In the run up to the publication of THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF PULP HEROES 2, I will be posting short interviews with the contributors. Up first, William Meikle whose contribution is entitled The Penge Terror.
Would you like to briefly introduce yourself: what
inspired your writing and when you began, and – if possible – of all of your
published work could you tell me which your favourites are (and why)?
I'm
Willie Meikle, 55, Scottish, now living in Canada.
I
grew up on a council estate in a town where you were either unemployed or
working in the steelworks, and sometimes both. Many of the townspeople led
hard, miserable lives of quiet and sometimes not so quiet desperation
When
I was at school books and my guitar were all that kept me sane in a town that
was going downhill fast. The local steelworks shut and unemployment was rife.
The town suffered badly. I could have started writing about that, but why
bother? All I had to do was walk outside and I'd get it slapped in my face.
That horror was all too real.
So
I took up my pen and wrote. At first it was song lyrics, designed (mostly
unsuccessfully) to get me closer to girls.
I
tried my hand at a few short stories but had no confidence in them and hid them
away. And that was that for many years.
I
didn't get the urge again until I was past thirty and trapped in a very boring
job. My home town had continued to stagnate and, unless I wanted to spend my
whole life drinking (something I was actively considering at the time),
returning there wasn't an option.
But
my brain needed something to do apart from write computer code, and fiction
gave it what was required. That point, back more than twenty years ago now, was
like switching on an engine, one that has been running steadily ever since.
I've
recently written numerous stories set in the late Victorian / Early Edwardian
era, for Sherlock Holmes, Carnacki, and Professor Challenger. I was raised on
Doyle, Wells and Robert Louis Stevenson and I love that historical period they
covered in their work. It's also the time period I've come to prefer for my own
writing and I can see me settling in there for a long time to come.
There's
more Holmes, more Carnacki and more Challenger to come. There seems to be quite
a burgeoning market for this kind of mixing of detection and supernatural, and
I intend writing more ... maybe even a a lot more.
Do you have a favourite genre, or sub-genre? What exactly
is it that attracts you?
I've
written horror, fantasy, science fiction, crime, westerns and thrillers. Plus
the sub-genres, like ghost stories, occult detectives, creature features, sword
and sorcery etc. But I don't really think of them as being different. It's all
adventure fiction for boys who've grown up, but stayed boys. Like me.
It's
all about the struggle of the dark against the light. The time and place, and
the way it plays out is in some ways secondary to that. And when you're dealing
with archetypes, there's only so many to go around, and it's not surprising
that the same concepts of death and betrayal, love and loss, turn up wherever,
and whenever, the story is placed.
And
in my case, it's almost all pulp. Big beasties, swordplay, sorcery, ghosts,
guns, aliens, werewolves, vampires, eldritch things from beyond and slime. Lots
of slime
Some say Pulp is a genre, others a style; which side do you
come down on?
It's
a stylistic choice for me — fast moving, entertaining stories to help people
escape and go somewhere for an adventure for a while.
Tarzan
is the second novel I remember reading. (The first was Treasure Island, so I
was already well on the way to the land of adventure even then.) I quickly read
everything of Burroughs I could find. Then I devoured Wells, Dumas, Verne and
Haggard. I moved on to Conan Doyle before I was twelve, and Professor
Challenger’s adventures in spiritualism led me, almost directly, to Dennis
Wheatley, Algernon Blackwood, and then on to Lovecraft. Then Stephen King came
along.
There’s
a separate but related thread of a deep love of detective novels running
parallel to this, as Conan Doyle also gave me Holmes, then I moved on to
Christie, Chandler, Hammett, Ross MacDonald and Ed McBain, reading everything
by them I could find.
Mix
all that lot together, add a dash of ZULU, a hefty slug of heroic fantasy from
Howard, Leiber, Gemmel and Moorcock, a sprinkle of fast moving Scottish
thrillers from John Buchan and Alistair MacLean, and a final pinch of piratical
swashbuckling. Leave to marinate for fifty years and what do you get?
A
psyche with a deep love of the weird in its most basic forms, and the urge to
beat the shit out of monsters.
That's
what pulp means to me.
What was the inspiration for The Penge Terror?
A
couple of things — I used to live in Penge back in the '80s and remembered a
couple of the old pubs. I also wanted to write a Quatermass story, but that's
off limits. Challenger however is very much Quatermass' older brother in terms
of influence, and he's a character that has always spoken to me. I also wanted
to do a very British alien first contact story — and here it is.
Do you have a particular favourite author, or authors? What
is it about their work which appeals to you?
This is a
constantly changing list as the years go by. At one time it was Lovecraft then
everybody else, but my tastes have evolved. I still find myself going back to
an older time in much of my reading; William Hope Hodgson, MR James, Arthur
Conan Doyle and AE Merritt all figure large. Of the more modern writers,
Ramsey Campbell has been a constant for many years, Stephen King to a lesser
extent although I still read everything he publishes, just a bit less
enthusiastically than I used to. I wish Clive Barker would return to full-blown
horror as I loved his earlier work. Outside horror, David Gemmel's fluid style
always drew me in, and I've been a Moorcock fan since I first discovered him in
around 1971.
Of the new
batch, Gary McMahon impresses me greatly. He's turning out a body of remarkably
entertaining while at the same time bleak as hell work that speaks to me.
Outside writing, what else occupies your time (assuming you
have any free time left)?
I've
been playing guitar badly since 1973, and doing rather better at drinking beer
for about the same length of time. I live in a remote part of Canada and love
wandering the countryside and shorelines. I also spend far too much time on
Fortean websites — cryptozoology especially interests me, and provides direct
input to a lot of my work.
Is there any particular style of music – or musicians –
which appeals to you?
I'm
a singer-songwriter in another lifetime, and I have a deep love of people with
respect for that craft — Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, John Martyn, Nick Lowe,
Nick Cave, Richard Thompson, Elvis Costello, Dylan, Springsteen et al are
what's on rotation most of the time. The Blues are for when I'm chilling out,
Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howling Wolf and Elmore James in particular. And
Zeppelin for when I need some noise.
What are you currently working on?
I'm
currently half-way though a novel for DARKFUSE (my 3rd book of a 6
book deal for them.)
This
one's a dark fantasy set in Edinburgh and parts unknown, and features cops,
beer, a serial killer, a giant black swam, a portal to another place, more beer
and plenty of murder and mayhem.
Thank you, William Meikle.
