Letters From the Labyrinth 300

Greetings from Mars. I’m Brian Keene and this is the 300th issue of Letters From the Labyrinth, a weekly newsletter for friends, family and fans of my work.

Let’s start with a kitten update.

In last week’s newsletter, I told you that outdoor cat Josey Wales and her latest litter of eight kittens were going to be rounded up that Monday, and that the kittens would go to the no-kill shelter to await adoption, and that Josey would be spayed, given all her shots, and slowly transitioned into an indoor cat (whom Mary and I intend to keep).

Only some of that actually happened.

We got the kittens inside with no problem. Only took about five minutes to wrangle them all up and put them on the second floor of the house (which is comprised of my office, Mary’s office, our library, game room, and second bathroom). We put the kittens up there because its the only way to keep them separate from our cats. But, it turns out the shelter is full again, so the kittens will have to wait here until there is an opening for them. But that’s okay. I’d rather they be inside temporarily and safe from eagles, hawks, foxes, coyotes, cars, trucks and all the other things that live here.

Later in the day, Josey showed up, looking for her babies. I opened the door a crack so she could smell them. She poked her head in but as soon as I reached for the door to close it behind her, she swatted at me and backed out. Then I tried putting food in the back of a cat carrier. She looked at it like I was a fool and refused to enter. Then my neighbor put food in a big dog crate. Josey looked at this set-up with equal disdain. Then both my neighbor and I resorted to giving her lots of pets and scritches in the hopes that we could relax her enough to calmly pick her up and bring her inside. She accepted all the pets and scritches, but the moment either of us tried to pick her up, she let us know she was not happy with us and that further attempts will eave us scarred or maimed.

As of this morning (Saturday) we’ve resorted to trying to starve her out — putting the food just inside the open door of our house, in the hopes that she’ll get hungry enough to cross the barrier. So far, it is a meeting of two indomitable wills — hers and mine. I sit patiently by the slightly ajar door, waiting for her to venture inside. She sits patiently by the slightly ajar door, waiting for me to slide the food back outside. Occasionally she glares at me. Other times she purrs, as if she’s having fun with this. Occasionally I do both of these things, as well.

There are worse ways to spend ones retirement, I suppose.

Speaking of which, thanks to everyone for the multitude of birthday wishes. My phone began giving me alerts at 6:01am. The first was my oldest son, followed soon after by my pal Richard Christy (whom some of you know as the funniest guy on The Howard Stern Show and others know as the drummer of Death and Charred Walls of the Damned), and then my youngest son (who delivered his in person before breakfast and also gave me some Lego Breaking Bad scenes and a Lego Mary SanGiovanni that he built). More text messages from several authors, editors, Navy buddies, and family members quickly followed, and then my phone started blowing up with about one new alert every minute, so I had to mute it eventually. Same with Twitter, etc. But I did go through and read and reply to all the text messages, and read all the Tweets that I could find (once you get over 10,000 followers, Twitter doesn’t show you every single @ reply to you. Instead, you have to hunt them all down if you want to see every single one of them). There were way too many to respond to individually, but thank you nonetheless. Your kindness is appreciated, and I am grateful.

I celebrated turning 55 by taking Mary to the local diner, where I gleefully ordered a special from the senior’s menu, which proclaims in all caps: AGES 55 OR OLDER.

That was kinda cool.

Work this week was pretty scattershot. Racing to get this weird, surreal coming-of-age story that’s a homage to Spielberg’s Amblin finished before deadline. It’s a mess, so I’m scrapping it and restarting this coming week. Worked on notes for PROJECT MILEAGE. Worked on ISLAND OF THE DEAD and GWENDY’S BUTTON BOX. At week’s end PROJECT BROADSWORD fell apart, which often happens with media tie-in stuff. But I signed some official paperwork for a feature film adaptation of THE CAGE, so things balanced out. Music-wise, I listened to and continued to program my radio station. Reading-wise, I’m pre-reading Robert Swartwood’s next novel. And viewing-wise, the only thing I watched was a few episodes of The Patient (Hulu) which is enjoyable, so far.

So, yeah… so far, retirement has involved working like normal, cat wrangling, and saving a few bucks at the diner on scrapple (a Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy given to the world by the Amish, who also gifted us with delicacies such as hog maw and pon haus). In other words, no change between 54 and 55, except that I pay less now for gross-sounding but delicious-tasting Amish cuisine.

* * *

This is week seven of my Reader Recession Relief incentive. That means that THE TRIANGLE OF BELIEF is just 99 cents on Kindle and Nook. As with the previous weeks, this sale will end Monday night, at which point the book will return to its regular price and a new book will take its place.

* * *

I was a big fan of Stephen Kozeniewski and Wile E. Young’s haunted house novel The Perfectly Fine House. They’re Kickstarting an anthology of stories set in that novel’s world, and I’m very honored to have been asked to write one. But that will only happen if they reach their goal, so here’s where to donate.

* * *

There’s two new interviews with me that I’d like to direct your attention to:

First up, Bloody Disgusting talked to me at length about what will probably be my final act — Manhattan On Mars. This is the first time I’ve talked publicly about the entirety of what I intend to do, so if you’re at all curious (and you should be, because this impacts you, as well), you can read it here. (And later on in the newsletter, I’m going to refer back to this interview a lot, when we get to your questions).

Secondly, Mothers of Mayhem had me on for a wide-ranging interview. Listen for free via YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, and everywhere else podcasts are available.

* * *

Want to also draw your attention to two folks that need our help:

First of all, there’s still this fundraiser for horror author Elizabeth Massie, and her fight with cancer. It’s about halfway to goal. Let’s see if we can get it across the finish line.

Next up is a friend of Bitter Karella’s, who is in danger of becoming homeless, along with her son. I don’t know this person, but Bitter and The Midnight Pals has brought me a lot of joy over the last few years, so any friend of theirs, as the saying goes. If Midnight Pals has brought you joy or escape, then consider helping out.

* * *

Okay, at the end of last week’s newsletter, I promised you a Q&A for this 300th issue. So, here are the questions you asked in the comments section, in order:

I see that most of your books are available in audiobook format except for Dead Sea. Are there any plans for an audio release of this book?

Yes. DEAD SEA, ENTOMBED, THE CAGE, SUBMERGED: THE LABYRINTH Book 2, EARTHWORM GODS II: DELUGE, THE RISING: SELECTED SCENES FROM THE END OF THE WORLD and THE RISING: DELIVERANCE are all currently in production as audiobooks.

My question, if it's not too personal is, 'How is Deena doing? She was such a force of nature on the Horror Show and she does have a fan base'.

Deena is doing as good as can be expected — rebuilding her life and processing everything. She and her sister just got back from a vacation together. She was delighted and overwhelmed by the show of support the fans and community gave her at Scares That Care Weekend. It meant a lot to her, and to us, as well.

Will any of your future MoMP titles be available in trade paperback on BN?

Yes! All of them will (for more details, see the Bloody Disgusting interview I linked to above). In fact, that process has already started, and many of them already are. If you go here, all of the ones available in paperback from B&N, BAM, Waterstones, Book Depository, etc. are listed as such. The rest will follow as rights return.

I’m always curious about how people read. You know, do they sit back in an old recliner with an old school floor lamp, or they use a Lightblaster 9000 Lamp on the couch, or sit at the kitchen table, or in bed flat on their back, or on the porch, etc. How you usually read your books, Mr. Keene?

I have four main ways: 1. The toilet or the bathtub. (And a lot of the rest of you are reading on the toilet, too, so stop laughing). 2. When the weather is nice, either my front porch or my fishing dock, with a cigar and possibly a fishing pole. 3. In the living room, while Mary is watching something I have no interest in watching (usually some terrible movie she has to comment on for The Ghost Writers Podcast). 4. In our upstairs library (currently overrun with tiny kittens). The lighting is best in the library, but the chair in there hurts my butt after an hour or so. The couch in the living room is comfy, but the lighting is too bright. So I move between the four a lot. My reading is split 50/50 between physical books and Kindle.

You mentioned that you get up every half hour or so while writing/at the keyboard. Do you have an app that helps you with that? Or just a timer? Or an internal clock? Or a kitten that keeps you moving? :) (I'm allergic, so I can't use the Kitten Method.)

I pay for Fitbit’s premium service, so every 55 minutes, the device on my wrist vibrates to let me know it’s time to get up and move around. Speaking of, if any of you are on Fitbit, let me know. We’ve got an excellent active group composed of myself and 15 other folks, and we’re always looking for more participants in our weekly challenges. We’re particularly interested in anyone who can possibly beat Tod Clark’s weekly step count.

I have really been enjoying the Splatter Western series. The first installment, The Magpie Coffin by Wile E Young was the best book I read last year. Almost done with Last of the Ravagers by Bryan Smith and it is fixin to be the best book I’ve read so far this year. Sorry if you have mentioned this before but do you have any interest/would you write a Splatter Western?

I’m working on a Western, in fact. It’s called THE LAST STAND, but it’s a straight western, meaning no splatter, no horror, no supernatural trappings or genre mixing. Just a good old-fashioned western. But it’s a long way from being finished, so it will be a few years, I suspect, before you see it.

How far out did you plan Mars on Manhattan? Yes, I am also curious about the future plans, but I’m mostly curious about the planning and preparation that went into it up to this point.

Well, like I said in the Bloody Disgusting interview (linked to above), J.F. Gonzalez and I had given serious, serious thought to it, and he’s been dead eight years this November (hard as that is to believe), so it was on my mind for a long time. But the actual transition from “One day maybe” to “Okay, I’m going to do this” was around April of this year. So six months. My main concerns were not financially crashing the small press by pulling everything at once, and making sure the infrastructure I’d need for Phase 2 (outlined in the interview) would be available to me when the time comes.

Brian do you ever think you will visit Minnesota for a book Signing in the future?

It has been a while, hasn’t it? I think last time I signed there was the last time I was a Guest of Honor at CONvergence Con, so that’s at least ten years ago. Yes, I’m sure I will, although I doubt it will be next year, unless I get the library tour I’m planning off the ground for next year, rather than 2024 *which is how it’s looking right now).

I know your books and short stories overlap characters and places, which are set in the same universe. Do you have a recommended reading order for your books, or a suggestion of which series should be read before others?

I don’t, honestly, and that’s by design. I’m a big believer in keeping things as stand-alone as possible. Every one of my books will be someone’s first book of mine, and I don’t want to scare them away with a lot of back-story and continuity. So yes, while everything is connected, there’s no particular reading order (other than, to state the obvious, you wouldn’t want to read a sequel without having read the previous book — EARTHWORM GODS II, for example, before reading EARTHWORM GODS). The only book where this does not hold true is THE SEVEN: THE LABYRINTH Book One, which has a suggested reading list in the Introduction.

several years ago on the old Brian Keene messageboard I asked if someone had created an encyclopedia of Brians universe. I still think an Aracana Labyrinthum has merit. It could be a labor of love from his fans. I suppose a wiki would work

I would fully 100% endorse a fan-made wiki, but I don’t have the time to do it myself. I’d ask only that it be open source, meaning all fans can add to it. And let’s not have competing Brian Keene wikis, because that’d just be confusing to us all.

What's the last movie, and book, that actually scared the piss out of you (and without spoilers if possible, why)?

Movie: The Sadness (currently on Shudder) — not so much “scared the piss out of me” but more like “made me squirm and very uncomfortable. genuinely unsettled me at parts”. Book? Tim Lebbon’s The Last Storm is the best thing I’ve read this year, and the scariest. Mason Winfield’s The Prince of the Air had some unsettling parts, as well, in a quiet horror Ramsey Campbell/Charles L. Grant sort of way.

For your new publishing venture would it be feasible to include the e-book version with any physical book purchased? Perhaps offer it as an option for an extra few dollars.

Possibly during Phase Two (again, see Bloody Disgusting interview) but not via the distribution system I’m using for Phase One.

I was wondering if there was any update on Retreat 2 that you are writing/finishing in memory of JF. I am sure it is a hard one to finish but I am eagerly awaiting it.

Sure! Jesus intended Final Retreat to serve as a finale to many of his books and novels. His plan after that was to transition to stand alone novels. Unfortunately, I can’t finish the book until Gabino Iglesias finishes The Crossroads (another of Jesus’s unfinished novels), because what Gabino does in The Crossroads may or may not impact Final Retreat. So give Gabino a gentle prod. ;-)

And that does it for your questions. Thanks, everyone!

* * *

Addendum. I wrote the beginning of this newsletter on Saturday morning. It is now Saturday afternoon, and Tim Lebbon, Mary, David Agranoff and myself just hopped off a Zoom call and I am happy to report that Josey Wales finally relented and allowed herself to come inside. Mother and babies are all doing fine. She’s a little unsure, still, but I am confident it will work out.

I hope that all of you have somewhere safe and warm to curl up near people you love, this weekend, as well.

Now I’m off to the grocery store. Director Mike Lombardo is coming over tonight to discuss some movie stuff, and Mary promised she’d cook, so I need to go buy things so that can happen. Thanks for being here through 300 issues of my nonsense (or maybe 300 issues of my issues). I’ll see you back here next week.

— Brian Keene