Tank (the US equivalent to Dragon's Den) with Mr Wonderful around!

SP: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)? 
RS: I'm tempted to go with the plastic one from the 1966 Batman movie. It terrified me as a six year old! My slightly more serious answer would be the sharks in Open Water. That film terrified me as an adult! The sharks are treated realistically (as far as I can tell) and the tension as they circle nearer and nearer to the stranded couple is masterfully handled. In fact now I feel the urge to dig that one out and watch it again.

SP: Apart from your story in Sharkpunk, what's coming next from Richard Salter? 
RS: I am working on a super-secret project for a fairly big series that's tremendously exciting but also very hard work. It has consumed all my writing time for months, so for now there's nothing new that I can talk about. I did recently have my first novel released. It's called The Patchwork House and it's a haunted house story with a time travel twist. Reviewers are saying it's very scary, which is very nice to hear. I'm also busy promoting Fantasy For Good, which is an anthology of fantasy fiction I co-edited featuring the likes of Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, Piers Anthony, Kelley Armstrong, Michael Moorcock, Carrie Vaughn and a ton of other talented folks. All proceeds go to the Colon Cancer Alliance, so please do check it out.

Thanks, Richard!

Richard Salter is a British writer and editor living in Toronto, Canada. His debut novel, The Patchwork House, is a ghost story with a time travel twist. He co-edited Fantasy For Good, a charity anthology featuring huge names in the genre such as Piers Anthony, Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin and Michael Moorcock, which benefits the Colon Cancer Alliance. He has written short fiction for Doctor Who and Warhammer, and has a story in This Is How You Die, the sequel to the popular Machine of Death. Find out more at http://www.richardsalter.com

The Sharkpunk Interview - Andrew Lane

Andrew Lane is a household name thanks to his Young Sherlock Holmes novels, written with the blessing of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate, so it was something of a coup when he agreed to write a brand new story for SHARKPUNK...


Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks? 
Andrew Lane: Sharks don't think, or emote, or worry. They just go straight for whatever it is they want and they don't give up. In that sense, they're somewhere between James Bond and a full scale psychopath, and I think that's why we both fear them and are fascinated by them. Sometimes we wish we could have that single-mindedness, that lack of distraction, and that complete focus. Just sometimes.

SP: What was the inspiration behind your story Blood Relations? 
AL: I had a feeling that enough people would be writing stories about... er... actual sharks, and so I wanted to go off at a tangent and write about what would happen if you could cross a man, in some biological sense, with a shark. What would happen? What would he experience? There's also the metaphor there somewhere about a man seeking something in the city in the same way that a shark seeks out its prey in the ocean.

SP: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story? 
AL: The challenge was to portray a man who has been given an entirely different set of senses. What would that be like? How would be experience the world?

SP: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be? 
AL: I have a fondness for the Hammerhead Shark, on the basis that it looks really cool and nobody really knows why its head is actually that shape.

SP: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)? 
AL: I do like the genetically enhanced shark that bursts out of the water in 'Deep Blue Sea' and chomps on Samuel L. Jackson in that great shock moment.

SP: What's coming next from Andrew Lane? 
AL: Book #8 ('Night Break') in the Young Sherlock series, book #1 in a new series called 'The Darkness of the Stars', plus short stories in a Moriarty anthology and an 'X-Files' anthology. Plus I appear to be in early development on two different TV series. It's all go...

Thanks, Andrew!


Andrew Lane trained as a physicist and spent 29 years providing scientific advice to the British Army and the Royal Air Force, but he has always had a parallel career as an author - a career which is now his full time occupation. He has, over the past few years, written eight books for the Young Adult market concerning a 14-year old Sherlock Holmes. He has no direct experience of sharks, but he once threw up on a dolphin. Oh, and he actually went through the same operation as he describes in his story, except that the surgeons were taking something out rather than putting it in.

SHARKPUNK at Forbidden Planet

SHARKPUNK gets a special mention in the latest email newsletter from Forbidden Planet.

Remember, if you're able to make it into London on Saturday 9th May, at 1.00pm GMT we will be launching the book and twelve of the contributing authors will be in attendance for a mass signing.

You can find out more, and register your interest, here.

The Sharkpunk Interview - Amy & Andy Taylor

The second couple to have contributed a story to SHARKPUNK are Amy & Andy Taylor. Here's what they had to say about the experience...


Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks?
A&A: It’s Jaws. If you want an example of the power of movies, look no further than the Jaws franchise. Without that film, sharks would not be the source of fascination that they are. The fin. The music. The bigger boat. And now we’re all scared of sharks.

SP: What was the inspiration behind your story Shirley?
A&A: We thought shark and we thought ‘Great White’, which never swims near Britain. That didn’t feel right for our story. It got us thinking of which shark could be thought of as ‘British’ and that led us to Lamna Nasus, the Porbeagle shark, amongst others. Thinking of animals as having nationalities took us down a unique creative path, and the common perception that all sharks are aggressive (not true) also intrigued us. These two lines of thinking quickly sparked the creation of both the world and plot of our story.

SP: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story?
A&A: It was our first collaborative writing project and discovering, by trial and error, how to successfully combine on story development, character detail and writing style was a real challenge. The biggest surprise was how much we wanted and needed to know about an animal in order to make it the main character in a story. The Porbeagle is not a famous shark (until now) and we really got drawn into finding out all we could about it.

SP: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be?
A&A: Well, no contest really. Our new favourite animal, and probably the one creature (other than our cat) which we know the most about. Lamna Nasus, the Porbeagle shark. Shirley. And don’t you dare call her a mackerel (even though, technically, she is one).

SP: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)?
A&A: Sharky from Sharky and George… the crime-busters of the sea! Oh ok, not really… it’s Jaws. 

SP: Apart from your story in Sharkpunk, what's coming next from Amy and Andy Taylor?
A&A: This has been our first collaboration, but we would love to do more. Otherwise, Amy will be writing more short stories. Andy is writing, filming and directing a short film for an upcoming festival.

Thanks, guys!


Amy and Andy Taylor are a married couple from Twickenham who until now have written separately and individually, Shirley is their first collaborative piece. Amy’s last short story The Count was featured in Limehouse’s 2011 anthology Bloody Vampires, while Andy has recently been writing short and feature length films. Amy’s background is literature and theatre, Andy’s is radio and film. Perhaps it is unsurprising that Amy loves to write character driven prose, while Andy is drawn to high-concept screenplays. SHARKPUNK provided the opportunity to indulge both passions. 

To find out more about Amy and Andy’s writing, both individual and collaborative, please visit: lynwoodloveday.wordpress.com 

Follow Andy Taylor on Twitter: @ProducerAndy