Author James R. Tuck Guest Blog And Contest
Hello dear readers and welcome.
Today we are gonna talk about scary urban fantasy. Now I am a fan of urban fantasy. I love it. That is why I write it. But a lot of what I am reading that is labeled urban fantasy by a publisher isn’t really. It’s paranormal romance.
Now there is nothing wrong with paranormal romance, but it has a certain viewpoint that is different than true urban fantasy. Urban fantasy can be some scary stuff. I like to call it action horror. Think about it, early Laurell K. Hamilton book such as Obsidian Butterfly are good examples of what I am talking about. There is some scary stuff in that book. You have skinned people who are still alive, and ancient monster who uses intestines as a skirt and has space eyes all over his body. You are talking about things that if you put them in the hands of Brian Keene or Edward Lee, they would make an awesome horror book.
That’s what I like to write. My books are firmly urban fantasy, but there are some seriously creepy things in them. Deacon Chalk is an occult bounty hunter, he fights monsters. It seems obvious, but I want to always make those monsters as scary as possible. I love that urban fantasy (and good horror) can give you that chill, that “whoa” factor because of the monsters involved.
Books in the Deacon Chalk, Occult Bounty Hunter series in the order they should be read:
That Thing at the Zoo
Blood and Bullets
Spider’s Lullaby
Blood and Silver
Author Bio:
James R. Tuck is the author of the Deacon Chalk series from Kensington. He is a former bouncer and a professional tattoo artist. He owns Family Tradition Tattoo in Marietta, Ga. He lives in the Atlanta area with his wonderful wife, two wonderful children, and four wonderful dogs. He writes the stories that keep you up at night.
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Learn more about James R. Tuck below:
www.jamesrtuck.com
http://twitter.com/#!/JamesTuckwriter
http://www.facebook.com/jamesrtuckwriter
http://jamesrtuck.wordpress.com/
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Hi, James! Welcome to BBB!
Hello hello! Good to be here.
Spiders are my Big Bad, and from Carol
Jackie- Oh that last one sounds right up my alley.
I love Clive Barker and of course STephen King is classic. The best Koontz I read was the first half of Intensity.
And yes I have terrific spiders in my books! Muwah ha ha
I read Flesh Stealer in middle school, so you can imagine how it shaped my poor little mind, lol. It’s very well-written. You should check it out!
Done and done. It sounds good.
I agree, there is a big difference between UF and Paranormal romance. I love them both, but they are different. UF should scare you, make you think…this could really happen. Or believe in the monsters. And the scarrier the monsters, the better the weapons/magic to defeat them should be =)
Exacatly!
That’s what I do. I come up with either an existing monster or a new one and then think about how it would REALLY be if someone ran up against it.
Plus, my characters are damaged because you would have to be to sign up for this kind of fight. And the few that aren’t when they start are by the time they are done.
The damaged/deranged characters are the best ones!
Hi James! I agree-lots of books are labeled as Urban Fantasy (not necessarily at any fault of the author) that aren’t. I love both, as well as horror. Sometimes I want more scary and less romance. That is when I love a good UF novel. May not be as scary as horror, but more than just sexy paranormal. Glad to see you here today and will be checking out YOUR books!
Answer A Question – What monsters do YOU like/fear? I mean what really gets under your skin?
When I was a little girl, I was terrified of werewolves. I had nightmares for years after seeing the movie The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (and that was a cheesy movie) anytime I saw Lon Chaney Jr changing into the wolfman, I hid my eyes!
Now because of the “evolution” of weres in movies and novels as turning into actual wolves and not the half man/half beast of yesterday, I dont fear them. In fact, I have quite the crush on a certain were on True Blood! hehe
I can’t really think of any I really FEAR that much today, except maybe the HUMAN monster . When I saw the movie The Strangers, I was really scared sitting alone in the dark. And they were just PEOPLE. Really messed up people, but just PEOPLE. I think we HUMANS can be scarier than anything anyone can make up because it’s REAL
Humans can be totally scary. To this day I still lock the door during the day and when I am home because when I was a kid I read about a serial killer. He would go inside a house and slaughter everyone he found home, just completely sick and sadistically kill them.
The way he chose his victims?
He would drive to a completely random neighborhood. Park, and begin walking down the streets. He would go to each house and try the doorknob. The first one he found unlocked was the one he would go into.
Growing up in the 70′s and early 80′s NOBODY locked their doors. It just didn’t happen. The front door on my parents house stayed unlocked 24/7…..until I read that story.
Answer a Question – Do you read horror as well? If so, tell me some of your favorite horror books/authors
I LOVE HORROR: Richard Laymon, Stephen King, and Jack Ketchum are some that I love.
I completely agree with the whole U/F and Paranaormal Romance categories. It really bugs me when I go to those sections at book stores or the library. In fact sometimes when I go to the library I re-arrange some of the books, hoping they take the hint. Because they certainly didn’t take the verbal ones.
What monsters do YOU like/fear? I mean what really gets under your skin?
I am with Jackie, spiders are not okay. So not okay. I am absolutely terrified of spiders! Think about someone you know who’s scared of spiders, multiply that by 5, and then you get me. I can’t even look at pictures of them. It is relaly bad. So bad, I’ve done some pretty extreme things to get away from them. I’m also pretty scared of something else, but it’s really weird. So I never talk about unless it comes up in a situation, which has only happened twice in my adult life. ( I really hope to keep it that way too!)
Do you read horror as well? If so, tell me some of your favorite horror books/authors
I read some whenever my TBR list lets me. But I don’t read as much as Urban Fantasy. But even then, I think I’ve started to become desensitized, because sometimes the things labeled horror, don’t really scare me. If I’m reading a horror book, I want there to be some horror. There have been horror movies that have gotten me, but not many horror books.
What’s the scariest thing you have read in an urban fantasy book?
I talk about this whenever someone brings up scareist reads. There were these three dark urban fantasies that Charles deLint wrote as Samuel Key. It was the entire concepts of the books. I can’t quite describe it to do it justice. But a serial killer who was shot and killed, but comes back to keep killing girls all while trying to get to his step-daughter. The only books to give me a nightmare and yet I kinda want to read it again right now.
The Charles DeLint books sound really good. I will have to look them up.
We’re kindred spirits! (Ignore the “Review Manager” thingy before my name.) At the age of 27, I called my dad to come kill a spider at midnight because it had “trapped” me in my living room.
Do you read horror as well? If so, tell me some of your favorite horror books/authors
Here or there. The only horror author I’ve read is Stephen King. There was one I read as a teen in high school but don’t remember the book. It freaked me out.
Hubby loves Dean Koontz
Answer A Question – What monsters do YOU like/fear? I mean what really gets under your skin?
Anything spider like. I’m in the group who is freaked out by spiders. Which lots of my favorite tease me about constantly. I cannot watch movies with spiders or I get too freaked out. And it was no fun when one of my sons loved Eight Legged Freaks. Heck when I played this one PS2 game with spiders… I got justice bashing ‘em.
I don’t mind spiders. I like them actually in most cases as long as they live by the agreement I made with the spider-god. I will not kill a spider of any kind as long as it does not violate the living area of my family. If a spider is venomous they must live outside and not where a human will encounter them.
They violate this treaty at their own peril. lol
We just had a huge black widow that crossed the boundaries by living in the mailbox. She was the size of my thumbnail.
And then there was this story
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/09/spider-living-ear-canal-photo-_n_1761304.html
about the woman with the spider that crawled into her EAR. it had pictures that will squeege you out for days.
Well, now I’m curious is there anything that gets under your skin? And if you were to make some suggestion for good horror books, what would you suggest?
Well, for movies the only one that has ever gotten me is The Exorcist. That is some creepy stuff.
For books, and this is NOT a recommendation that comes without a heavy warning, the one that truly got me was THE BIGHEAD by Edward Lee. Whoa, that book was JACKED. So extreme that even I felt bad for reading it.
It was excellent. But so disturbing that I cannot actually recommend it.
I just read BOOK OF A THOUSAND SINS by Wrath James White and it gets a similar non-recommendation. It was good, but highly offensive and disturbing.
Other books I love in the horror aspect are most books by Brian Keene. I just picked up DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN and it is tremendous. Great voice, great writing, great concept. I am really looking forward to it.
EXQUISITE CORPSE by Poppy Z. Brite is still one of my favorites. It’s the best serial killer book I have ever read. Dark, disturbing, and beautifully written.
I really liked the first half of INTENSITY by Dean Koontz, but after that the book fell apart for me.
I’ll definitely have to try Keene and I’ve a lot of people keep telling me to read Poppy Z. Now as for the other two, I realize that I’ve been forewarned. Typically I listen to warnings about things that are disturbing. Which is very different from scary. But I feel strangely compelled to read them. I know! I’ll probably regret it. And I will proabably feel just as jacked up after reading it. And yes, I know that I’m weird.
Thanks for the book recommendations. And I can’t wait to get to Blood and Silver. I’m on Blood and Bullets now!
Keene is awesome and I love me some Poppy Z. Brite.
Tom Piccirilli also used to do good horror before turning to writing almost exclusively crime fiction (which is also great).
Edward Lee and Wrath James White are great writers, but they go THERE as for extreme….no limits, nothing too sick, perverted or disgusting.
Oh and Alan Ryker. I really like his writing. BURDEN, KANSAS is excellent. Nearly urban fantasy but still horror.
good stuff.
http://www.alanryker.com/
I actually watch more horror than read. I love watching a really scary movie that just makes me shiver and think about it for days after. I love vampires, weres, monsters that are made out of someone’s imagination.I’m ok with spiders, my 23 year old son screams like a girl over them. hehe Although I must admit to being a little freaked over that spider in the ear link, because my ear has been itchy all day.
I’ve read King, and one of my favorites is Brian Lumley. I read more Horrow comics than fiction. One of my fav artists is Ben templesmith. I read Chew, Choker, Wormwood, welcome to Hoxford, The Darkness, lots more.
These books do sound good, I’ve put them in my wish list and will def be checking them out. I also love me some tattoos. I have several, my husband and son do also. My son just got some more work done on his right arm, he’s getting a sleeve done and is working with a great guy here locally. He’s a great artist, and has helped him design everything. We taught him no flash, I mean there’s nothing wrong with the pics, but how many people have the same tattoo? So he chose something meaningful to him and it looks great. Do you ever go to conventions? If so, do you set up to tattoo there?
I do a ton of conventions but I don’t tattoo there, the setup isn’t right.
I have done tattoo conventions in the past and they are fun too. Truthfully I like fan conventions and writing conventions better, but that’s just me.
Scary creature- zombies. I was super terrified of them. Although watching The Walking Dead has strangely cured me of my zombiephobia a little.
Zombies are not my thing LOL
I read horror as well and Dean Koontz is probably my favorite.
None of the monsters bother me. Is that bad or what?
Lisa D. USA
My fave horror authors are Peter Staab, and Steven King.
Lisa D. USA
I guess the most scarriest or just the most gross are zombies.
Lisa D. USA
I like zombies. I wrote a little zombie story that appeared in One Buck Zombies and is supposed to be made into a short film (on hold at the moment). I like them and even though it seems like everything has been done with them new twists keep popping up. Jonathan Maberry just keeps making new zombie fiction that is stellar and Brian Keene writes The Last Zombie comic book that is pretty damn out of this world.
anything that is a creepy crawly creature and especially zombies
I love horror. Stephan King (of course)and Dean Knotz are my top fav horror writers
Really, not much scares me in urban fantasy. Humm, maybe I’m reading too much.
Actually, on thinking a bit more on this subject, serial killers do kinda freak me out.
Planner or pantzer?
DO you follow a “formula” when you write? DO you outline your ideas, write in a specific order
I started as a pantser cause I didn’t know any better. The more I write, the more outlining I do.
Where is your favorite place to read?
Books are my favorite places. They take me from wherever I am to wherever they are set. I do like reading in bed though.
If you could be any Disney charactor, who would it be?
Seeing as every movie made seems to have Disney as the backer I’ll go with Kurt Russel’s character The Commander in Sky High cause I always wanted to be a superhero.
Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed “That Thing at the Zoo” & “Spider
Thank you so much.
hi james!
1. zombie. the nearly-rotten ones. those are really, really creeps me out
2. i think i haven’t read any horror lately. cause i can’t remember any..
3. the scariest thing? a child murderer. she killed quite a lot before captured, and all because of petty things.
my question to you is, what’s your favorite quote from a book. mine is from j.d robb, “It’s not a formality. And it’s not a contract. It’s a promise.” i edited it a little
Favorite quote from a book?
Now that is impossible.
lol. I read stuff all the time and have to put it down going “Damn you (insert author’s name) that is so freaking good I should have thought of that!”
I do love to read THE ROAD by Cormac Mccarthy just for the absolutely stunning language in it.
“When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he
Do you have any unusual or special talents excluding your storytelling abilities?
You woke up this morning and realized you had been reincarnated as a pair of shoes.
Describe yourself.
Who do you see playing Deacon on the big screen?